An Evening with Aretha Aoki and Ryan MacDonald at Jacqueline M. Walsh School For The Arts

Join Aretha Aoki and Ryan MacDonald for an evening of experimental performance and behind-the-scenes conversation about their lives as professional artists who blenddance, music, and theater. Together with their daughter, Frankie Mayfield, they will share segments of their new show,IzumonookunI.  

IzumonookunI is a multidisciplinary and multigenerational dance inspired by Izumo no Okuni, 17th century founder of the Japanese dance-drama form, kabuki—a form that currently contains little trace of its female-centric, grassroots, counter-cultural origins. Choreographer Aretha Aoki and sound and visual designer Ryan MacDonald are re-imagining Okuni in conversation with post-punk/glam-goth/dark-wave within a hybrid, contemporary landscape of live synthesizer, digital design, dance, and taiko drumming. IzumonookunI premiered at the Bates Dance Festival in July 2024.