Tava-kaavi, Sun Mountain in Ute, will be honored by stories, dance, and music with hopes and dreams shared by members of the Native American Students Alliance (NASA) to balance ourselves and perceive a better common future on the land. The Heller Center for Arts and Humanities at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs selected Ayako as a Spring 2025 Heller Fellowship Award recipient and has been supporting the new creation of storytelling dance ETHOS: Ways of the Wind to be presented as a work in progress.

Mint tea, blue corn cookies, and biscochitos related to Ute culture will be offered in the beginning. You will be invited to outdoors on the hilltop, so please dress accordingly. A reception and dialogue follow.

Heller Center for Arts and Humanities presents

Storytelling Dance

ETHOS: Ways of the Wind

Work-in-Progress

March 13, 2025, Door: 5:30 pm, Start: 6 pm

Collaborators:

Storytellers: Kylie Red Willow, Oglala Lakota; Shundeen Martin, Navajo; Miles Medina, Yo’eme/Tiwa/Lakota; Native American Students Alliance (NASA)

Yo’eme/Tiwa/Lakota Drummer and Singer: Miles Medina

Navajo Dance & Round Dance: Shundeen Martin

Dancers: Desiree Villanueva, Alex Wilson, Ryn Day, Ayako Kato

Shapes of Wind Score: Yiheng Yvonne Wu

Flute Music: Élise Roy

Wind Harp: Philip Blackburn

Special advisors: Marguerite Cantu, Southern Ute/Chiricahua Apache/Eastern Cherokee; Granddaughter to Chief Buckskin Charlie, Last Traditional Chief of Southern Utes of Colorado; Ilaheva Tua'one, Indigenous/Native American Studies and Storytelling professor

Cultural Advisor: Crystal Rizzo, Southern Ute Cultural Preservation Director

Choreography: Wind & Ayako Kato

Pulpit Rock with Wind Harps installed by Philip Blackburn

This project is presented as part of Heller Fellowship Series and Peak FreQuency Festival, and generously supported by Heller Center for Arts and Humanities & the Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs

Umwelt — soundscape and movement installation

Saturday, November 23, Open between 1:30-4:30 pm @ HAIBAYÔ, 1132 W Argyle St., Chicago, IL

Free Admission

Presented by ROMAN SUSAN

Join us for a project launch of Umwelt by Mark Alcazar Diaz. Umwelt presents an auditory journey through the alleyways of Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. Delve into an intricate urban ecology of sounds that define these corridors.
  
Through meticulous field recordings captured with a binaural microphone, Umwelt unveils the nuanced sonic landscapes of each alley, offering a glimpse into the unseen rhythms of daily life. From the rhythmic clatter of ventilation systems echoing against brick walls to the distant hum of traffic permeating the air, each sound serves as a thread weaving together the fabric of this urban environment.

During this launch event, visitors activate the mapped recordings through overlapping sound stations. Kinetic philosopher and dancer Ayako Kato will respond to the chance interactions throughout the afternoon. The launch event takes place HAIBAYÔ at 1132 W Argyle St on Saturday, November 23 from 1:30-4:30 PM – and the field recordings are accessible through the site 24/7.

Visit mark-a-diaz-umwelt.com to experience this work online. The site is intended for desktop or laptop interface. Headsets are recommended. Umwelt is a part of Navigations, a series of artist projects in and about public space.

*****
Mark Alcazar Diaz is an artist, curator, educator, and arts administrator. He works with various media, including video, drawing, and object making to examine migration, memory of place, and natureculture. Related to his interest in exploring the pedagogy of sites and objects, Diaz facilitates workshops for teachers, artists, and non-artists to collaborate and explore the intersection of making and learning.

Ayako Kato is a contemporary choreographer and dancer originally from Yokohama, Japan. Kato's dance seeks the way of being in relation to nature and illuminates the dignity of life in response to contemporary society. Kato has been awarded a United States Artist Fellowship, Sybil Shearer Fellowship at Ragdale, and Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship, among others. 

HAIBAYÔ is a creative initiative that aims to energize the historic Asia on Argyle corridor through innovative cross-cultural, multi-generational collaborations. 

Roman Susan celebrates and shares the work of artists in the Great Lakes region. We create cultural engagements that provide resources and paid opportunities for artists. We are Chicago-based. We are artist-led. We are experimental and learning. More details at romansusan.org.

HUNGRY BRAIN, Sat, 11/9, 9 pm

Reserve your seats HERE!

