WE FOUND THE SOUL OF SAN FRANCISCO—
LET’S FIND THE SOUL OF YOUR CITY.
A TWO-DAY CINEMATIC CULTURAL EXPERIENCE
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from wisdom keepers, experience their work on-screen, and uncover the soul of your own community.
Filmed at San Francisco’s Presidio Theater by multi-award-winning filmmakers Emiko Omori and Wendy Slick, Soul of the City begins with a storyteller (Brenda Wong Aoki) who has forgotten all her stories.
The journey is told through thundering taiko, cascading koto, soaring shakuhachi, Afro-diasporic percussion, Asian American jazz, contemporary and ancient Japanese dance, Noh and Gagaku, koi puppets, dancing dragons, family photographs, and digital collage—created by artists who have spent decades working together across cultures, learning from one another, finding what resonates between inherited traditions—forging a new American art form.
As the storyteller finds her ancestors, she uncovers not only her own stories, but the Soul of the City. Now these artists invite you to discover yours.
THE EXPERIENCE
DAY ONE: FILM + THE GRATITUDE TREE
Dress to celebrate, standing proud we begin by creating a Gratitude Tree. Bring a photograph, a memory, a name, or a prayer for a loved one—past or present—to give to the tree. Enter the theater, together we watch the film Soul of the City—a cinematic journey of a family’s American odyssey that began in San Francisco in 1897 told through spoken-word, dance, puppetry, and original compositions of Afro-diasporic percussion and Asian American Jazz.
DAY TWO:
WISDOM KEEPER STORIES
Dress to celebrate, standing proud we begin by creating a Gratitude Tree. Bring a photograph, a memory, a name, or a prayer for a loved one—past or present—to give to the tree. Enter the theater, together we watch the film Soul of the City—a cinematic journey of a family’s American odyssey that began in San Francisco in 1897 told through spoken-word, dance, puppetry, and original compositions of Afro-diasporic percussion and Asian American Jazz.
FULL CIRCLE
Gather with the master artists in an intimate creative salon. Bring something that represents the shoulders you stand on—a photograph, jewelry, a memory, a phrase, a melody, a gesture. Circle up as we testify, move, make music and create a FULL CIRCLE performance moment that helps us discover who and what makes the Soul of YOUR city.
THE WISDOM KEEPERS
BRENDA WONG AOKI
Creator • Artistic Director • Producer
For five decades, Brenda Wong Aoki has created original work at the intersection of cultures and generations—30+ works presented internationally across theater, symphony, jazz, dance and film. A two-term Grammy Governor who created the Spoken Word category, Aoki draws on Noh, Gagaku, jazz and her multiracial heritage to forge a singular American art form.
MAS KOGA
Music Director • Principal Composer
Award-winning multi-instrumentalist and composer with a 30-year international career, recording and performing with artists including Akira Tana, Anthony Brown, and Kenny Endo. A longtime artist with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Koga has collaborated with Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu for more than 20 years.
DEREK NAKAMOTO
Composer • Arranger • Keyboardist • Audio Director
Pianist, composer, arranger and producer with a five-decade career spanning R&B, jazz, world music and orchestral scoring. From Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston to 23 albums with Keiko Matsui and the London Symphony Orchestra, his work crosses genres, cultures and generations.
ON WHOSE SHOULDERS DO YOU STAND? WHAT DO YOU CARRY? WHAT WILL YOU PASS FORWARD?
“Brenda is the foremost narrative voice working in America today.”
A LETTER FROM BRENDA
Creator • Artistic Director • Producer
My dear fellow Culture Bearers,
I’ve been telling stories for over 50 years, but I never thought the most amazing tale I would ever tell was my own!
I began with my family—who arrived in San Francisco in 1897—and followed their lives through 130 years of resilience, love, loss, and survival. But with each story, each generation, bit by bit, I uncovered the Soul of the City.
This is a transmission, not a performance.
It took 30 years of research, five years of development, and the work of 14 artists to create Soul. Still, we continued, me and my merry band of artists. Two years later, we completed the music.
Along the way, my son Kai Kāne (KK), grew up and moved across the country to start a family of his own. Mark, my beloved husband and creative partner for nearly 50 years got sick and passed away. We were one of the last Asian American families of traveling performers—modern troubadours carrying our stories and music from city to city.
And I learned something—I, like each of us, am here for just a brief moment in this magnificent, terrible, exquisite journey called life. And all of our lives are rich and full - intersecting with strangers, neighbors and loved ones. Together we make the soul of a place.
The breath, blood and fierce love of the people who live in a place become its living history. Our bodies carry an archive. Music, story, memory and ritual unlock that archive and help us remember. Memory becomes story, becomes myth, becomes WHY.
We learned how to find the soul of a place—now we offer to share that process with you.
Brenda Wong Aoki
PRESS ARTICLES
"A Storyteller Searches for Her City"
International Examiner
"‘Soul of the City’ believes the spirit of San Francisco lives in the people and their stories"
San Francisco Chronicle
"How Brenda Wong Aoki rocks the kimono — past, present and future"
San Francisco Chronicle
NOW BOOKING
Only 5 engagements are being offered in 2027–2028
1 is confirmed. 4 remain.
BOOKING INQUIRIES
Courtney Ozaki-Durgin, Tour & Booking Liaison
Creative Producer, Japanese Arts Network