2 – 4 PM 
18 +
$8 members, $16 nonmembers 

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Step into a world where language shatters and the body speaks. Language the Missionaries Taught Us Was Broken Glass is an immersive, interdisciplinary experience inspired by the explosive poetry of renowned Native Hawaiian poet, educator, and artist Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (1947-1984).

The program blends experimental film, modular synth, and live performance. A screening of MANIFESTO for Concrete Poetry is followed by a kinetic ritual of sound and movement featuring Bay Area filmmaker Jody Stillwater and actor/creative director Sebastian Galasso, joined by poet/independent filmmaker/producer Richard Hamasaki, choreographer/performer/educator Pei-Ling Kao, and sound artist/curator Jorge Bachmann.

Don't miss this afternoon filled with film, dance, and discussion celebrating the life and work of Wayne Kaumualii Westlake.

Richard Hamasaki
Poet and independent filmmaker and producer Richard Hamasaki has been active in Hawai‘i’s literary and arts community for over 50 years, collaborating with creatives locally, regionally, and internationally. In 1976, he independently published seven issues of Seaweeds and Constructions, an art and literary magazine ending its run after the tragic death of his friend, mentor, and co-editor Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (1947–1984). After 40 years of teaching language arts in Hawaiʻi, Richard resumed producing and directing mostly poetry-based films. In 2024, Richard gifted Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum his extensive Hawaiʻi/Pacific library along with his and his brother Mark Hamasaki’s silkscreens, printed matter, selected photographs, and more, from their ʻElepaio Press collective and archive. His poems “This Is Not Our Wasteland” and “Death Poem of the Koʻa” were recently published online in Hoʻolana Journal, co-edited by Ryan Oishi, Tiare Picard, Sage Uilani Takehiro, and Rain Wright. His poem “Love Song for the Pristine Sea” will be published this year in The Hopkins Review, guest edited by R. Zamora Linmark. Richard’s most recent short film, MANIFESTO [for Concrete Poetry], co-directed with Jody Stillwater and Sebastian Galasso, features the late Wayne Kaumualii Westlake’s three-page poem which screened at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival and the Micheaux Film Festival in 2024 and will screen again with live performances of MANIFESTO by its three co-directors, featuring dancer Pei-Ling Kao and musician Jorge Bachmann, in June 2025 at Gray Area in San Francisco and at the Crocker Museum in Sacramento.

Jody Stillwater
Jody Stillwater 周青海 is a filmmaker and artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is renowned for his expertise in dynamic movement, granular semiotic language, and rhythm within the framework of narrative filmmaking and multi-disciplinary projects. His work often blurs the lines between the dreamlike and the tangible, creating immersive and thought-provoking experiences. A two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker and co-founder of Yanasa Creative Group, Jody has showcased his work at such prestigious venues as the MoMA in NYC, Hammer Museum, de Young Museum, YBCA, Mutek, Gray Area, Honolulu Museum of Art, Transfer Gallery, and ISEA. He has been commissioned by notable companies such as Google and Meta/Facebook and has been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Indiana University.

Sebastian Galasso
Sebastian Galasso is an actor, movement artist, film producer, and creative director born in Detroit and currently based in Oakland. His work ranges across feature film, music video, installation film, and recorded music. His cultural background is of mixed race, Black-American, Italian, and Indigenous American. He is interested in crafting a cinematic world that makes use of his own poetic and sometimes visceral experiences in environments such as Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and the Bay Area.

Jorge Bachmann
Jorge Bachmann is a San Francisco-based sound artist and curator. He has been involved in San Francisco's experimental music/dance scene since the early 2000s. Working across a wide range of explorations, Bachmann's work is eclectic, going from subtle "Musique Concrète" soundscapes to analog modular synth minimalism. Since the early 1980s, he has been exploring the strange, unique, and microscopic sounds of everyday life. Collecting field recordings and creating immersive soundscapes. Blurring the boundaries between wilderness sound environments and man-made sounds. Bachmann has composed music for MOBU Dance troupe and Christine Bonansea Dance Company. He has performed and exhibited in North America, Europe, Japan, Taiwan and South America. In 2009 he performed his audio-visual piece Coleoptera at the 10th Francisco Electronic Music Festival. His last solo album, Mare Island, is on Ithaca's VauxFlores Industrial label.

Pei-Ling Kao
Pei-Ling Kao 高沛齡 is a Taiwanese choreographer, dance educator, and performer. Since moving to the US in 2007, she has been working with choreographers of different aesthetic frameworks, collaborating with interdisciplinary artists, performing and teaching nationally and internationally, as well as presenting original work via her company, PEILING KAO DANCES. Pei-Ling is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her research and creative interests are focused on movement improvisation, choreography, bicultural and hybrid movement, and interdisciplinary collaboration. She has received the OVPRS Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research and Creative Work in 2025, Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022, Endowment for the Humanities Award in 2023 and 2018, and Junior Faculty Research Award in 2018 from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Pei-Ling was the recipient of the MAP fund in 2021, Lo Man-Fei Dance Fund from Cloud Gate Foundation in Taiwan in 2016, and San Francisco Bay Area’s Isadora Duncan Dance Awards in 2012.