Music

2 articles

Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, Biography, Music
Expression through art, Identity crisis, Power of the past
Widely available

Feature length musical documentary film that follows singer/songwriter Kishi Bashi as he writes and performs songs from a project inspired by the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

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For Joy (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, Biography, Music
Expression through art, Optimism – power or folly, Power of the past
Widely available

Short film that documents a visit by the contemporary musical duo No-No Boy—Julian Saporiti and Erin Aoyama—to Honolulu to see Joy Takeshita Teraoka, a singer with the George Igawa Orchestra at Heart Mountain . Invited by the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Club in 2018 to do a concert in Honolulu, the duo used it as an opportunity to meet Teraoka. At her Honolulu apartment, Teraoka talks about her time as a singer in Heart Mountain as a teenager and other aspects of camp life, including youth culture, Japanese cultural practices, and the general musical scene while singing old song with Aoyama. The film concludes with No-No Boy's concert, highlighted by a song Saporiti wrote for Teraoka titled "The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming" and by Teraoka joining them onstage.

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