KENNEDY KABASARES
Aerial Artist/Actor
Kennedy Kabasares is an aerial artist and actor. He has worked with a diversity of theater companies, including: East West Players; Singapore Rep; Center Theater Group; The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors; performance trio, zero3; Bindlestiff Studio; Playwright's Arena; Navarasa Dance Theater; and Kinetic Theory Circus Arts. He was invited to compete in the 2011 Aerial Acrobatic Arts Festival in Denver, where he took first place for static trapeze, and went on to perform in the finals. Recently he performed with Navarasa Dance Theater as an aerial dancer/actor in their world premier production, "Snake and Ladder". He also performs duo trapeze with aerialist Lynn Janovich under the name Lynnedy Duo.
TRACI KATO-KIRIYAMA
Writer/Actor
traci kato-kiriyama is an award-winning artist, community arts builder, and cultural producer; educator and springtime Teaching Artist-in-Residence for Grand Park; Arts & Culture Consultant/Artist-in-Residence for NeighborWorks America; Director/Co-Founder of Tuesday Night Project (presenter of art+community series, Tuesday Night Cafe, now in its 19th year and the longest-running Asian American mic series in the country). She is the writer/actor for PULLproject Ensemble, and has received recognition from several institutions and juries including two consecutive national grant awards from the Network of Ensemble Theaters. Throughout each year for over the last two decades, she has toured to hundreds of venues throughout the country as a performer/actor, writer, theatre deviser, educator, speech & speaking coach, facilitator, cultural producer, speaker, and artist-in-residence [Presenters include The Getty Foundation (L.A.), Skirball Cultural Center (L.A.), The Smithsonian (D.C.), The Ford Amphitheater Inside The Ford (L.A.), LaMaMa Cabaret (NYC), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia), EnWave Theatre (Toronto)]. Her writing and commentary have been featured by numerous print and online publications including Tia Chucha Press; Elle.com for Melissa Harris-Perry; The Hollywood Reporter; The Rafu Shimpo; Regent Press; Chapparal Canyon Press. She is in the final several months of completion for her manuscript and looking forward to release of her next book through Writ Large Press in 2018/19.
As a community organizer, she balances her creative career path with a focus on critical community engagement, transformative culture-shifting and solidarity work through organizations including Tuesday Night Project; VigilantLOVE Coalition; Nikkei Progressives; Okaeri LGBTQ Network; and is a community advisory member for Kizuna (Nikkei youth engagement pipeline) and the Budokan of Los Angeles (BoLA).
HOWARD HO
Composer / Sound Designer
Howard Ho is a playwright, composer and sound designer. As a sound designer, he most recently worked with Native Voices on the premiere of FAIRLY TRACEABLE and the Los Altos Stage Company on THE CRUCIBLE. He has worked with East West Players on mainstage shows including WASHER/DRYER, CRIERS FOR HIRE, and KENTUCKY as well as their educational touring shows including RESIDENCE ELSEWHERE, US VS. BHAGAT SINGH THIND, BORN TO LEAD, TAKING FLIGHT, re:MIX’T, and OUR AMERICAN VOICE. As an Associate Artist of Playwrights Arena, he sound designed DALLAS NON-STOP, CINNAMON GIRL, @THESPEEDOFJAKE, BLOODLETTING, and THE HOTEL PLAYS. As former resident sound designer of Company of Angels, his credits include FATIGUED, SUN SISTERS, WINDCHIMES, THEIR EYES SAW RAIN, and LA VIEWS PLAYLIST. As a playwright, he was a 2016 Center Theatre Group Literary Fellow and 2017 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist. His musical PRETENDO will be presented as part of the Center Theatre Group LIbrary Play Reading Series in April 2018. He also makes Youtube videos explaining how the music in HAMILTON works at youtube.com/howardhomusic.