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Within These Walls

WITHIN THESE WALLS
a film by Lenora Lee and Tatsu Aoki

in association with Lenora Lee Dance, Lenora Lee Productions, Innocent Eyes and Lenses Films, Asian Improv aRts, Asian Improv aRts Midwest, powered by Asian Improv Nation

Inspired by experiences of those detained, interrogated and processed at the U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay, WITHIN THESE WALLS is a film in which dance, memory, music, and poetry serve as a meditation on healing, resilience, and compassion.

This U.S. Immigration Station is an International Site of Conscience, site of remembrance transformed and animated as part of a community-wide commemoration of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, speaking to the power of individuals and communities to transcend.

  • Tatsu Aoki
    Director
  • Genny Lim
    Writer
  • Lenora Lee
    Producer
  • Johnny Huy Nguyen
    Key Cast
  • Lynn Huang
    Key Cast
  • SanSan Kwan
    Key Cast
  • Hien Huynh
    Key Cast
  • YiTing Hsu
    Key Cast
  • Wayne Tai Lee
    Key Cast
  • Carl Irons
    Key Cast
  • Stacey Yuen
    Key Cast
  • Yao Dang
    Key Cast
  • Kevin Lo
    Key Cast
  • Timothy Huey
    Key Cast
  • Chloe Luo
    Key Cast
  • Eric Koziol
    Key Cast
  • Shannon Preto
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 16 minutes 35 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 31, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9.9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Tatsu Aoki

Tatsu Aoki (director and filmmaker) is a prolific artist, a filmmaker, composer, musician, educator, and a consummate bassist and shamisen lute player. Based in Chicago, Aoki works in a wide range of musical genres, ranging from traditional Japanese music, jazz, experimental, and creative music and producing experimental films.

Aoki was born in Tokyo in 1957 to Toyaki Moto, an artisan family proficient in Okiya, the tradition of working as booking and training agents for geisha in downtown Tokyo. At the age of four, Aoki became part of his family performance crew and received the essence of traditional Tokyo geisha cultural training and studies, which combine history with creativity. In the late 1960s, upon Tokyo’s economic and social decline and his grandmother’s passing, he shifted his training to American pop and experimental music. By the early 1970s, Aoki was active in Tokyo’s underground arts movement as a member of Gintenkai, an experimental ensemble that combined traditional music and new Western forms. At the same time he began working in small-gauge and experimental films, influenced by his biological father, who was a movie producer at Shintoho Studio.

In 1977, Aoki left Tokyo to study experimental filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he is now adjunct associate professor in the Film, Video, and New Media Department, teaching film production and history. He has produced more than 30 experimental films and is one of the most in-demand performers of bass, shamisen, and taiko, appearing in over 90 recording projects.

http://tatsuaoki.com/

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Director Statement

Lenora Lee (producer, choreography director) has been a dancer, choreographer, producer and artistic director for the past 27 years. She has been an Artist Fellow at the deYoung Museum, a Djerassi Resident Artist, a Visiting Scholar at New York University 2012-2016, a 2019 United States Artists Fellow, a 2021 recipient of New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project award, a 2024 recipient of Mid Atlantic Arts' USArtists International touring grant, an Artist in Residence at Dance Mission Theater, Pao Arts Center, ArtsEmerson, and Bunker Hill Community College. Lenora received an Isadora Duncan Dance Award in Outstanding Production for her immersive performance piece "Within These Walls", created for and staged in the U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island State Park.

For the last 17 years she, along with her company Lenora Lee Dance (LLD), has pushed the envelope of intimate and large-scale multimedia, immersive dance performance connecting various styles of movement/dance, film, text, research and music to culture, history, and human rights issues. Lenora’s works are set in both public and private spaces, inspired by individual stories as well as community strength. From the proscenium, to underwater, to an historic cargo ship, to the immigration station on Angel Island, her pieces are site-responsive, immersive, and interactive, calling audiences into deep engagement with the work and environment. Lenora’s work has grown to encompass the creation, presentation and screening of films, museum and gallery installations, civic engagement, and educational programming signifying the power of art as a movement for change. www.LenoraLeeDance.com, IG: @LenoraLeeDance