The Great Zodiac Animal Race: Yoshinojo Fujima &Tom Lee
January 17th, 2025
3rd Friday Open Admissions Night| Puppetry | Dance
On January 17th, the Heritage Museum of Asian Art hosted a magical evening of puppetry and dance in a collaborative performance by Tom Lee and Yoshinojo Fujima, aka Rika Lin, as a part of our 3rd Friday Open Admissions Night! Following the guided tour, guests were able to experience Tom Lee's signature show, The Great Zodiac Animal Race, as well as Yoshinojo Fujima's elegant Fujima-style (藤間流 Fujima-ryū) dance throughout the corners of our marvelous collection.
In a beautiful merging of their respective performances, Yoshinojo Fujima and Tom Lee worked together, allowing for guests of all ages to experience a unique retelling of the classic Lunar New Year Zodiac Tale with animals inspired by Asian languages and pictograms. From swaying fans to captivating paper-cut projections of silhouetted zodiac animals, the performance created an immersive journey through art and storytelling.
This performance was designed to say a final goodbye to the 2024 Year of the Dragon and the welcome in the 2025 Year of the Snake! Greatly appreciating the vast history of Asia and its centuries old mythological tales, attendees were left with a renewed view of ancient traditions.
Credit: Performed by Tom Lee and Yoshinojo Fujima / Music by Tatsu Aoki, Jamie Kempkers and Rami Atassi / Puppets designed by Chicago Puppet Studio: Jaerin Son, KT Shivak and Mark Blashford / Special thanks to Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, La MaMa Experimental Theater, Blair Thomas, Denise Greber, Federico Restrepo, Averly Sheltraw
About the Artist
Yoshinojo Fujima, aka Rika Lin
Yoshinojo Fujima (aka Rika Lin) is an interdisciplinary artist, dancemaker, and Grandmaster in Fujima-style Japanese classical dance and is part of the postwar Japanese American diaspora. Her process and art springs forth from the complete immersion in traditional practice and then ‘sonar pings’ as questions, challenges, and then fireworks into a coalesced impression. She has performed her original works and as part of many collaborations at Links Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Pritzker Pavilion, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), where she premiered her full length work Asobi: Playing within Time in 2018.
To learn more about Yoshinojo Fujima, visit her website here!
About the Artist
Tom Lee
Tom Lee is a puppet artist, designer and director based in Chicago. He began his career at La MaMa in New York. He is a student of Japanese master puppeteer Koryū Nishikawa V with whom he created Shank’s Mare (2015) and Akutagawa (2023). In addition to his original work for puppet theatre, his performances include War Horse (Broadway), Florencia en el Amazonas & Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera) and The Queen of Spades (Lyric Opera Chicago). He is co-director of the Chicago Puppet Studio and Chicago Puppet Lab.
To learn more about Tom Lee, visit his website here!
