Ottawa

Kaylie Hatashita(Kaylie Kreatrix)

Pronoun: She/Her Multi-disciplinary performer, Kaylie is a circus artist, musician, and all round creative soul born in Ottawa, Ontario. Growing up she studied violin and dance, and as an adult she discovered circus arts. What started as a hobby quickly turned into a passion and obsession. She traveled the world teaching and performing ‘buugeng’ an […]

Takako Segawa

Takako Segawa is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, movement coach, dance-theatre performer, and teacher of Japanese Arts. Born in Japan, Takako trained in both traditional arts and contemporary Japanese movement styles, before graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School. Her 20-year career includes performances throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. She was nominated outstanding female for […]

Machiko Townson

Born and raised in the birthplace of Japanese porcelain, Arita, Saga, Machiko grew up where not only her grandmother was a dish painter, but most of her neighbours were dish painters themselves. Machiko remembers watching her grandmother painting dishes at home every night after school. Needless to say, she enjoyed her art classes in elementary […]

Melisa Kamibayashi -Staples

Melisa trained in and performed taiko with an all women’s taiko group in Japan in the 90’s. She went on to participate in International taiko conferences in Los Angeles and Sacramento, and workshops with Grandmaster Seiichi Tanaka, KODO, GONNA, Burlington Taiko, Arashi Taiko and Kiyoshi Nagata. Former performer and Artistic Director of Oto-Wa Taiko, delivering […]

Matt Miwa

Matt Miwa was born in North York, Ontario but grew up in Aurora, Ontario, 40 minutes north of Toronto. With his mother’s family living in the United States, Matt grew up surrounded mostly by his Japanese Canadian extended family (his father’s side), getting together annually for every single holiday – New Years, Easter, Mother’s Day, […]

Tashme Productions

“The Tashme Project” is a 75-minute verbatim theatre piece that traces the history and common experience of the Nisei through childhood, WWII internment and post-war resettlement east of the Rockies. The Nisei, now in their 70’s and 80’s, were children at the time of internment and their stories of adventure and play are presented in […]

Scott Kokichi Kusano

Kokichi began his performing career at the age of 5 as a member of the Toronto Suwa Daiko a cultural association located in Toronto. Subsequently, Kokichi was introduced again to Japanese music during high school after the death of his grandfather and introduction to the Buddhist Temple where he was re-united with Taiko in 1996 […]

Rachel Sachiko Mercer

Described as a “pure chamber musician” (Globe and Mail) creating “moments of pure magic” (Toronto Star), Canadian cellist Rachel Mercer has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across five continents. Grand prize winner of the 2001 Vriendenkrans Competition in Amsterdam, Rachel is cellist of Ensemble Made In Canada, the Mercer-Park Duo, the AYR Piano […]

Norman Takeuchi

Norman Takeuchi is a painter. Shortly after graduating from the Vancouver School of Art, he moved to London, England, for one year to concentrate on painting. While there, a chance encounter with a gallery owner resulted in his first solo exhibition. Back in Canada, he found employment in Ottawa as a graphic and exhibition designer, […]

Ann Sunahara

Ann Gomer Sunahara is a legal scholar and author of the The Politics of Racism: The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians During the Second World War. Published in 1981, The Politics of Racism examined federal government records of the Japanese Canadian internment which had only recently been declassified at the time of Sunahara’s research. It is […]

Tomoko Kodama

Tomoko Kodama was a sumi-e painter born in Tokyo. She first discovered her love of art in high school, and went on to study nihonga painting in university. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1957. Kodama immigrated to Canada with her husband, Hideomi Kodama, in 1962. They were planning on staying only […]

Mitsugi Kikuchi

Mitsugi Shinran Kikuchi is a painter who works in traditional Japanese styles of sumi-e (ink brush painting) and tarashikomi (‘drop-in’ method of watercolour painting), and a retired ikebana sensei in the Ohara school. He learned sumi-e and tarashikomi after graduating high school in Japan, and also became an ikebana teacher before immigrating to Canada in […]