Debby Kajiyama
Debby Kajiyama is a San Francisco Bay Area native, and has
been performing here since 1994. Her interests lie in the
intersection of performance, cultural studies, and social change.
She has performed with Dandelion Dancetheater, Anne
Bluethenthal and Dancers, June Watanabe in Company, the
Dance Brigade, and Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble. She is a
member of TsukimiKai, an intergenerational group of artists,
activists, and scholars that travels to Cuba to share Obon Festival
folk dances and music, and to conduct oral histories of the
Japanese Diaspora in Cuba. Debby is the recipient of a Djerassi
Artists Program residency and a Silicon Valley Community
Foundation fellowship. Last year, she studied Taiko intensively
with master teacher Hiroyuki “Jimi” Nakagawa through an
Alliance for California Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant. For
the past thirteen years, Debby has directed Navarrete x Kajiyama
Dance Theater (NAKA) with co-conspirator, José Navarrete.
NAKA creates interdisciplinary performance works using
movement, theater, art installation, multimedia and
site-specifi c environments.
Apr 01, 2014
Speak: Still With Us by Debby Kajiyama, April 2014