Janet Aisawa- Creator, Director and Performer
aidance theater
Janet Aisawa began “Them” at Green Space in April 2016. As Ai Dance Theater, excerpts of “Them” were shown at the Museum of Modern Art, University Settlement, and Ballet Arts in 2016. She worked with Yuko Takebe on “Shadows of Hiroshima” a short film which they shot in Japan in September 2015 and premiered in NYC in January 2016. Evening length works include “Spring Together” co-directed with Beth Soll, 2015 at The Medicine Show Theatre, NYC, “Generations, A Lifetime in Dance”, 2012 at the Construction Company, NYC and “The Nostalgic Body” 2004, a collaboration with Mary-Clare McKenna at The Silver Whale Gallery, Jefferson, NY and Chisenhale, London. She is presently a founding member of Julie Ludwick’s Fly-by-Night Dance Theater an aerial dance company. She has performed with Kristin Hatleberg, Ollom Movement Art, Mary-Clare McKenna, Laura Shapiro, Dan Froot, and Lee Nagrin.
Janet created, directed and performed in “Them”, a multimedia piece that was shown at Green Space in Long Island City, NY, this past April 15th and 16th in their “Take Root” series.
“Them” has been a lifetime in the making, and comes from interviews that I started doing in 2005 of my aunts, uncles, and their friends. These Japanese Americans were forced from their homes and placed in internment camps in the United States during WWII. This project is important to me because I not only want to pass down these stories but I also hope it will start conversations and questions about what it means to be “Them” and “Us” and is a reminder that we have all once been labeled “Them”.
Thank you for all your support!
Janet Aisawa