G Yamazawa in Mass. this week!

"Dear Grandma" at the National Poetry Slam 2014 Semi-Finals

The awesome wordsmith, poet and emcee G Yamazawa, will be in Massachusetts this week with two shows!

Nisei George Masao Yamazawa, Jr. hails from Durham, North Carolina and is currently based in Washington, DC Los Angeles (11/20/15: oops, he just moved). Over the past six years he's won a slew of awards and has performed everywhere from open mic nights to local and national poetry slams to the Sundance Film Festival and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. G has also worked as a Teaching Artist Poet with non-profit Split This Rock, facilitating writing and performance workshops for inner city youth in the DC public school system. He doesn't get to the Northeast often so this is a rare chance to see him perform here. Both shows are free and open to the public.


Date & Time
Thursday, November 19, 2015
7pm

Location
UMass Dartmouth
Woodland Commons, 285 Old Westport Rd, North Dartmouth, MA 02747

Admission
Free


Date & Time
Friday, November 20, 2015
9pm

Location Mount Ida College
Campus Center Theater, 777 Dedham Street, Newton, MA 02459
Update 11/18/15: I'm told by a Mount Ida student that there is lots of free parking on campus.

Admission
Free

The shows are listed here but there don't seem to be any details on the web. Info was provided by G on Twitter. No details on parking. Hope some folks can make it!

"Elementary" at the National Poetry Slam 2014 Finals

See also:

• G Yamazawa schooled me on spoken word
• NPR: What Buddhism taught poet G Yamazawa about using ‘gay’ as a slur

Shino Takahashi photography special to benefit Tewassa

I just heard that local photographer and friend of Tewassa, Shino Takahashi, is generously donating 40% of proceeds from her holiday portrait special to Tewassa. If you haven't gotten your holiday cards together please consider booking with her! Read more about why she's doing this over at her blog.

For the past few years, Hana Japan, which is owned by Shino's family, has hosted a Natsu Matsuri that Tewassa and The Genki Spark have participated in. Hana Japan and Shino are also among just a few places where you can get kitsuke (dressing up in kimono) photos taken in the Boston area.

Japanese art exhibits at Harvard

Update 11/23/15: The teamLab exhibit has been extended through Saturday, December 19, 2015!

There are currently two very different Japanese art exhibits at Harvard that folks should check out. Both are free and open to the public.

One is Dr. David Odo's From Artistry to Ethnography in Early Japanese Photographs. I thought I missed this exhibit because it was originally scheduled through September 27th but the next exhibit fell through so Dr. Odo's exhibit was extended. It is located on the lower level of the CGIS South building which houses the Harvard University Asia Center and the The Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, co-sponsors of the exhibit along with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University. Make sure to continue around the corner at the back of the building. The exhibit is spread out over much of the lower level. Two copies of Dr. Odo's book The Journey of “A Good Type”: From Artistry to Ethnography in Early Japanese Photographs are also available to browse near the stairs. The Concourse is home to rotating exhibits. In the past they have used it to display a traditional Japanese tea house, part of an exhibit on the "tools, traditions, techniques, and woods of traditional Japanese carpentry."

When: Through Tuesday, January 5, 2016, Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm (although I was told the building is actually open from 7am - 7pm)
Location: Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South, Lower Level, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138




The other exhibit is teamLab at Radcliffe: What a Loving and Beautiful World, an interactive exhibit by Japanese creative collective teamLab. Note that this is only open until mid-November.

When: Through Saturday, November 14, 2015 Extended through December 19, 2015, Monday - Saturday, noon - 5pm (they will be open on Veterans Day; closed 11/26-27 for Thanksgiving)
Location: Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

See also:

• The Harvard Crimson: Curator Discusses Link Between Photography and Culture 
• The Harvard Crimson: 'What a Loving and Beautiful World' Brings Digital Art to Radcliffe
• The Boston Globe: Japanese collective teamLab enchants at Radcliffe Institute
• Boston Magazine: Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute Displays a Touch-Sensitive Digital Artwork