Tomas Fujiwara (drums) and Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), with second set guests Ayako Kato and Rachel Bernsen(movement) and Jason Roebke (bass)

Over the past thirty years, over twenty-five albums and hundreds of gigs in dozens of different bands, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum have developed one of the deeper levels of creative communication in the contemporary music scene - in groups under Fujiwara's leadership like Triple Double and Shizuko, ensembles led by Bynum including his Sextet, 9-tette, and PlusTet big band, and collective projects like Illegal Crowns (with Mary Halvorson and Benoit Delbecq) and the Thirteenth Assembly (with Halvorson and Jessica Pavone), and the Chicago meets NYC supergroup Living By Lanterns. Throughout this history, they've maintained their duo, which has released four albums: "True Events" (2007), "Stepwise" (2010), "Through Foundation" (2014), and "Notice" (2022). 

The first set will be Fujiwara and Bynum's first duo performance in Chicago in a decade. For the second set, they will be joined by dancers Ayako Kato and Rachel Bernsen and bassist Jason Roebke, to improvise in response to materials from Bill Dixon's Index - the first in a series of explorations into this composition with a variety of configurations that Bynum is organizing around Dixon's 2025 centennial. 

More Details: Please visit Hungry Brain Website

Ayako Kato and Jason Roebke

NANCY: I tell you I’ve been honing my foresight over the past few months, ever since my husband’s inauguration, and it’s getting stronger every day.
—Timothy David Rey, from ZIP!

Come to Zip! presented by Poetry Foundation. This timely play will share space you need to be that election week. Ayako choreographed two dance scenes performed by Wannapa Pimtong Eubanks & Anniela Hubidoro for this staged reading.

Secure your free admission spot at Eventbrite for Thursday, November 7, 6-7:30 pm; Talk Back: 7:30-8 pm

Written by Chicago poet Timothy David Rey, Zip! is a prophetic and ghostly timewarped drama about Nancy Reagan’s fervor for astrology, interlaced with a Black gay love story, set on the eve of the AIDS epidemic and the Reagan assassination attempt. The play runs approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.

Zip! is a 2023 semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Further development occurred during the author’s time as a 2022 fellow in the playwriting cohort of the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ+ Writers-Faculty Advisor, Jewelle Gomez. Zip! was given its second table-read as part of the 2021 End Of Play Program (hosted by the Dramatist Guild of America/ The 24 Hour Plays NYC).

Some of Rey’s other plays include White/House (Finalist, eta New Play Initiative, 2020), Gloria, The (Almost) Last Picture Show, and The Monologue Play: An Ongoing Work Exploring Race, Sex, Identity...And The American Myth (‘22,‘23 Changing Worlds/ Arts Work Fund Award Recipient).

Director: Roger Ellis

Cast: David Goodloe, Caren Skibell, Stephen Glaspie, Wannapa Pimtong Eubanks, Anniela Hubidoro, Donovan Session, and Saleem Hue Penny.

Production Team: Opening Graphic-Rob Riutta/ Ross Parsons, Choreography-Ayako Kato, Props-Julie Williams, Sound-Ayme Frye.

One day, Chad reached Ayako, and here we are! Come to let your mind play, float …, and land in space with us!!

Friday, October 25, 7 pm @ Bim Bom Studios, 5226 W Belmont Ave., Chicago, IL 60641

$10-15 Save your spot in advance HERE!

Performance by: Ayako Kato, dance + Chad M Clark, guitar; Carol Genetti, voice + Janna Lee, voice; Amanda Maraist, dance and Michael Macdonald, electronics

Reserve your Ticket Here

Breath/Carries/Ritual

by

Yiheng Yvonne Wu, Jennifer Torrence, Ayako Kato

Conceived by Yiheng Yvonne Wu and co-devised by all three performers, Breath/Carries/Ritual is a transdisciplinary exploration of “things we carry.” Grounded in the body and the breathing cycles of the performers, movement and sound become one another. Stories emerge of burdens, sundries, and things that push us forth.

For Three Sleepless Nights

by

Mabel Kwan, piano; Jason Roebke, bass; Ayako Kato, dance

JAM (Jason, Ayako, Mabel) trio

For Three Sleepless Nights is a trio by pianist Mabel Kwan, double bassist Jason Roebke, and dancer Ayako Kato. Their craft to pursue tranquility with the play of kinetic and sonic space, silence, and stillness generates a void for the flow of wind, gravity, and grace to come in.

