https://youtu.be/5mouNVVRVRU
On Monday, October 8, from 6:30-8pm, the Laramie County Library will host an “immersive and intimate” multimedia concert, No No Boy, performed by Julian Saporiti and Erin Aoyama
The performance integrates original music with historical photographs and videos to portray the experiences of World War II Japanese incarceration camp survivors, while also exploring the performers’ own family experiences with the Vietnam War and the Heart Mountain Internment Camp in Wyoming.
Live concert with archival projections
One of the main goals of the performance is to “illuminate histories that have remained in the dark,” by shedding light on the Asian American experience and using it as a vehicle to “investigate topics like immigration, refugees, memory, and war.” The concert allows viewers to consider a history that oftentimes goes unexplored when considering World War II, and brings to consideration Wyoming’s own role in the internment of over 10,000 people of Japanese descent.
Both performers are PhD students at Brown University passionate about shedding light on the Asian American experience. Saporiti received his MA from the University of Wyoming. During his time in Wyoming, he made several trips to the Heart Mountain Concentration Camp, the same place where Aoyama’s grandmother was imprisoned.
Erin and Julian created this multimedia experience to “recover the past” and give musical voice to several powerful and painful stories in hopes of preventing them from ever happening again.
To learn more about the No-No Boy performance, listen to a song about Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and watch a trailer for the upcoming event, visit nonoboymusic.tumblr.com/about.
The No-No Boy event is part of the traveling exhibit The Way We Worked, which is currently on display at the Laramie County Library. The exhibit engages viewers with a history of work, an aspect of American society that has had an impact on all of us — past, present, and future. The exhibition will appear throughout the main library and includes complementary local exhibits and programs at all branches.
The event is free to the public. The Way We Worked has been made possible in Laramie County by Wyoming Humanities. The Way We Worked, an exhibition created by the National Archives, is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.