Apr 7th 2025

AIRMW Artist Presentation Series – Kioto Aoki

@ Asian Improv aRts Midwest (AIRMW)

4875 N Elston Ave, Chicago, IL 60630

Opening Monday, April 7th, from 6:30PM - 8PM

The first season of the AIRMW Artist Presentation Series features our in-house and close collaborative artists. Each person will be presenting their artistic practices with a performative element followed by a discussion moderated by AIRMW Executive and Artistic Director, Tatsu Aoki.

For the third presentation of the spring AIRMW Artist Presentation series, Kioto Aoki presents a solo taiko set and discusses her practice as artist, musician, educator, and her roles as curator / administrator at AIRMW.

—
Kioto ​Aoki is the 5th generation of the Toyoakimoto house, an okiya (geisha house) performing arts family from Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Standing on the professional stage from the age of 7, and studying under father Tatsu Aoki (Toyoaki Sanjuro), she continues the family legacy as musician on taiko and tsuzumi, and using her stage name Toyoaki Chitose (豊秋千東勢) when on shamisen. Working within traditional and experimental contexts, Aoki sustains this traditional music lineage traversing geographical and cultural boundaries.

Aoki’s playing is informed by the Japanese aesthetics of ma and emphasizes the melodic phrasing of space and choreography to reorient the notion of percussion as mere rhythm. Her stoic, durational explorations elicit soundscapes that oscillate between the organic textures of live performance and sonic nuances of cyclical, droning sustain. Aoki maintains a balance of retaining the artistic and aesthetic integrity of traditional Japanese music with a contemporary sensibility that extends beyond the measures of cultural preservation bringing taiko to the contemporary artistic ecologies of music, sound and performance.

Official Website

More events on this date

Tags: , , , , , ,