Hollywood Television Theatre: Wakako Yamauchi's “And the Soul Shall Dance”
This program is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series Archive Television Treasures. Learn more at cinema.ucla.edu.
In person: Q&A with actor Denice Kumagai-Hoy; Brian Niiya, content director, Densho; Lily Tung Crystal, artistic director, East West Players; moderated by UCLA Professor Karen Umemoto, Helen and Morgan Chu director of the Asian American Studies Center.
Originally staged by the East West Players, pioneering author Wakako Yamauchi’s adaptation of her award-winning play, “And the Soul Shall Dance,” for KCET’s Hollywood Television Theatre is a poetic, haunting drama that reveals the hardships Japanese Americans faced during the Great Depression. Set in California’s Imperial Valley, Yamauchi's moving work explores the lives of two farming families as they struggle to make ends meet and assimilate in a so-called land of opportunity defined by systemic racism.
Yamauchi’s teleplay unfolds through the eyes of a sensitive girl, Masako (Denice Kumagai), who bears witness to the challenges facing her loving parents (Pat Li, Sab Shimono) and the unraveling lives of a neighboring couple, Emiko (Haunani Minn) and Oka (Yuki Shimoda). Abused by her husband from an arranged marriage, Emiko dreams of a return to Japan to reclaim her past life, far from an inhospitable America. Her profound journey represents an indelible requiem for generations of Issei and Nisei beyond the play’s setting of the 1930s, with Yamauchi herself unjustly incarcerated as a teen at the concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Poston, Arizona, during World War II.
Before the screening in the lobby, beginning at 6:30 p.m., UCLA Library Audiovisual Project Conservator Maile Chung will display archival materials related to the East West Players from UCLA Library Special Collections.
Hollywood Television Theatre: “And the Soul Shall Dance” (2/7/1978)
DCP. PBS. Production: KCET, Community Television of Southern California. Produced for the stage by East West Players. Executive Producer: Norman Lloyd. Director: Paul Stanley. Writer: Wakako Yamauchi. With: Denice Kumagai, Pat Li, Haunani Minn, Sab Shimono, Yuki Shimoda, DianeTakei. Special Thanks to PBS SoCal, Gerry Bryant, Patrick Yew.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a division of UCLA Library, and presents its public programs in the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer, among other venues. For more information about the Archive, visit cinema.ucla.edu.
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