Michelle Fujii

Michelle Fujii, born in San Jose, California, is a taiko artist and dancer. She is currently a member of Portland Taiko.

Background

Michelle joined Portland Taiko leadership in 2005. Known for her innovative fusion of taiko and dance, Michelle is a member of the North American Taiko Conference Advisory Board. She began her training in taiko as a performing member of San Jose Taiko and then went on to become artistic director of UCLA Kyodo Taiko (the first collegiate taiko group of its kind). After graduating with a degree in Ethnomusicology, Michelle rejoined San Jose Taiko as artistic staff. In 2001, she was awarded the prestigious Bunka-cho fellowship from the Japanese government to study with Japan's foremost traditional folk dance troupe, Warabiza, where she studied under the tutelage of master dancer/choreographer Shohei Kikuchi.

Michelle was also a member of and the TAIKOPROJECT.

Views on Taiko

"I got to reap a lot of the benefits that were established for me from the previous generation. And it’s not like I have to prove myself…We just want to be who we are. Which is Asian American, which is going to Japan, which is a lot of different experiences, interacting with different cultures, and we don’t need to shout that out to the world. I feel like this might be a different approach to Asian American music and I’m hoping that this new generation of Asian Americans might explore it in that way."

"Michelle Fujii, for example, hopes that taiko will eventually become like jazz, by which she means 'how as an ethnic music scene and from there it just continued to elevate into its own category, which is gender-less and also ethnicity-less. You know where it’s roots come from, but everyone can do jazz.'”

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