Karen Tanaka
Karen Tanaka is an exceptionally versatile composer and pianist. She has composed extensively for both instrumental and electronic media.
Tag Archives: Asian Descent > Japan
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Toshiko Akiyoshi
Toshiko Akiyoshi changed the face of jazz music over her sixty-year career. As one of few women and Asian musicians in the jazz world, Akiyoshi infused Japanese culture, sounds, and instruments into her music. As a pianist, bandleader, and composer-arranger, Akiyoshi cemented her place as one of the most important jazz musicians of the twentieth century.
Yoko Ono
Ono’s performances and instructional paintings of the early 1960s changed forever the relationship between artist and audience.
Yayoi Kusama
More important than the impact her diverse work has on the art market is its influence on other artists and movements, which spans generations. To this day, she represents herself as a lone wolf most comfortable with being known as independently avant-garde.
Hōjō Masako
Hōjō Masako, known as the “nun shogun”, exercised significant political power in the early years of the Kamakura period (1192 to 1333).
Patsy Takemoto Mink
The first woman of color elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and the first Asian-American woman to serve in Congress. In addition to writing bills like Title IX, the Early Childhood Education Act, and the Women’s Educational Equity Act, Mink was the first Asian-American to run for U.S. President.
Miné Okubo
War internee and artist, Miné Okubo is well known for her representations of daily life and humanity. She is most famous for her drawings depicting Japanese and Japanese American internment during World War II.
Ailes Gilmour
Dancer Ailes Gilmour was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s and one of the first members of Martha Graham’s dance company.
Kimura Komako
Komako Kimura was a Japanese suffragist, actress, dancer, theater manager, and magazine editor before World War II.
Genmei
Monarch of Japan from 707 through 715 CE. Genmei was the fourth of eight women in Japan’s history to take on the role of empress regnant.