COMMISSIONED BY THE SAN JOSE JAPANESE AMEREICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE
IKKAI means once: a transplanted pilgrimage is an evening-length immersive dance project choreographed by Yayoi Kambara. It weaves together modern dance, Japanese American (JA) obon folk dance (Bon-odori), and a musical scorewith taiko drums, guiding audiences through a first-person narrative exploring the unjust incarceration of JAs struggles for reparations and healing, and current/future solidarities with communities facing the violence of xenophobic policies. IKKAI means once: a transplanted pilgrimage is primarily made in Muwekma, Ohlone, Tamien territories.
ARTIST STATEMENT
In 2016, when my eldest daughter was eight, she asked me about the Black Lives Matter posters in the windows of San Francisco houses. Through our conversation, she now had to hold the long history of violence enacted against Black people since the foundation of this nation. And she learned that this institutionalized racism had harmed all communities of color in the U.S., even Japanese Americans. Had she been alive 75 years ago, she would have been illegally incarcerated, regardless of citizenship, along with over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry.
In April 2019, I took a pilgrimage with the Japanese American Citizens League to Manzanar, an incarceration site in the Eastern Sierras, with co-director Brian Stauffenbiel and community engagement director Miya Sommers. Ghosts swept past our group and danced alongside over 1,000 other pilgrims in Manzanar. These spirits held stories of pain, sorrow, resilience, and hope — an the energy that was ever-present as we walked through the isolated grounds. With each step, I was transported between those memories of the past and to the the resilience of the present, reminding me that this annual pilgrimage was a testimony to survivors, descendants, and allies gathering together to ensure this would never happen again.
My time at Manzanar impressed upon me the need to honor the resilience embedded in being Japanese American. This journey is long and not accessible to many, so I knew our piece had to become an immersive dance pilgrimage performed in JA community spaces to allow more of our community to be healed and transformed by the resilience and hope generated at the pilgrimage.
—Yayoi Kambara