Chicago Studies Workshop: Tatsu Aoki, Asian American Improvisation in Chicago

 Oct 28, 2014, 10:30 PM – 12:00 AM
 Gray Center Lab in Midway Studios,, 929 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637

 

Join the Chicago Studies workshop for a meeting with Tatsu Aoki: bassist, composer, filmmaker, bandleader, and activist.  Our conversation will address Aoki's work documenting, presenting, and archiving Asian American jazz in Chicago, and will explore how this work expands existing narratives of race and ethnicity in Chicago.  

Aoki will present work by a number of artists active on the Asian American jazz scene, as well as discuss future plans for his own scholarly and creative projects.  

This session will be of particular appeal to students and community members interested in oral history, collaborative research opportunities, and the politics and power of art and culture in Chicago.

New in the 2014-2015 academic year, The Workshop - modeled on the traditional UChicago graduate workshops and co-sponsored with the Urban Network and the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry - creates a vital space for collaboration, exchange, and critique between undergraduates and potential research mentors, including community participants and UChicago alumni. (more info)

Presenters include undergraduate and graduate students as well as practitioners, activists, artists and professional academics.  In each workshop session, an ongoing community-engaged project will serve as a gateway to conversations that cross the spaces of theory and practice.  Bi-weekly sessions are open to all, fostering a vibrant, diverse community for dialogue, exchange, and critical inquiry.