A professional musician in the Son Jarocho genre, a laudero (stringed instrument maker) and an instructor. Active liaison between communities in the US and Veracruz Mexico via Radio Jarochelo a community-based podcast started in 2010 (now live on public radio), and through organizing and promoting cultural projects, artist residencies with musicians from Veracruz, and events in local communities, cultural centers, schools, universities, in California state prisons, Tarima y Tambor and Tlalixcoyan.

Cesar has vast knowledge and experience in the Son Jarocho/Fandango traditional art forms to engage disenfranchised communities in building self-sustaining projects that tap into and build upon cultural knowledge, embodied experience and memory.

Website: www.jarochelo.com

Follow @Jarochelo IG, YT & FB.

Songwriter, dance and theater artist, and founder and now Legacy Artist of Great Leap.

In 1986 Nobuko began creating songs and dances for Obon, the Japanese Buddhist tradition of ancestor remembrance, danced by thousands in yearlyfestivals. This led to the creation in 2014 of FandangObon - Eco-Arts Festival. In 2021, her album 120,000 Stories (Smithsonian Folkways) and memoir Not Yo’ Butterfly (UC Press) were published. The documentary: "Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song In Movement" will be released in November on PBS So Cal. 

Follow @nobukomiyamoto_

Martha Gonzalez is a Chicana artivista (artist/activist) musician, feminist music theorist and Associate Professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at Scripps/Claremont College. Gonzalez along with her partner Quetzal Flores has been instrumental in catalyzing the transnational dialogue between Chicanx/Latinx communities in the U.S and Jarocho communities in Veracruz, Mexico and have been active in implementing the collective songwriting method in correctional facilities throughout the U.S.

Learn more marthagonzalez.net.

Follow @marthartivista

Maceo Hernandez has been performing taiko for 39 years. At the age of 16 he began performing with world renowned Taiko group from Japan, “Ondekoza”. In 1993 he was the subject of John Esaki’s award-winning documentary, “Maceo Hernandez: Demon Drummer from East L.A.”

Maceo currently leads “East LA Taiko”, the director of the “Taiko Center of Los Angeles”, and the Artistic Director of the Terasaki Budokan’s performing group “J-Town Taiko Club”

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Nancy Sekizawa aka “Atomic Nancy” Family owner of the Atomic Cafe. First Japanese American singer w/Hiroshima age 16. Choir member with First AME Church 2001-2020. DJ’s 45 vinyl records from the legendary juke the Atomic Café. Performed with Nobuko Miyamoto’s Great Leap since 1980. Supports JAS (JTown Action in Solidarity) in Little Tokyo. Addiction Specialist & Drug and Alcohol counselor for 38 years with Asian American Drug Abuse Program.

Carla Vega is a multi-disciplinary performing artist, sings in Nobuko Miyamoto’s band “Mottanai”, and has collaborated with GreatLeap.org for over 15 years. Some recent projects: Carla recurs as “Tana Lee” on “CROSS” on Prime, and is the narrator of award-winning audiobook thriller “Things We Do in the Dark”. Currently splitting her time between LA & SF, Carla is a member of the Belonging Resident Company, Cali & Co., and Playground-LA & SF. Carla believes in the power of the arts to touch the heart of our humanity, inspire a deeper connection with our personal stories & ancestries, heal, ignite compassion, and create positive social change.   

Latest projects: linktr.ee/iamcarlavega

Follow: @iamcarlavega

Chie Saito is a performance artist and educator based in Los Angeles and Japan and has been part of FandangObon since 2019. She is a movement faculty and directs performances at LACC Theatre Academy. Chie believes bringing awareness of the body and mind will also awaken the awareness of the effect of oneself on society.

Follow @sasayaki_productions 

Though officially formed in 2015, the members of Le Ballet Dembaya have been drumming and dancing together since early childhood. Their parents were among the first generation in Los Angeles to study, practice, and celebrate djembe traditions. Raised as brothers and sisters within this drum and dance community, they often gathered to practice West African rhythms and movement—unaware they would one day form Le Ballet Dembaya. The group’s name, meaning “the dance of the family” in the Soussou language of Guinea, reflects their sibling-like bond, honors their parents and elders, and pays tribute to their ancestors, whom they celebrate each time they perform. Le Ballet Dembaya uses this art form as a tool for education, healing, and empowerment in Los Angeles and beyond.

Learn more @ leballetdembaya.com

Follow @leballetdembaya

Quetzal Flores is the founder of the eponymous Grammy® Award winning (2013 Bet Latin Pop, Rock or Album) East LA Chican@ rock group and co-creator of FandangObon's BAMBUTSU theme song. The musical ensemble is influenced by an East LA rock soundscape composed of Mexican ranchera, son jarocho, cumbia, salsa, rock, R&B, folk, and fusions of international musics. During the past two decades, the musical force of Quetzal has created a unique cultural platform that has sounded against conditions of oppression and marginalization. As a culture producer he has remained tied to sharing information with young people through projects with LAUSD's Migrant Education Program at Second Street Elementary School in Boyle Heights Quetzal has worked with the Aliance for California Traditional Art and more recently East Los Angeles Community Corporation.

