Booking
Performances

Thank you for your interest in booking Great Leap for your next event!

GREAT LEAP, INC

Great Leap creates bridges to a more just world, weaving performing arts, cultural practices, and community engagement to transform our relationships to the Earth and each other.

HISTORY

Founded in 1978 by groundbreaking performing artist Nobuko Miyamoto, Great Leap is rooted in the Asian American community, centered in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities and promotes cross-cultural exchange with local and nationwide audiences and communities. Led by artists and supported by a board of directors, staff, collaborating artists, and volunteers, Great Leap Inc (GL) represents diverse communities in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. Artists and leaders design all GL projects with community partners and wisdom keepers.

Performances

Nobuko Miyamoto A Song in Movement Screening and Mini-Concert

Dan Kwong - Return of The Samurai Centerfielder

FandangObon Festival

Le Ballet Dembaya

In her eighth decade, Nobuko still performs concerts of her music. Her album 120,000 Stories was released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2020.

Enjoy a 15-30 minute live performance by Nobuko Miyamoto along with other collaborating artists.

Mini-concerts are typically available in conjunction with Nobuko’s documentary screening, but can also be made available upon request and approval of Nobuko.

NOBUKO MIYAMOTO
A SONG IN MOVEMENT Screening and Mini-Concert

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Dan Kwong -
“Return of The Samurai Centerfielder”

A 13-minute multimedia performance featuring Kwong's iconic character, The Samurai Centerfielder, this piece reveals the surprising role of baseball in enabling Japanese Americans to survive their unjust incarceration during WWII. Hard-hitting yet humorous, educational yet entertaining, historical yet personal, it connects the dots between the U.S. Government’s decisions in February 1942 and its present day actions of March 2025. As history is repeating itself, this performance is a call to vigilance and action. Requires video projection, large screen, sound system, wireless lavalier mic and tech operator.

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FandangObon

Great Leap’s FandangObon (FO) convenes into one circle to include participatory music and dance traditions of Fandango of Vera Cruz, Mexico rooted in African, Mexican and indigenous music; Japanese Buddhist Obon circle dances in remembrance of ancestors; and West African dance and drums of Nigeria and New Guinea. In past years we have also built with folks from within the Sufi Muslim practices such as Hadrah. This Festival can be shared on your campus or locally in a community space to engage diverse communities in circle drum and dance practices. This Festival included live musicians from at least 3 different cultural traditions.

Click here for more information on FandangObon.

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Le Ballet Dembaya, Drum and Dance

Le Ballet Dembaya, a West African Drum and Dance Ensemble, offers drum and dance performances where they bring culture, tradition, and flavor to events with their exciting and beautiful repertoire of family friendly works.