Friday, December 15, 2023

Doors: 8:00pm/Show 8:30 pm

Constellation Chicago

3111 N Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60618

Reserve your Ticket Here

Tickets $20 door

 $5 - livestream

Sponsors

University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Visual and Performing Arts Department

University of Colorado President’s Fund for the Humanities

Artist Biographies

Yiheng Yvonne Wu is a composer and interdisciplinary artist whose work ranges from conventionally

notated pieces to staged experimental works. Interdisciplinary projects have incorporated ASL, poetry,

dance, and installation. Wu has received commissions from the La Jolla Symphony, Arraymusic,

Michael Mizrahi, Figmentum, and the Bardin-Niskala Duo, among others. Her music has been

performed by the MIVOS string quartet, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Bent Frequency, and Ensemble SurPlus and

featured in the WasteLAnd concert series, the University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Festival,

New Music on the Bayou, SoundSCAPE, and Aspen Music Festival. Collaborators have included

Jennifer Torrence, Ayako Kato, Bonnie Whiting, Jessica Aszodi, Rachel Beetz, Dustin Donahue, and

Todd Moellenberg. She was awarded the 2018 Judith Lang Zaimont Prize by the IAWM and the 5th

Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize. She is Assistant Professor of Music at the University

of Colorado Colorado Springs. yvonnewu.com

Jennifer Torrence is a percussionist, performer, and artistic researcher based in Oslo, Norway.

Originally from the United States, she has performed and taught in a variety of contexts across the

entire globe. Much of her work is built upon deep collaborative processes with composers and artists

from various experimental practices. In addition to solo and collaborative projects she is a member of

the Norwegian ensemble, Pinquins. Her artistic research has been supported by the Norwegian

Academy of Music (NMH) and the Stockholm University of the Arts. She holds a PhD in Artistic

Research from NMH and the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. Jennifer is Associate Professor

II of percussion at the Norwegian Academy of Music. For more information

see www.jennifertorrence.com

Pianist Mabel Kwan is fascinated by sounds, contradictions, and our perception of what is familiar or

strange. She is a founding member of Ensemble Dal Niente, Restroy, Mega Laverne and Shirley, Fifth

Season, and Honestly Same. A native of Austin, Texas, her interest in art and music began at an early

age when she started accompanying her father on lieder, arias, and Chinese folk songs. Mabel is

a 2017 3Arts Awardee, 2018 High Concept Labs Artist, and 2020 City of Chicago Esteemed Artist.

mabelkwan.com

The diversity of Jason Roebke’s musical associations make him one of the most sought after

bassists, composers, and educators in Chicago and beyond. He composes music that is extreme in

its pairing of silence and explosive gestures. His music is rooted in jazz and takes inspiration from

experimental music, noise, and improvisation. Solo performance and a duo with dancer Ayako Kato

are also at the forefront of his creative activities. As a double bassist, his playing is intensely physical,

audacious, and sparse. The Chicago Reader described his work as “a carefully orchestrated rummage

through a hardware store.” Roebke studied privately with saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell

as well as legendary double bass pedagogue Stuart Sankey. In 2009, he was awarded the Fellowship

in Music Composition from the Illinois Arts Council. Roebke tours widely in the US and Europe.

jasonroebke.info

Please visit Ayako’s profile HERE

Swiss artist Sabina Oehninger creates these colorful gentle touch towel tapestry pieces which allows you to feel, “It’s okay.” Jason Roebke, double bass, and Ayako Kato, dance, are honored to be invited to perform with these pieces as part of Sabina’s exhibition, Soft Skills, at Comfort Station on Sun, July 9 from 4 pm (Rain date: Saturday, July 15 @ 4 pm). Free Admission.

Art of Being

Dance/Movement Workshop with Ayako Kato

2023 Spring: Freestyle Inside Out

INFORMAL SHOWING! + Dialogue
Sat, May 27, 2 pm, Free Admission
Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater Studio, 3035 N Hoyne, 2nd floor.  + also on Zoom, please RSVP furyuayajp (at) gmail.com to receive a link.

Art of Being: Freestyle Inside Out participants: Russell Norris, Mary Willmeng, Emily Becket, Anne Shook and more would like to invite you to the end-of-session showing!! We have been discussing the issues/darkness that we are carrying as contemporary individuals,ethical individualism,how to embody the intangible, and beyond while we are constantly seeking out grounding and flying. 

