AIRMW at Elastic Arts: Kioto Aoki & Haruhi Kobayashi

AIRMW artists and previous collaborators Kioto Aoki and Haruhi Kobayashi present an evening of taiko and electronics. The duo each performs solo programs, followed by a collaborative set that abstracts, overlaps, and expands the structures of electronic and acoustic drone.

This program is part of AIRMW's AA Arts Initiative Program in collaboration with Elastic Arts.

For more information visit:

https://elasticarts.org/events/airmw-presents-kioto-aoki-haruhi-kobayashi

---

Haruhi Kobayashi is a Chicago-based sound artist and vocal performer. Originally from Tokyo, Haruhi began her career as a Japanese-pop singer-songwriter, releasing solo albums and composing for TV and film. Throughout her formative years in the Japanese pop industry, she became interested in the underlying social and emotional connotations and conditions of her own voice and the inextricable ties between one’s voice and their identity. She started to manipulate her voice into unidentifiable sounds, liberating it from its “human” constraints. She is currently the High Concept Labs AIR resident 2024.

Kioto Aoki is a Chicago-based artist, educator and musician whose taiko practice is informed by the Japanese aesthetics of ma and emphasizes melodic phrashing balanced between hit, space and choreography to challenge common perceptions of percussion as mere rhythm. Her stoic, durational explorations involve performative soundscapes that oscillate between the organic textures of live performance and nuances of cyclical sonic sustain. ​

​

​Aoki is the 5th generation of the Toyoakimoto house, an okiya (geisha house) performing arts family from Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Studying under father, Tatsu Aoki (Toyoaki Sanjuro), she continues this particular family lineage as Toyoaki Chitose (豊秋千東勢) on shamisen. Working within traditional and experimental contexts, Aoki maintains a balance of retaining the artistic and aesthetic integrity of traditional Japanese music with a contemporary sensibility that extends beyond the measures of cultural preservation.

Musical projects include solo albums released by Asian Improv Records and FPE Records, Yoko Ono’s SKYLANDING, Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project, Experimental Sound Studio’s Sonic Pavilion Festival, and the Soundtrack series at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She has performed and exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), the Chicago Cultural Center, 6018|North (Chicago), Gallery Kobo Chika (Tokyo, Japan), The Lab (San Francisco), and the Barbican Centre (London), among others. Aoki also leadsTsukasa Taiko, a program of Asian Improv aRts Midwest (AIRMW); and is program curator at AIRMW.