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TomoeArts' Board - Biographies
Yoriko Gillard
Visual Artist
Yoriko was born and raised in Gifu City, Japan. She is an award-winning visual artist working in many mediums: painting, drawing, print-making, photography, sculpture, video, performance art, calligraphy, poetry, and mixed media and has had numerous exhibitions in both Japan and Canada. She has her BFA Honours from UBC, where she was the President of VASA (Visual Arts Students' Association: 2010-11). Yoriko is also a Japanese professional makeup & hairstyle artist having worked as a manager, instructor, and wedding stylist which eventually lead her to explore the liminality of her own past and future. She is currently teaching Japanese conversation at Douglas College where she sees her interest lie in intercultural communication. She is an active artist who is also an executive member of BC-Japan Earthquake Relief Fund, bc-jerf.ca where she has been involved with local artists to support Japan since March 2011.
Leonora Grande
Writer and Theatre Artist
Leonora is a Winnipeg-born Vancouverite who creates in many genres including stage and screenplay, poetry and spoken word performance, non-fiction, song, visual art, and acting. She is a working film actor trained and experienced in theatre, film, event hosting, directing and dramaturgy. Studies of interest include Noh Theatre dance & chant. With six years of honours studies in UBC's Creative Writing (BFA 06) and Theatre (double-major) behind her, Leonora looks forward to active involvement in the artistic community. She has performed at festivals, arts centres, on local radio and television, and many local venues from coffee houses to bars. Experimental, genre-bending and collaborative work is close to her heart. Favourite theatre credits include dramaturging for Kee Company's Komachi Variations , and Nights of Dream ; participating as writer, director and actor in three successive years at UBC's Brave New Play Rites; presenting her play Lili Marlene: A Love Story for staged readings at the Dorothy Somerset Studio and at UBC's MURC Conference; and performing in the Canadian premiere of Ota Shogo's Water Station. In addition to her degree from UBC, Leonora also holds a certificate in P.R. & Advertising from BCIT. Pertinent past work experience includes administration, marketing and business, and volunteer management.
Michael Huenefeld
Finance and Accounting Consultant
Michael is a political activist in Vancouver. He has a longstanding interest in Japanese culture, history, and politics, with a special interest in Heian period art and literature. Michael has studied Japanese language for a number of years. In 2009-2010 he served on the Board of the Vancouver Mokuyokai Society. In 2011, through the Mokuyokai, Michael made a presentation comparing the Japanese and British monarchies. Michael has worked in government, finance, and education and in the 2011 Canadian Federal Election he ran as a candidate in the electoral district of Vancouver Centre. Michael is fluent in French and Spanish. Michael holds MBA (Finance) and MA (Political Science) degrees from SFU, and a BA (Honours) from UBC.
Dr. Elizabeth Johnson
Research Fellow and Curator Emerita, Museum of Anthropology UBC
Elizabeth Lominska Johnson is recently retired from the UBC Museum of Anthropology, where she had responsibility for the Asian and textile collections and most recently held the position of Curator: Asia. She also taught fourth year students in museum anthropology, advised graduate students, and carried out many other responsibilities within the museum.. As Curator Emerita and Research Fellow, she continues to do writing, research, and collections documentation projects for the Museum of Anthropology in addition to publishing from her own research in Hong Kong. She received her doctorate in anthropology from Cornell University after doing two years of field research in Hong Kong, and continued doing research there whenever possible. Her interests include the study of identity, womenÕs economic roles and expressive culture, Chinese popular religion, and Cantonese opera and its costumes.
Gordon R. Kadota
Principal, Canaway Consultants: Canada-Japan business intermediary.
Managing Director, O.K. Gift Shop Ltd.: Retail outlets for tourists and local clientele.