Art Union Humanscape Duo

Jason Roebke, double bass & Ayako Kato, dance

Sat, December 3, 8:30 pm @ Constellation as part of 2 x 4

Admission: $10 Buy Tickets

Reaching nearly 25 years in collaboration, Art Union Humanscape (AUH) Duo, Ayako Kato, dance & Jason Roebke, double bass, creates a sonic and kinetic landscape meditatively superimposed with silence and stillness.

ETHOS Project

11 am - 1:30 pm & 3 pm - 5:30 pm @ Palmisano Park

2850 S Halsted, Chicago (CTA: Orange Line, Halsted Sta.; Halsted #8 Bus to 27th St. or 29th St.)

Free Admission

Dance Installation & Performance Running Time: 150 minutes

Reservations encouraged (yet, not crucial) and open around mid-September with information on accessibility at chicagodancemakers.org

Presented by Elevate Chicago Dance Festival in partnership with the Chicago Park District; Produced by High Concept Labs in Joint Residency with the Monira Foundation at Mana Contemporary

“A compelling combination that simultaneously embraces both the molecular and the cosmic; ‘ETHOS’ is a feat made possible through an abundance of integrity evident in Kato’s work that embodies a gentle power and divine beauty paralleled only by nature itself.”

— See Chicago Dance

LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III at Palmisano Park is part of the ETHOS project by Ayako, that sets art practice in natural environments. Episode III draws on the land’s history as the quarry that built modern Chicago, acknowledges the past, present, and future Indigenous people living among us, and is created in collaboration. It is organized as timed dances, land and water acknowledgements, and a culminating circle. Visitors choose to be guided by docents, or roam on their own.

Titled after the “Last Universal Common Ancestor”, and the common elements necessary for human life on Earth (air, water, soil), it follows To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I (2019), which used the setting of the beachfront and Colvin House at North Sheridan Road, and Inception: ETHOS Episode II (2021), set on the beach and prairieland behind the South Shore Cultural Center.

ETHOS Guidance Performers: Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzia Bañuelos (Aztec Nahua, vocal-music artist and storyteller, Aztec Dance Chicago), Joseph Lefthand (of Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos, Zuni descent, performer), Danielle Gallet (water storyteller), Ambrosio Martinez (music, Aztec Dance Chicago).

ETHOS Team LUCA Dancers: Tuli Bera and Darling Squire (Team LUCA Co-Leaders), and Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot. 

Costume by: Darling Squire

Directed and choreographed by: Ayako Kato.

LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III is generously supported by High Concept Labs, the Chicago Park District, the Reva & David Logan Foundation, 3Arts, Artist Communities Alliance, Montalvo Arts Center, the Chicago Moving Company, the Chicago Art Department, and an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

Friday, June 10 @ High Concept Labs, 7 pm

2233 S. Throop, 4th floor (MANA CONTEMPORARY)

ADMISSION FREE

RSVP HERE

ETHOS performers and Ayako are excited to invite you to a sneak peek of LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III on Friday, June 10, 2022 at High Concept Labs (HCL) from 7 pm. Supported by HCL, ETHOS III is taking off to provoke and practice new contemporary nature-centric ETHOS. This aesthetic and physical inquiry seeks out a new community building on the common ground, even further tracing back to LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living things. 

Acknowledging humans as a part of transformative and cyclical nature and the nature itself, ETHOS Episode III is reflecting on intersections of humanity through its past, present and future. Res Communis or Commons, the natural elements which are considered as necessary resources for all humankind to live such as air, water, and soil on the earth as habitat, are acknowledged through the ceremonial movement work along with Native American, Aztec traditions and contemporary water conservation/restoration approaches.  

Prior to the presentation at Palmisano Park in October, please join us to witness the ETHOS creative process and dialogue on how humans as urban residents can keep practicing to drop invisible walls beyond differences and work together.

ETHOS Dancers: Tuli Bera, Darling Squire, Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot

ETHOS Guidance Performers:

Joseph Lefthand, Movement Land Acknowledgement

Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzin Bañuelos, Aztec Dance, Music, & Singing

Danielle Gallet, Water Acknowledgement

ETHOS Musician

Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzin Bañuelos, Aztec Music

Ambrosio Martinez, Aztec Music

Stop by “The Buddy Store” at the Chicago Cultural Center to experience the Red Rover project curated by poet Jennifer Karmin. From Nov 30 - Dec 5, poets and artists perform in the tiny box space for 30 minutes to 1 hour. This is a pandemic project for tiny audiences with safety concerns in mind. Please visit for more details on Facebook or Instagram. Ayako will be presenting pieces titled “Listening”.

