Monthly Archives: November 2010

Artist Takashi Murakami’s in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… is that weird?

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Takashi Murakami

It was a surreal moment, when I looked up at the TV this morning and saw Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieria nattering on about Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, and how cute his artwork is. The camera switched to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade  (yeah, it was on — what’s it to ya?) and there was Murakami, bundled up in a fluffy costume that he must have created, designed to look like some indeterminate animal/plant hybrid species. He was bopping up and down and grinning like a mad-man, loving every moment of his nationwide exposure.

I did a double take, because Murakami’s pop art can be very cute, but he also makes art that is very sexual and fetishistic. He makes life-sized figures of manga-like characters in sexual poses. And, he’s created striking, powerful paintings and sculptures that depict the atomic bomb mushroom cloud — it’s a recurring motif in his work.
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Mudra Dance Studio takes flight on “ILLhaam… Cycles… ILLumination”

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It seems every time Mudra Dance Studio mounts one of its big productions — it’s been every two years for the last three shows — it’s worth the wait because the troupe’s founder, Namita Khanna Nariani, adds something new and incredible to the mix.

We’ve seen the Mudra troupe perform at all but one Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, so we’re not strangers to the talent of this remarkable South Asian organization, and to Nariani’s determination to stretch the artistic limits of traditional, classical Indian dance with contemporary aesthetics that rise above ripping off the hipness factor of Bollywood musicals with some shallow syncopated moves. but to see the Mudras dance a 30-minute set is one thing. The three-hour artistic tour-de-force that is their big blowout performances is something else entirely.
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Asian American group Far East Movement tops the charts, “Like a G6” is everywhere

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This has been an exciting year for Asian American music fans. Taking off above a bubbling community of AAPI singer-songwriters and individual performers, we’ve seen Bruno Mars, who’s of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent (and born and raised in Hawai’i) hit the top of the charts with “Just the Way You Are,” and Far East Movement, the first-ever all Asian American group (Korean, Chinese, Filipino and Japanese), bust out of Los Angeles’ Koreatown and also top the charts with its catchy electro-hip hop dance single “Like a G6.”

The song was certified Double-Platinum this week by the Recording Industry Association of America, which means it’s sold and impressive two million copies. That’s a pretty cool accomplishment for a group of pals from K-town. Their big break was being included on the soundtrack of director Justin Lin’s “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift,” and their music’s shown up on various TV shows. Earlier this week I even caught “Like a G6” blasting in the background during a nightclub scene of “CSI: Miami.”

The group’s third album, “Free Wired,” is still on its upward curve, and the second single, the ballad “Rocketeer,” is going strong, featuring Denver native Ryan Tedder as a guest vocalist.

For Colorado fans who may have miss FM when they played in Denver, the group will be playing at CU-Boulder in the spring.

(Cross-posted from my gilasakawa.posterous.com pop culture blog)

Short documentary video about Hawai’i’s Japanese American internment camp, forgotten over the decades

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Most history books mention only the mainland internment camps, relocation centers and Justice Department camps if they mention the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II at all. It’s often stated that people of Japanese descent in Hawai’i weren’t rounded up and imprisoned — or that only a few were arrested, and then sent to mainland camps — because there are so many Japanese in Hawai’i that if they did that, the territory’s economy would shut down (Hawai’i didn’t become a state until 1959).

But there was an internment camp right on Oahu, not far from the capital, Honolulu, on rugged land that’s now owned by Monsanto. They didn’t lock up all Japanese Americans like they did on the West Coast. And they didn’t imprison entire families. They focused on community leaders, but still held thousands in Honouliuli, the prison camp.

The Japanese Community Center of Hawai’i has captured some of this long-forgotten history in this short documentary. I hope they do more. Next time we get to Hawai’i, we’ll return to the JCCH to see if they have an exhibit or other material about the topic. Brian Niiya, the Director of Program & Development at the JCCH told us about the early states of their research several years ago when we first visited the JCCH, so I’m glad to see they got this video done.

Even though Japanese Americans in Hawai’i are anything but the invisible minority that we are on the mainland, their history needs to be highlighted and preserved just as it needs to be documented here.

(From HolyKaw on Alltop.com)

(Cross-posted on gilasakawa.posterous.com)

“Green Hornet” trailer shows Kato’s role as much more than just a butt-kicking sidekick & valet

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First of all, I can now see that there’s some comedic logic to casting Seth Rogan as the Green Hornet (and his alter-ego Britt Reid), and that he may be able to pull off a superhero vibe after all.

Second, I can hardly wait to see the movie to enjoy Jay Chou as Kato, and the fact that he’s really the superhero of the story, building the “Black Beauty” limo and kicking serious butt with his martial arts skills. Oh yeah, he’s the valet/chauffeur, all right… but so much more.

It’ll be interesting to see if the movie explores Kato’s ethnicity.
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