Great Leap presents FandangObon during Procession!
FandangObon is an evolving gathering of Japanese, Mexican, African, and Sufi Muslim music and dance traditions that deepens relations and cross-cultural solidarity, and shares strategies for place-keeping and environmental knowledge that will sustain our communities into the future in LA and beyond. Join Le Ballet Dembaya, the Mottainai Band, Quetzal, Kamau & Asiyah Ayubbi, East LA Taiko, Cesar Castro, Xochi Flores, Sean Muira, and more!!
Here are some of the artists joining the circle on October 21, 2023!
Nobuko Miyamoto Nobuko Miyamoto is a songwriter, dance and theater artist, and the founder of Great Leap. She uses art as a form of activism to reclaim history, identity, and build solidarity among communities of color. A veteran of Broadway and film, she found her own voice as a troubadour in the ‘70s Asian American movement. Across five decades, Nobuko has forged a creative practice thriving on community and collaboration, most recently co-producing with Quetzal Flores, FandangObon, and Eco-Arts Festival. Her memoir is titled Not Yo’ Butterfly (University of California Press, 2021).
George Abe is a percussionist and flute (shakuhachi and fue) player. He was a founding member of Senshin Buddhist Temple’s Kinnara Taiko, one of the first taiko groups formed in the United States. His playing has been featured in film and theater productions, and he teaches and performs frequently in Southern California, including through the Music Center’s school program and as an artist in residence at Metropolitan State Hospital.
Quetzal Flores is the founder of the eponymous Grammy® Award winning (2013 Bet Latin Pop, Rock or Album) East LA Chican@ rock group and co-creator of FandangObon’s BAMBUTSU theme song. The musical ensemble is influenced by an East LA rock soundscape composed of Mexican ranchera, son jarocho, cumbia, salsa, rock, R&B, folk, and fusions of international musics. During the past two decades, the musical force of Quetzal has created a unique cultural platform that has sounded against conditions of oppression and marginalization. As a culture producer he has remained tied to sharing information with young people through projects with LAUSD’s Migrant Education Program at Second Street Elementary School in Boyle Heights. Quetzal has worked with the Aliance for California Traditional Art and, more recently, Community Power Collective.
Le Ballet Dembaya (“The Dance of the Family” in Guinean Soussou language) was founded in 2015 by Jahanna Blunt, Kosi Williams, Kwesi Williams, and others who have been drumming and dancing together since early childhood. Their parents are all among some of the first generation of people in Los Angeles to study, practice, and celebrate the traditions of djembe music.
The Mottainai Band is a Los Angeles-based contemporary Japanese American Obon band including George Abe and Sean Miura playing traditional instruments of shamisen, taiko and fue, and vocalists Nancy Sekizawa, Nobuko Miyamoto, Chie Saito, and Asiyah Ayubbi.
East LA Taiko—Maceo Hernandez aka the “Demon Drummer from East LA” has been performing taiko, a classical Japanese drum, for over twenty years, beginning as a teenager with Montebello Sozenji Taiko. He was soon invited to live and train in Japan as a member of the world renowned Ondekoza with whom he has performed in Asia, Europe, and North America, including at Carnegie Hall.
Dan Kwong is an award-winning multimedia performance artist, playwright, visual artist, and teacher who has been presenting his solo work nationally and internationally since 1989, including WHAT? NO PING-PONG BALLS? produced in 2018 by Great Leap. His works combine personal narrative with historical context to explore the many facets of social identity.
Kamau & Asiyah Ayubbi are a family duo leading hadrah and songs of the Sufi tradition. Imam Kamau Ayubbi and daughter Asiyah Ayubbi have presented the tradition of spiritual spinning of the Naqsbandi Sufi Order Whirling Dervishes during 2017 FandangObon as well as have added their voices to the FandangObon repertoire. A Sufi artist, poet, conga-lover, Kamau works as a chaplain at the University of Michigan Hospital. He is trained in spiritual care and guided meditations. Kamau grew up in a family of artists (Nobuko Miyamoto is his mother) and activists, and as such as maintains a very artistic and spiritual identity.
Cesar Castro is a professional musician in the Son Jarocho/fandango tradition, a luthier, and maestro. For over twenty years he has been a strong bridge and connector between communities in the US and Veracruz, Mexico, via Radio Jarochelo, a community-based podcast now on public radio, and through organizing and promoting community cultural projects in the US and Mexico. He is a professor at Occidental College and in California prisons.
Xochi Flores is an active member of the LA Chicano arts community and a skilled activist and organizer who has worked with the Black and Japanese communities as well. She co-founded the transnational dialogue between Chicana/os in Los Angeles and Jarocha/os in Veracruz in 2003, a project that has since taken root in every region of the US.
Elaine Fukumoto is A taiko drummer and dancer. She is a co-founder of SHIN3, a group that performs taiko storytelling, music, and dance to foster appreciation of Japanese culture. Elaine works as a kindergarten teacher at the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. Trained in Japanese folk dance, she is also a dance leader, who provides coordination and instruction for Southern California bon odori festivals. She has worked with Nobuko Miyamoto to choreograph several new pieces of repertoire.
Sean Miura is a shamisen player, dancer, and writer. A fourth-generation Japanese American Canadian from Vancouver, he grew up in Seattle, Maryland, New Jersey, and now lives in Los Angeles. He is the co-curator for a free public art series, Tuesday Night Café, in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo neighborhood, and he is a member of the dance crew Ninjas for Social Justice.
Alison De La Cruz (she/DeLa) is a senior artivist leader, facilitator, cultural organizer, multidisciplinary theatre artist, educator, contemporary ritualist, and elder. For over thirty years DeLa has been facilitating circles and spaces for youth, strangers, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and collaborators to explore diverse communities and break down bias and systemic inequity. De La Cruz has collaborated with local artists and produced community events of all sizes, developing Los Angeles’s world-class cultural ecosystem for over twenty years. DeLa’s artistic work has been presented at venues across the country including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and The David Henry Hwang Theatre at East West Players. As a gathering practitioner, DeLa currently produces the circle for the LA County multi-community song, drum, dance, circle practices known as FandangObon.
FandangObon is made possible by the California Arts Council, The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The California Endowment, Guilded, Artivist Entertainment, and the LA County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan.