KATA Project
Media Coordinator / Student Collaborator / Logo Designer / Video & Audio Editor
For the first time in history, Karate will be presented in the Tokyo 2021 Summer Olympic Games. The KATA Project seeks to celebrate this milestone and to foster unity, collaboration and friendship between the United States and Japan through the power of knowledge, artistic expression and cultural exchange. In the words of composer Gene Coleman, KATA is a “Docu-Opera” - a truly unique multidisciplinary composition combining martial arts, traditional Japanese music and contemporary music and video. It tells a story about the relationship of our physical and virtual worlds, one that is rooted in the concepts of Zen and recent developments in Neuroscience. KATA features amazing performers and musicians with motion and brain scan technologies that reveal the deep connections of the mind and body. Working with this data and models of Auditory Pathway Architecture manifested as Wagara (traditional Japanese patterns), KATA creates a world that bridges traditional Japanese and contemporary cultures.
KATA is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, The US Embassy in Japan, Temple University, The International House of Japan and others. It features outstanding Philadelphia and Japan based collaborators including director, composer and JUSFC Fellow Gene Coleman, electronic musician and Temple University professor Adam Vidiksis, shakuhachi player Akikazu Nakamura, shamisen player Sansuzu Tsuruzawa, The Hemmi String Quartet, the new music group Ensemble N_JP, conducted by Rei Hotoda and the Montreal based dancer and choreographer Sarah Bronsard.
In the Spring semester of school year 2019-2020, I joined in this project as a student collaborator. I was involved in ideating concepts and researching new technologies that could be incorporated in the project. Since KATA is a multifaceted project, I often found myself wondering about how we could present these concepts cohesively so it could foster the vision of understanding and cooperation which led me to an opportunity on the team as a media coordinator.
As a media coordinator, I built a media strategy to document and showcase all content related to the project that is featured on the website and social media. I have also practiced other skills such as video and audio editing using Final Cut Pro.
The logo design was inspired from the Japanese Kanji of the term "NichiBei", or Japanese-American and the black and red was taken from the palette of traditional Wagara, traditional Japanese patterns that coincide with concepts in the project.
Facebook Creator Studio was primarily used to manage the Instagram account below.
Adobe Illustrator was used to create the black and white logo that represents the project.
