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SUNDAY, APRIL 09

6pm IMAGE X SOUND: The Short Films of Tatsu Aoki, Part 1
In collaboration with Project A and Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

Celebrating acclaimed Chicago musician and filmmaker (and School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty member) Tatsu Aoki’s 25th year of making films, CATE and the 11th Annual Chicago Asian American Showcase present a two-part retrospective of his extraordinary short diary films. Aoki began keeping a daily film diary of his life in the mid-70s. “I carried Super 8 cameras everywhere I went and my house was surrounded by 13 difierent cameras, some cameras were on tripods, some with time-exposure, time-lapse, broken cameras, hand cranked cameras… my life was on the roll and on the reel.” Today, his body of work spans 25 years, archives hundreds of hours, stretches thousands upon thousands of feet (on Super 8, 16mm, and DV), and constitutes over a dozen films.

Tonight’s screening is part one of the retrospective featuring the films 3725 (1980, 11 min); Bali (1991, 5 min); Local Color 1 (1987, 10 min); Solutions (1991, 25 min) and Landing (1998, 25 min) with live film score performances by Aoki and local Asian American Chicago musicians: Jefi Chan, Charles Kim, Julie Liu, Jienan Yuan and Jon Monteverde. Followed by Q&A. Super 8 and 16mm.

Part two (Thursday, April 13) is part of the Conversations at the Edge series, and features the premiere of Aoki’s latest work, Traveling Spirits (2006, 15 min) along with Decades Passed (2003, 25 min), Shape (1996, 8 min), and Discovery (1991, 28 min). Super 8 and 16mm.

TATSU AOKI
Tatsu Aoki is one of the foremost Asian American artists and community leaders in Chicago. His work is dedicated to producing art that refiects the Asian American experience and building ties between the diverse communities that comprise Chicago. His work extends beyond Chica-go, with screenings around the world. Aoki is a prolific filmmaker with a filmography including more than 50 experimental short films. He is an adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Film, Video and New Media Department, where he teaches film production and history courses.
Aoki leads an artistic double life, having established himself not only as a filmmaker, but also as one of the most prominent musicians in Chicago, performing on contrabass, taiko (Japanese drums) and shamisen (three-stringed Japanese lute). He has a discography of over 100 music recordings and has worked with legendary musicians including Afifi Phillard, Fred Anderson, Von Freeman, John Watson Sr., Jimmy Ellis, Sonny Seals, Mwata Bowden and Francis Wong. He is the founder and Artistic Director of both the Annual Chicago Asian American Jazz Fes-tival and the JASC Tsukasa Taiko Legacy cultural arts program based at the Japanese American Service Committee of Chicago, which has become one of the leading taiko programs in the Midwest. In 2001, the Chicago Tribune named Aoki one of its “Chicagoans of the Year,” recog-nizing his efiort in strengthening Chicago’s Asian American community through the arts.

On July 27, 2006, Aoki will lead his Miyumi Project Big Band as they perform the next install-ment of his Rooted composition cycle, entitled Rooted II—Door to the Pride at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion.

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