Courtney Ozaki is a creative producer based in Denver, Colorado. She is the founder of the Japanese Arts Network (JA-NE), a national network that provides access to resources and develops programs and platforms that support and strengthen visibility for JaJA (Japanese and Japanese-American) Artists in America. A professional taiko musician with over 25 years of experience, she has performed across the globe in the United Arab Emirates at the Dubai Global Village, as well as in other major cities across the United States including the National Taiko Conference Taiko Jam. After receiving her MFA in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College, Courtney worked as a project manager and dance producer for Joyce Theater Productions with whom she developed and toured new works with international choreographers, designers, and dancers. Courtney is passionate about the melding of ideas and the integration and interdependence of arts sectors. She is motivated by the impetus that an inclusive arts culture leads to a more productive and empathetic society.

Updated March 2020

Margaret Ozaki Graves is a cultural consultant, arts administrator, teaching artist and professional performer based in Denver, Colorado. She’s published on topics relating to Japanese culture, diction and music in Japanese American Resource Center of Colorado (JARCC), Nikkei Today, and the NATS Journal of Singing and has taught on topics of Japanese culture, language/diction and diversity/casting across the country. She holds a doctorate in Vocal Performance Studies and Opera with a cognate in Japanese Aesthetics and Music from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Updated March 2020

Profile on Courtney Ozaki - Creative Producer and Performing Arts Manager

Interview with Music Educator Meghan Tokunaga-Scanlon - Part 2

Interview with Music Educator Meghan Tokunaga-Scanlon - Part 1

traci kato-kiriyama is a performer, actor, writer, author, educator, and art+community organizer who splits the time and space in her body feeling grounded in gratitude, inspired by audacity, and thoroughly insane—oft times all at once. She’s passionately invested in a number of projects that include Pull Project (PULL: Tales of Obsession); Generations Of War; The (title-ever-evolving) Nikkei Network for Gender and Sexual Positivity; Kizuna; Budokan of LA; and is the Director/Co-Founder of Tuesday Night Project and Co-Curator of its flagship “Tuesday Night Cafe.” She’s working on a second book of writing/poetry attuned to survival, slated for publication next year by Writ Large Press.

Updated August 2013

Minidoka

Recollections

Burning