First Voice produces, presents, tours, publishes, and records original work that incorporates Asian theatre (particularly Japanese) and musical and spoken word traditions into indigenous American art forms like jazz and contemporary performance art. Since its founding in 1976 by playwright/performer Brenda Wong Aoki and composer/instrumentalist Mark Izu, performances have revolved around issues of home, family, and survival, e.g., UNCLE GUNJIRO’S GIRLFRIEND (1998, 2016), SUITE J-TOWN (2015), and AUNT LILY’S FLOWER BOOK: 100 YEARS OF LEGALIZED RACISM (2017, 2018.) Our work is premiered in San Francisco, then presented locally and toured nationally. Brenda and Mark were founding faculty at Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and since 2016, have mentored other Asian Pacific Island artists by producing new works in our San Francisco studio. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the citywide shelter-in-place order, we have, altered our programming, and pivoted to reaching audiences online.

First Voice’s programming focuses on the survival of Japanese American culture and championing the voice of multiracial people. There are only three Japantowns left in the US. In May 2021, the Japantown Malls, go up for sale eliminating mom & pop enterprises that have been there for generations. In response, First Voice created the San Francisco Project, celebrating the resilience of these deeply rooted communities in the city. The project includes ‘Story Circles’, an online gathering of Japanese master artists and members of the community for an intergenerational story circle connecting past and present as a gift to the future; a suite of compositions by Mark Izu celebrating generations of Japanese Americans; and a multimedia work by Brenda Wong Aoki commissioned by the Hewlett 50 program in 2018 that will incorporate 133 years of family stories from Japantown and Chinatown; this work will have its World Premiere in 2022 as part of CAAMFest.