MANIFESTO [FOR CONCRETE POETRY]

Co-directed by Richard Hamasaki, Jody Stillwater, and Sebastian Galasso, our experimental film MANIFESTO [FOR CONCRETE POETRY] features the late Wayne Kaumualii Westlake''s 3-page poem that was displayed as a vinyl wall display during the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022 at the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum, now Capitol Modern. Forty years ago, on February 16, 1984, Westlake (1947-1984) died when an allegedly drunk driver t-boned his car en route to his house in Volcano, Hawai''i. He was 36 years old. Our film honors Westlake by juxtaposing concrete poetry, underwater text / images, choreography / movement, and some artificial intelligence sequences accentuated by an original soundscape of music, voices, and effects featuring poets Richard Hamasaki, Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng, Anjoli Roy, with voices in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Taiwanese Cantonese by avant-garde dancer/choreographer/teacher Pei-Ling Kao and renowned composer and musician JunYi Chow — with outro music by producer and composer Kai Hamasaki @khamasaki @_droptopmusic_