NOBUKO MIYAMOTO

“Nobuko Miyamoto wrote our songs before we had any of our own. Listening to her life’s story — displacement during WWII to the internment camps, finding her roles in dance and show business, awakening to the movement through the Black Panthers and the Asian Americans for Action, and her work as a community organizer and artist — has made me feel more rooted in my American-ness, and my Asian American-ness. It was my deepest honor to host Nobuko and Basement Workshop alum in our humble studio for a magical night, where Nobuko’s stories and songs took us back in time… and inspired us all for what’s to come.” — Yin Kong, Director of Think!Chinatown

T!C was honored to present Basement Workshop artist Nobuko Miyamoto’s book reading of her memoir, "Not Yo' Butterfly: My Long Song of Relocation, Race, Love, and Revolution". Miyamoto shared her experiences as an artist and troubadour in the '70s Asian American movement leading to a lifetime using art as a means of social change and solidarity across cultures. Artist Arlan Huang gave a beautiful introduction to the talk and T!C's Director Yin Kong led a Q&A discussion session following the reading.

Nobuko Miyamoto is a third-generation Japanese American songwriter, dance and theater artist, and activist, and is the Artistic Director of Great Leap. Her work has explored ways to reclaim and decolonize our minds, bodies, histories, and communities, using the arts to create social change and solidarity across cultural borders. Two of Nobuko’s albums are part of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog: A Grain of Sand, with Chris Iijima and Charlie Chin, produced by Paredon Records in 1973, and 120,000 Stories, released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2021.