Judy Mitoma ’70, M.A. ’75

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Judy Mitoma '70, M.A. '75 is friendly and poised, but her restless hands betray a dancer's energy. She quietly folds and unfolds them, as if punctuating her passion as she discusses dance and the many UCLA undergraduate students she works with on a daily basis. Aside from her hands, Mitoma is gracefully still as she explains – composed and genial in her responses – how she became a professor of dance and UCLA and helped create her unique position as the director of the Center for Intercultural Performance (CIP). In her department's office, tucked beneath the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, posters, pictures and a general hodgepodge of cultural artifacts surround Mitoma as she describes her department's and CIP's distinctive activities, from a traveling theater to a city-wide cultural celebration. UCLA's flexibility and unique location, poised at the intersection of many world cultures, allows Mitoma to study, teach and explore interests far afield from most academics.

“This is the only place in the world that could support a person like me, my international interests, my interests in diversity of American culture, and my interests in performing arts,” Mitoma says. “These are things that don't converge much in higher education – this is the one place.”

Through her work in UCLA World Arts and Cultures (WAC) department, Mitoma is able to instill her passion for cultural performance to other students and colleagues. Although she is often busy with her many duties as the CIP director, Mitoma sees the role of teacher as equally important. Ultimately, though, Mitoma says that the students are most important.

“Our principal contribution is to give the individual opportunities to have engagement and exchange with other artists. We teach individuals, person by person. We try to help empower them by giving them access to information and ideas.”

One way students encounter these new ideas is through the various performers and presentations that Mitoma seeks out and brings to Westwood. Noting a strong networking system she has developed with various people across the world, Mitoma proudly explains that the best contemporary and traditional performers are coming to UCLA to teach WAC students in master classes.

Mitoma's excitement reflects her lifelong passion for music, dance and cross-cultural interaction, which she hopes to imbue in her students. Long before enrolling at UCLA as one of the University's first undergraduate dance majors, Mitoma felt closely connected to performance and movement. As a third generation Japanese American, Mitoma affectionately recalls childhood performances, dancing in the Buddhist celebration Bon-Odori during Japanese summer festivals. These memories helped established Mitoma's probing interest in melding various cultural ideas into newly created art.

The dancer-turned-director's efforts to her field have paid off. Recently awarded a $1.25 million grant from the Ford Foundation, Mitoma is making sure that the money will be used to develop UCLA's already renowned dance program. Distributed equally over five years, the endowment will support many of the endeavors Mitoma has planned for the constantly expanding department. After more than seven years of working closely with the Ford Foundation to help further the outreach of CIP, Mitoma said her department was specifically asked to apply for the grant funding. Thrilled by the grant award, Mitoma is determined to make the funding last. CIP has begun an ambitious fund-raising campaign, with a goal to match the Ford Foundation's contribution.

“It's a major campaign to develop an endowment that would encourage international exchange,” Mitoma says. “This will bring international scholars and artists to UCLA and encourage creativity, collaboration, and the developing of new work.”

The first round of funding helped sponsor a touring theater troupe. A collaborative effort between UCLA and some of the leading performers in various Asian countries, the 11-member group called The Art of Rice Traveling Theater was an exemplary opportunity for the world beyond Westwood to see CIP in action. The theater, which was in Los Angeles in September, includes everything from Chinese opera to tabla music to modern dance in a one-of-a-kind performance that Mitoma describes as a mixing of cultures. As for the title of the project, Mitoma points out both the cultural significance of rice to many cultures, as well as the universality of the product.

“Rice is often associated with agriculture, a spirit world, and ecological concerns – it's not just something you buy in the supermarket,” Mitoma says. “And what's beautiful about the project is people come with different understandings and values associated with rice and we're all learning from each other, and then were creating something collectively that brings out the power of each persons knowledge.”

Another offshoot of CIP that will be greatly enhanced by the Ford Foundation's award is the World Festival of Sacred Music. The next festival, which takes place every three years, is scheduled to take place in the summer of 2005. The cultural celebration includes music and dance from all over the world. A two-week festival of cultural performances that take place all over Los Angeles, Mitoma says the World Festival, which was opened by the Dalai Lama in 1999, is both one of the most daunting projects she has undertaken, as well as one of the most uplifting.

“It's all about stepping forward and making something happen – not because someone told you to and not because someone is paying you for it,” Mitoma says glowingly. “We have to find the right balance and pace. Three years feels about right. It takes a year to recover, a year to find the money and a year to plan and do it.”

As UCLA continues to develop, with the aid of both donations and the Ford Foundation's award, one of the country's leading cross-cultural dance programs, Mitoma's outlook for the department's future is promising. Ideally, she sees the work being done through CIP as a springboard for universities and performers throughout the world.

“I'm hoping that the measure of success is imitation,” Mitoma says. “If other people start doing what we do at UCLA, that would be so great. Obviously CIP needs to be a partner to this campus. We want to contribute to this campus. We want people to know that, like in the sciences, they have a research lab; this is our research lab for international exchange in the performing arts and we want it to thrive.”