In his essay, “Imaginary Homelands,” Salman Rushdie describes our remembrances of homelands as like a broken mirror, with some of its fragments lost forever. Revisiting the cultural past, he writes, is more about memory and forgetting than recreating precisely what once was. Visited by ancestors from their Asian heritage and guided by traditions from distant, imagined, but vivid and personally inspiring pasts, these artists live and work in the multicultural environment of Hawai‘i, sharing a common vision of how art can respond to the challenges and possibilities posed by our urgent need for a more inclusive and interdependent world.

In 2019, Yukie Shiroma invited Kenny Endo and Norman Kaneshiro on a journey to explore the intersections of Japanese taiko, Okinawan sanshin, Okinawan and modern dance to create new music and choreography to tell contemporary stories. Musicians Derek Fujio, Brandon Ing and Jesse Shiroma soon joined the ensemble, and the Imaginary Homelands Band was formed. Collaborating with Shiroma and eight dancers, their collaborations were presented at Palikū Theatre on February 2022, Leeward Theatre in April 2024, and UH Hilo Performing Arts Center in October 2024. Without the dancers this time, the musicians return to the stage to present selections from recent shows and some new solos.