UC Santa Cruz

In California both min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen practitioners occupy two disparate diasporic intercultural spaces for Japanese folk music. Based on fieldwork conducted in California music and dance affinity groups between 2018 – 2023, this study of Japanese folk music and dance argues these two practices and communities demonstrate different types of musical resiliency during precarious times while they engage with the differing desires of institutions, participants, and audiences in expressing a Japanese folk musical past. In precarity, the min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen groups demonstrate resiliency in adapting to shifting conceptions of identity whilst experimenting with alternatives to the current promotion practices of state institutions and NGOs. The min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen communities work to sustain the spatial aesthetics of Japanese folk music and dance which are tied to specific places and practices in Japan. While cultivating this aesthetic, practitioners move across different transmission spaces with masters and peers both in-person and digitally distanced. The contemporary place of min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen communities in California is informed by a Japanese American history of displacement. These groups exhibit resiliency in negotiating the transitions and transformations of Japanese folk music and dance.