If a building represented Tatsu Aoki’s life, it would look like the Asian Improv Arts Midwest dojo, on Elston Avenue.

After years of renting space from the Japanese American Service Committee, AIRMW has had its own space since 2023, the recipient of pandemic-era grant programs. The main rehearsal and event space now hosts organizations dedicated to learning taiko, Japanese classical dance, and shamisen, the silk-stringed, long-necked lute. A side room holds the CD inventory of Asian Improv Records, a label founded by AIRMW’s partner organization in San Francisco, the first Asian Improv Arts. Another houses analog film equipment: Aoki moved to Chicago to study film at the School of the Art Institute, where he now teaches.

Avant-garde film and music continue to be parallel paths for the Ja

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