Traci Kato-Kiriyama

Traci Kato-Kiriyama is an interdisciplinary artist, arts producer, and community organizer. She is the founder of the Tuesday Night Cafe Project, a multi-disciplinary, free-to-the-public performance space that gathers local Los Angeles artists and the Asian Pacific Islander community in the downtown and Little Tokyo regions of the city. Her dedication to the community centers around her work with youth in projects that include Eskuwela Kultura, the Khmer Girls in Action, and the Hmong community stories project with Nobuko Mlyamoto at the University of Wisconsin.

Recently, Kato-Kiriyama accepted the position of Program Coordinator at the Asian American Resource Center at Pomona College. As an "Artist in Residence" at the AARC, she will continue her work in the arts community drawing upon her depth of experience from performing with spoken word and theater based group "zero 3," and collaborations with organizations such as Great Leap, Gabriela Network, Khmer Girls in Action, FilAm Arts and Asian Youth Center.

"Unleashing Community Voices" Performance

This year's DOR will feature a multi-media performance piece created and directed by Traci Kato-Kiriyama, performance artist and arts producer. The performance will highlight the grassroots community activism of Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR) in the redress campaign that contributed to the passage of the redress legislation.

The piece will highlight the stories of activists from the past and present focusing on what inspired them to act and speak out on behalf of the community. The stories will be connected to activism in the present and all woven together with multimedia and taiko drumming.

The piece will feature community voices from Kay Ochi, Kathy Masaoka, Suzy Katsuda, Frank Emi, Jim Matsuoka, Sean Miura and Traci Kato-Kiriyama. Multimedia images were provided by NCRR and Tani Ikeda. Video editing was done by Lushun Quon. Taiko pieces are performed by Progressive Taiko members: Jason Osajima, Kene Kubo, Minoru Nishida and Joel Mankey.