Upcoming Events

Story Circle (2025)

SOUL FOOD

a free international ZOOM event

SATURDAY JULY 26, 2025

10AM – 12PM PDT

with storytellers, musicians, poets, spiritual leaders and people like you

First Voice presents the fifth annual Story Circle of the Japanese Diaspora: Soul Food, created and conceived by America’s first nationally recognized Asian American storyteller, Brenda Wong Aoki and Asian American jazz pioneer composer Mark Izu.  

Story Circle brings together people of Japanese descent - including those displaced by Incarceration, multiracial families, and the new immigrants - to reconnect, heal, and grow stronger by voicing our story.

This year’s Story Circle features Steve Nakajo, Michael Yoshi, Zora Uyeda-Hale & friends, host Eryn Kimura, poet devorah major, digital artist Andi Wong, movement with PJ Hirabayashi, and music ensemble led by Mas Koga, featuring Kenny Endo, Jason Finkleman, Derek Nakamoto, and Sara Sithi-Amnuai. Facilitators are from all over the U.S., Hawaii, Canada, and Brazil.

Previous Events

Story Circle (2024)

WHY STORY

a free international ZOOM event

SATURDAY JULY 27TH

10AM – 12PM PDT

with storytellers, musicians, poets,

spiritual leaders and people like you

First Voice presents the fourth annual Story Circle of the Japanese Diaspora: Why Story, created and conceived by America’s first nationally recognized Asian American storyteller, Brenda Wong Aoki and Asian American jazz pioneer composer Mark Izu.

The purpose of the annual Story Circle is to bring together the lost tribe of people of Japanese descent who were forced to scatter during the incarceration, embrace our mixed-race children and the Shin-Issei community in order to heal, comfort, & strengthen through the power of personal story.

Soul of The City (2024)

LIVE FILMING

Saturday, June 1st at 7 pm

and

Sunday, June 2nd at 4pm

Presidio Theatre

San Francisco, CA

Soul of The City  follows a storyteller who has no more stories to tell. Her husband is sick, her boy has moved away, and nobody is buying the stories she’s trying to tell. Pursued by demons and haunted by ghosts, the storyteller embarks on a journey to find the soul of San Francisco. This multimedia music drama is a ritual performance. Rooted in traditional Japanese theater and music and infused with contemporary spoken word and Asian American Jazz, Soul of The City reveals the divine in us all. 

The audience will arrive dressed in regalia (ethnic, gender or personal) and will gather in the garden to put prayers, photographs or talisman on the Soul of The City  sacred tree.  A Buddhist priest will bless us with a purification ceremony and  willing participants will be given temple bells to call the ancestors. We will then go inside the theater. The audience will witness a ritual performance of jazz, storytelling, and poetry that is accompanied by photographs and images of Brenda’s family in San Francisco since the 1800’s.  At the conclusion of the performance we will return to the garden for refreshments, renewed, recharged and inspired  to carry on.

2023 First Voice Moments

JUNE 3, 2023

OGs Tellin’ it Before We Die:

Personal Stories from Social Justice Warriors

JUNE 17, 2023

Hana: The Soul of an Artist

AUGUST 2023 (date TBD)

Spoken Word: A Soul of The City Work in Progress Offering

OGs Tellin’ it Before We Die:

Personal Stories from Social Justice Warriors

June 3 2023

4:30-6pm PDT

Konko Church, SF

1909 Bush St, San Francisco, CA 94115

Basement level on Laguna St.

Doors open at 4pm for light refreshments

A once in a lifetime opportunity to listen to the personal stories of Brenda Wong Aoki,  Steve Nakajo and Eddie Wong, artists, activists, and community organizers who, since the 1970’s, have fought to protect and sustain Asian American and BIPOC communities in San Francisco, Los Angeles and beyond.  What inspired them to dedicate their lives to this work? Hear first hand the childhood experiences that shaped them and the events that impacted their lives through the ’70’s, ’80’s and ’90’s. Audience members will have the opportunity to contribute their own personal experiences. Hard earned wisdom from everyone present will be shared, understood, and remembered - rippling out into the future.

Covid Safety Protocols:

Masks are highly encouraged and recommended  to protect our at-risk populations. Please stay home if you are showing any symptoms of being sick.

Brenda Wong Aoki is a playwright, producer, and America’s first Asian Pacific storyteller. Her multidisciplinary performance work explores the fundamental hybridity of U.S culture and draws from her family’s 126-year history in San Francisco, Kabuki legends, ghost stories, and personal experience. Her sensei is Living Treasure Nomura Mansaku, a Kyogen master. Her work has been awarded Hollywood-Dramalogue, Critics Circle, Dramatist Guild, ASCAP and INDIE Awards, and fellowships from the NEA and the Japanese Government. She helped found Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts and started the first Asian American affinity groups with WAA (Western Arts Alliance) and APAP (Association of Performing Artist Professionals). As co-director/founder of First Voice Aoki worked with WOCA (Women of Color in the Arts) and the API Council to build the Stop Asian Hate Campaign. She is currently writing a music drama, “Soul of The City” commissioned by the Hewlett-50 Playwright Award.

As the Executive Director of Kimochi, Inc. for 45 years, Steve Nakajo fiercely led the Japanese American organization from its origins as a volunteer-run grassroots effort to a fully-staffed, well-funded nonprofit receiving national recognition as a revered model in senior health care. He has long-term political working relationships with elected officials on local, state, federal, and national levels (Osaka, Japan). Nakajo has devoted his life, with no individual personal agenda or purpose, to the betterment of our Japanese-American community of San Francisco.

Eddie Wong became involved in the Asian American movement in Los Angeles in 1968. He helped found the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and co-edited the first Asian American college-level textbook "Roots: An Asian American." He is also a co-founder of Visual Communications, a non-profit media company, where he directed and produced several documentary films. He later became Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. He was the National Field Director of the 1988 Jesse Jackson for President campaign and Western Regional Director of the National Rainbow Coalition. Now retired, Eddie edits and publishes East Wind ezine.

Hana: The Soul of an Artist

JUNE 17

ODC Dance Commons, Studio B

351 Shotwell St. San Francisco, CA 94110

Doors open at 6:30pm

Join us in experiencing the music of jazz composer Masaru Koga & Friends followed by dancer Emma Lanier with her father on vinyl!

WORKS PRESENTED:

Hanabi an open and intimate musical set by New York-based saxophonist and shakuhachi artist Masaru Koga featuring Kenneth Nash on percussion and John-Carlos Perea on electric bass and cedar flute, inspired by the interconnection between all beings.

EZ Sand (a dance with my dad about clay) is a dance about clay by Emma Lanier and her dad, ceramic artist Paul Lanier. This will be his first time on the big stage. EZ Sand studies daily rituals and materials of their respective art practices and art-making in family.