NAKA Dance Theater
Founded in 2001 by co-directors Debby Kajiyama & José Ome Navarrete Mazat. NAKA Dance Theater creates experimental performance works using dance, storytelling, multimedia installations and site-specific environments. NAKA builds partnerships with communities, engages people's histories and folklore and expresses experiences through accessible performances that challenge the viewer to think critically about social justice issues. Recent themes include: racial profiling and state brutality, genetic modification of native crops, the commodification of water, cultural colonization, and the human response to overwhelming disaster. NAKA brings together and creates rapport among diverse populations, encouraging dialogue and civic participation.
Since 2001, NAKA has created work involving members of the Latinx transgender community, the local Mexican-American and Japanese-American communities, and San Francisco’s community of Argentine Tango dancers. From 2005-2008, we were artists-in-residence at ODC Theater. In 2006, NAKA was named one of the 25 to Watch by Dance Magazine. In 2007, we collaborated with visual artists from Eastside Arts Alliance, an organization of artists and community organizers of color in East Oakland to create the performance environment for The Revenge of Huitlacoche. That same year, NAKA was invited to present their work at the Hemispheric Institute on Performance and Politics' Encuentro in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2008 and 2014, we were chosen to be the San Francisco representative for SCUBA Touring Network performances in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Seattle. In 2010-11 we were Irvine Fellows at the Lucas Artist Residency Program at Montalvo Arts Center.
In 2014, NAKA created The Anastasio Project, which focused on a community-based creation process. We partnered with Racial Equity Consultant Tammy Johnson, and hosted community forums with Public Defender Matt Gonzalez, activist Cat Brooks, and Mujeres Unidas y Activas a social and economic justice organization.
In 2016, we created RACE: Stories from the Tenderloin, which deepened our relationship to Tenderloin residents and a robust network of artists, non-profits, and advocates who have long worked to support this community. The project created a continuing relationship with the Tenderloin National Forest and Anne Bluethenthal’s Skywatchers program which engages residents of Tenderloin SROs in the arts.
Our work has been presented by Dancers' Group's ONSITE, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, ODC Theater, the Queer Arts Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church (NYC), the Yerba Buena Choreographers Festival, California State University East Bay, the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center Performance Series, the Oakland Museum of California, and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.