Director and Past President, National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre
President, Kwansei Gakuin University Alumni Vancouver Chapter
Born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada, as a second generation Japanese Canadian. Went to Japan at age 7 for a visitation but the outbreak of World War II prevented the return to Canada. After 12 years in Japan during and after the war, he returned in 1952 after completing high school at Kwansei Gakuin University High. He entered the travel business in 1961, specializing as a Tour Planner-Operator. Although widely traveled to many parts of the world, his major focus was the development of travel between Canada and the Pacific Rim countries. He has conducted many study tours and seminars for both Canadian and Japanese travel agents and served on numerous tourism boards and missions up to the1990s. A wide association with various business concerns across the Pacific led to the formation of Canaway Consultants in 1973, a company providing cross-cultural consultation and coordination services for Canadian and Japanese businesses. During this time, he has also been involved in a retail tourist business with outlets in Vancouver, Banff, Niagara Falls as well as in New Zealand and Australia. In community and volunteer work, Gordon has been involved in the Japanese Canadian community since 1955 serving at both the local and national levels. He served as the first President of the National Association of Japanese Canadians which spearheaded the redress movement culminating in the 1988 Acknowledgement and Redress by the Federal Government. He is the former President and continues to serve as a Director of the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre, the organization that built and administers the Nikkei community complex in Burnaby, B.C.
Dr. Ross King
Department Head and Professor, Asian Studies UBC
Dr. Ross King serves as Professor of Korean in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, and also as Head of that Department starting July 2008. Dr. King earned his BA in Linguistics and Political Science from Yale in 1983, and his PhD in Linguistics from Harvard in 1991. Before coming to UBC, he taught Korean language and linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, England, and for the past thirteen years he has also served as Dean of Sup Sogui Hosu, the Korean Language Village, Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota, USA. His research interests include Korean language, linguistics and pedagogy, and the history of language and writing in the Sinitic sphere.
Dr. Christina Laffin
Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia.
Christina Laffin researches medieval travel diaries from the perspective of women's history and teaches Japanese premodern literature as an assistant professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is author of the forthcoming Rewriting Medieval Women: Politics, Personality, and Literary Production in the Life of Nun Abutsu (University of Hawai'i Press, 2012), co-edited The Noh Ominameshi, A Flower Viewed from Many Directions (Cornell East Asia Series, 2003), and acted as managing editor of Gender and Japanese History (Osaka University Press, 1999).
Gary J. Matson
Lawyer, Remedios and Company
Gary's interest in Japan began about 1968 when he attempted to read every English language book available on Zen Buddhism. In 1972, he graduated from UBC with a B.A. in Asian Studies. He spent the next four years teaching English in Tokyo. In 1976, Gary returned to Vancouver to begin graduate studies in Modern Japanese Literature at UBC. A Mombusho Scholarship enabled him to do research studies at Hiroshima University from 1978 to 1980. Since his return to Vancouver in 1980, he has obtained an M.A. in Modern Japanese Literature and a law degree from UBC. Gary has been practicing law in Vancouver since 1986. Most of his clients are Japanese. Since he became a lawyer in 1986, he has been actively involved in local clubs and associations which have a Japan connection. He is legal counsel for Kiyukai Vancouver Japanese Business Association and the Japan-Canada Chamber of Commerce (JCCOC). He is past president of the JCCOC, Tonari Gumi Japanese Community Volunteers Association, and the Vancouver Mokuyokai Society. He is presently a director of the Japanese Canadian Citizens' Association of Greater Vancouver.
Thi Tran
Theatre and Film Performer
Thi was born in Edmonton, Alberta to Vietnamese refugee parents and in 1983 moved with her mom and sister to Vancouver. Thi is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia where she received her BA Theatre Degree. While at UBC, she performed in The Water Station and explorations of Ten Nights of Dream , lead and directed by Colleen Lanki, both of which explored Japanese aesthetics and principles of silence, stillness, and 'negative' space. She currently attends School Creative where she studies acting with Linda Darlow and Henry Mah. Thi has been working on films, commercials, and print for the past three years: War (2007), Ribbon (2006). She has also appeared in the Vancouver Fringe Festival in Vancouver Asian Canadian TheatreÕs production of Bondage by Asian-American writer David Henry Hwang. She is incredibly excited to be involved with the Tomoe Arts Society and is looking forward to deepening her understanding as well as promoting the Japanese artistic aesthetics and principles she was first introduced to while at UBC.