Ofelia Rivera Esparza @ofrenda1 is a Chicana artist, altarista (altar maker) and educator from East Los Angeles. She is a sixth generation altar maker and is recognized for her work with Self Help Graphics & Art (SHG), specifically for her community ofrendas (altars/shrines) for Dia de Los Muertos. 

Rosanna Esparza Ahrens @sannazan Rosanna is a Chicana, installation and graphic artist, born and raised in East L.A. She and her siblings, represent the 7th generation of altaristas (altar makers) a traditional practice passed down from her mother, Ofelia Esparza and all the maternal grandmothers from Huanimaro, Guanajuato, MX. Rosanna has worked and created side-by-side with her mother as a Master Altarista for Día de Los Muertos ofrendas (altars) since 2001 and has exhibit at several museums.

Learn more @ https://www.tonallistudio.com/about

Rubén Funkáhuatl Guevara is the subject of the KCET/ PBS SoCal arts and culture program, Artbound, which premiered Con Safos, a documentary based on six decades of his work as a Chicano culture sculptor in music, record production, performance art/ theater, and literature. It was nominated for an Emmy and won two local and two national broadcast journalism awards. (“Lively and inspiring” -LA Times, 2021). He co-conceived and co-directed Sacred Moon Songs, a performance theater piece with Nobuko Miyamoto in 2004, and has collaborated with Great Leap’s cross-cultural festival, FandangObon, as a poet since 2012. His memoir, Confessions Of A Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer, (UC Press), was a finalist for the 2019 International Latino Book Awards for Best Autobiography in English. In 2023, he collaborated with Klee Jones Benally, (Rest in Peace) a noted Diné musician, poet, and radical activist, in a cross-cultural, Diné, Xikanx performance art theater piece, Tzonteyōtl Na’ Ach’ Aah’ / Resistance Art at the ArtX Festival in occupied Flagstaff, Arizona. His second book, Funkáhuatl Speaks: L.A. Stories, Poems, and Memorias, will be published in the fall, 2025

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A taiko drummer and dancer. She is a co-founder of SHIN3, a group that performs taiko storytelling, music, and dance to foster appreciation of Japanese culture. Elaine works as a kindergarten teacher at the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. Trained in Japanese folk dance, she is also a dance leader, who provides coordination and instruction for Southern California bon odori festivals. She has worked with Nobuko Miyamoto to choreograph several new pieces of repertoire.

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Shamisen player, dancer, and writer. A fourth-generation Japanese American Canadian from Vancouver, he grew up in Seattle, Maryland, New Jersey, and now Los Angeles. He is the co-curator for a free public art series, Tuesday Night Café, in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo neighborhood, and a member of the dance crew Ninjas for Social Justice.

Follow @seanmiura

Family duo leading hadrah and songs of the Sufi tradition. Imam Kamau Ayubbi (AR) and daughter Asiyah Ayubbi (AR) have presented the tradition of spiritual spinning of the Naqsbandi Sufi Order Whirling Dervishes during 2017 FandangObon, as well as have added their voices to the FO repertoire. A Sufi artist, poet, conga-lover, Kamau works as a chaplain at the University of Michigan Hospital. He is trained in spiritual care and guided meditations. Kamau grew up in a family of artists (Nobuko Miyamoto is his mother.) and activists and as such as maintained a very artistic and spiritual identity.

BIMAK is an acronym for the hilltribes of Northern Cordillera region of the Philippines (Benguet, Ifugao, Mountain Province, Apayao, Abra, and Kalinga), collectively known as "Igorots" meaning people of the mountains.

BIMAK seeks to promote the arts, culture, and traditions of the Igorot people and provide a community of social support and resources for indigenous peoples in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

Traci Kato-Kiriyama (they+she; based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles) --author of Navigating With(out) Instruments (Writ Large Press)-- is an award-winning multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, community organizer, and audiobook narrator. As a storyteller and Artivist, tkk is grounded in collaborative process, collective self-determination, and art+community as intrinsically tied and a critical means toward connection and healing. She is a performer & principal writer of PULLproject Ensemble, two-time NET recipient; NEFA 2021-22 awardee for their show TALES OF CLAMOR. tkk —presented in hundreds of venues for over 25 years as a writer, actor, poet, speaker, guest lecturer, facilitator, Artist-in-Residence, and organizing / arts & culture consultant— has come to appreciate a wildly hybrid career (presenters incl. LaMaMa Cabaret; The Smithsonian; Skirball Cultural Center; EnWave Theatre; The Getty; Hammer Museum; Grand Performances; Whisky a Go Go; Hotel Cafe; House Of Blues; and countless universities, arts spaces, and community centers across the country). Their writing, commentary, and work is also featured in a wide swath of media and print publications (incl. NPR; PBS; C-SPAN; Los Angeles Review of Books; Elle.com; Entropy; Chaparral Canyon Press; Tia Chucha Press; Bamboo Ridge Press; Heyday Books; Regent Press; Temple University Press).