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Dr. Kanako Uzawa: Reframing Ainu Indigeneity
July 31, 2022 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and the Department of Languages and World Literatures, is pleased to welcome visiting artist Dr. Kanako Uzawa, who will present a performance highlighting the cultures of the Ainu—Japan’s Indigenous people.
Dr. Uzawa, a scholar, advocate, and artist, will perform Ainu dance, demonstrate mukkuri, the traditional Ainu mouth harp, and informally share Ainu culture and contemporary issues of the Indigenous people of Japan at a special presentation.
The public is invited to a performance on Sunday, July 31 at Ringo-En Orchards in Vernon. The outdoor venue opens at 6 pm and people are welcome to bring a picnic, lawn chair or blanket. The performance begins at 7 pm.
This event is free and open to the public, no registration is required. Ringo-En Orchards is located at 6831 Bella Vista Road, Vernon.
About Dr. Uzawa
Dr. Uzawa is an affiliated researcher at the Research Faculty of Media and Communication at Hokkaido University in Japan. She contributes to collaborative research and Ainu performing art on the multifaceted articulations of Indigenous knowledge. Her master’s thesis focused on a comparative study between the Sámi in Norway and the Ainu Indigenous people in Japan. Her PhD focused on urban Ainu livelihood and its contemporary expressions.
Her current work engages with a curational project on the Ainu exhibition in collaboration with the University of Michigan Museum of Art in the United States, and she has also worked on the Ainu exhibition “One Soul in All: Encounters with Ainu from the North of Japan” at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne, Germany.
(Photo credit: Dan Mariner for Tempura Magazine)