No-No Boy鈥檚 Julian Saporiti (pictured left) and Emilia Halvorson visit Boulder for a week-long residency on campus to share their work with students and faculty about Japanese American internment camp survivors and their stories.听听Described as 鈥渁n act of revisionist subversion鈥� by NPR, No-No Boy is slated to combine original songs, storytelling, and projected archival images听in their widely-anticipated, immersive multimedia free concert in Grusin Hall on Friday, October 11. 听Their residency is funded by a grant from the Roser Visiting Artist Endowment.
No-No Boy gets its name from听the Japanese Americans who were ordered to live in internment camps during World War II, soon after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1942.听听Citizens incarcerated at these camps were deprived of their civil rights yet asked to serve in combat duty and swear allegiance to the US.听听Those answering 鈥渘o鈥� to those two demands听on the government鈥檚 Loyalty Questionnaire became 鈥淣o No Boys,鈥� and today are viewed as heroes for standing up to the government that deprived them of their freedom, liberty and justice.
Saporiti opens the听residency on October 7 with听"Transforming Scholarship into Song," an academic presentation that looks at how the No-No Boy Project has transformed ethnographic and archival research into a musical and performative experience.
In conjunction with AMRC Director, Susan Thomas鈥檚 鈥淢usic and Incarceration鈥� class this semester, Saporti and Halvorson will join the class and Professor Thomas in a field trip to visit听听(the听Granada Relocation Center and pictured right), one of ten Japanese American internment camps in the US during WWII. 听Amache was in operation from 1942听听to 1946 and confined up to听7,400 Japanese Americans at a time.
Saporiti takes inspiration for his work from his own family鈥檚 history of living through the Vietnam War, his doctoral work at Brown University, and interviews with World War II Japanese incarceration camp survivors. While on a national tour promoting their听听2018 album,听,听No-No Boy听performed for asylum seekers and aid workers in Laredo, Crystal City (former home of a WWII Internment Camp) and Dilley, TX (current home to the largest family detention center).
The AMRC is beyond thrilled to host听No-No Boy on听CU campus this October and invities everyone--students, faculty, staff and the community--to their culminating concert on Friday, October 11.