Chicago Park District Night Out in the Parks presents

Inception: ETHOS Episode II

Monday, October 11, 2021/Indigenous Peoples Day

South Shore Cultural Center Park

Admission Free

Pick your entrance time from 11:00, 11:10, 11:20, & 11:30 am for the morning performance, and 4:00, 4:10, 4:20, & 4:30 pm for the afternoon performance for a loosely guided nature walk style outdoor dance and music installation performance. The finishing times are at 1:15 pm and 6:15 pm respectively for the morning and afternoon performances.

RSVP NOW at EVENTBRITE

Photo by William Frederking

“. . . an intimate and one of a kind experience . . . generous and full of heart . . .”

• Oelerich, Jenny. “Ayako Kato Art Union Humanscape To the Shore: ETHOS Episode I Review– Enlightened Story-Telling.” Picture this Post, 4 June, 2019

A nature walk style music and dance installation Inception: ETHOS Episode II is the second iteration of the ETHOS project that reflects humanity’s ancient and ancestral relationships to nature. 

The pandemic has been teaching us to appreciate the ordinary moments of our lives and to reflect on what matters most to us, including just being, moving, and breathing. With Inception, I will invite audience members on a 105-135-minute aesthetic and physical inquiry about an ideal ethos of humanity and how it is perceptible through movement and the way of being. This project envisions the intangible and invisible ETHOS into the tangible and visible.

The ETHOS performers: Tuli Bera, Lesley Keller, Amanda Maraist, Danielle Ross, Darling Shear, Aaliyah Christina, Xochyl Perez, Maryam Salem. We will be joined by musicians Michael Zerang and Mabel Kwan.

Sense the wind and just allow yourself to be

and

Find sound, movement, and relationships

within and around you

Keisha Janae / Ben Lamar Gay & Art Union Humanscape Duo (Ayako Kato & Jason Roebke)

Reserve your ticket HERE

Now, watch entire 22 minute performance of Eclipse by Roebke and Kato. Seen, yet not seen, not seen, yet seen experience invites you to feel the intangible reality as the tangible.

Photo by Ben Billington

Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education presents

WHAT IS THE BODY?

Free Event: Register HERE

Scholars have discussed the intentional boundaries surrounding certain bodies in art: what bodies are seen, what bodies do, and what bodies can look like. CAPE Dialogue: What is the Body? aims to explore the many interdisciplinary ways in which we can center our bodies within others and our environment to reimagine equity within the arts.

Art Union Humanscape Duo

Ayako Kato, dance & Jason Roebke, double bass

Watch Performance

Art Union Humanscape (AUH) duo, Ayako Kato (dance) & Jason Roebke (double bass) creates a sonic and kinetic landscape meditatively superimposed with silence and stillness. Their ritualistic performance is grounded on experimental performance and the aesthetics of furyu, Japanese for “wind flow,” as it relates to cyclical transformation, human motion in nature, and cosmic ephemera. The duo deliberately construct radical transgression and the web of non-linear tensegrity (tension and integration) for the audience members to travel through their own imaginative journeys. As if the repetitive patterns in nature form fractal spontaneously under the principles, the AUH's sound and movement energetic waves slowly engulf space-time and the audience members, making the intangible into the tangible. In resonance with their own memories and experiences, the audience members envision and experience their being through new layers of perspectives and awareness.

Ayako Kato

Ayako Kato is a dance artist originally from Japan. She has collaborated with more than 60 musician-composers, and toured in the US, Japan, and Europe. Working on dance as the art of being, she received residencies at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA and Camargo Foundation in France through 3Arts; Best of Dance from the Chicago Tribune and SeeChicagoDance; fellowships from the High Concept Labs and Links Hall; a 3Arts Award, a Meier Achievement Award, and a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award.

Jason Roebke

Jason Roebke is a bassist and composer who tours widely in the US and Europe. In addition to playing bass in Chicago’s most compelling jazz groups such as Mike Reed Flesh & Bone and Tomeka Reid Quartet, he has composed music for his own Octet and groups. His playing is intensely physical, audacious, and sparse. The Chicago Reader called his work as “a carefully orchestrated rummage through a hardware store.” He is a recipient of Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Music Composition.