GenRyu Arts to Perform at Asian Art Museum, JCCCNC

(Photo by Ken Carl)

SAN FRANCISCO — Genryu Arts is celebrating 20 years of serving San Francisco and the greater Bay Area with two upcoming events:

• “Pages” on Saturday, Oct. 31, from 1 to 2 p.m. at the Asian Art Museum’s Samsung Hall, 200 Larkin St. in San Francisco’s Civic Center. Inspired by the work of Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972), this is a meditation on the emergence of Japanese modernist and experimentalist art movements as exemplified by the groundbreaking 1926 film “A Page of Madness,” written by Kawabata.

Performers: Artistic Director Melody Takata, taiko, dance; Kioto Aoki, taiko, film; Tatsu Aoki, film, bass, electronics, shamisen; Music Director Francis Wong, saxophone.

Supported in part by a grant from Organization Project Grants of Community Investments, a program of the San Francisco Arts Commission.

For information on museum admission, call (415) 581-3500 or visit www.asianart.org.

• “Bunka no Hi/Culture Day” on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m. at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, 1840 Sutter St. in San Francisco Japantown. This program celebrates youth leadership and promotes culture and the love of freedom and peace.

Food and drinks will be available. A silent auction will be held. A free slice of anniversary cake will be given per admission ticket presented.

Admission: $20 at the door; $15 in advance; $10 for students (5 to 18), seniors (65 and over), groups of 10 or more people, and children under 5. Purchase online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2411722.

Founded as Gen Taiko in 1995 and incorporated as GenRyu Arts in August 2008, the group’s mission is to promote, present and participate in Japanese and Japanese American culture through taiko and other traditional and contemporary music and dance forms. Deeply rooted in San Francisco’s Japantown and in the Asian American community, GenRyu Arts engages in art-making that merges Japanese cultural forms such as taiko, dance and folk songs with new music, spoken word and visual design into singular expressions that honor community heritage and address key issues stemming from the legacy of internment and redevelopment.

For more information, visit www.genryuarts.org.