The Ann Arbor News Entertainment "Miyamoto finds world in ‘A Grain of Sand’" by Christopher Potter News Arts Writer

"It touches on racism, discrimination, the things that we hold back within ourselves, the doubts, how we have rejected our own culture and embraced another," she says.

Yet Miyamoto, who will perform her new work Saturday at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, is swift to add that "A Grain of Sand" is not a downbeat piece. "In a sense no one can keep us from singing our song if we really want to sing it. But that takes a certain kind of determination to sing, to make our sound. And it depends on everyone to do that."

"A Grain of Sand" is co-sponsored by The University of Michigan Minority Student Services and The Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, who brought Miyamoto to Ann Arbor to perform last spring.

A Japanese-American who once danced in "The Flower Drum Song" on Broadway and in the movie version of "West Side Story," the Los Angeles-based Miyamoto in recent years has turned to her own cultural heritage. Creating multi-media works, she employs her formidable talents as a dancer, composer-lyricist, musician, actress and playwright.

"A Grain of Sand" is a solo dramatic piece involving an Asian-American woman "breaking through the forces of silence to find her own song." Via story, song, dance and video imagery, Miyamoto reflects on her not always-pastoral past, from the humiliation of World War II internment camps to the recent Los Angeles riots.

During the show relives her life as a young show biz-dazzled dancer, "rejecting" her ancestral traditions in search of American-style fame and fortune. Yet in the turbulent late ‘60s she undergoes an epiphany and becomes an activist-performer in service of Asian-American causes. Yet doubt returns with the onset of the ‘90s and a racially torn city in flames.

Miyamoto calls the 1960s "a cultural renaissance," but one that "for the most part remained in the confines of our own communities." By not sharing one’s heritage with a larger populace, she says, "we risk continued polarized and violence.

"In the creation of ‘A Grain of Sand,’ I am offering one grain in the sandbox of stories that are part of Asian-Americana….As an artist, I feel this is a journey we should all take," she says.

Miyamoto calls music "the silver thread that weaves through my life," and employs it as the central element in "A Grain of Sand." She’s assisted by fellow composer Derek Nakamoto, while Magda Diaz provides visual imagery via video and other sources.

The show’s goal is simple, says Miyamoto: a general understanding and harmony among peoples. "I really believe that nothing’s going to change until we tell our own stories."