Documentary Filmmaker
La Jolla, California
larryasakawa [at] gmail [dot] com

Larry Asakawa is an Emmy Award-winning, documentary filmmaker and a Co-Director of the San Diego/Tijuana DANCEonFILM Festival. His unique professional experience as a former modern dancer in Southern California and as a marine ecologist (Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego State University Foundation and Lockheed Oceanographic Division) eventually led to documentary filmmaking, an integrative universe that synergizes arts, science and technology rather than separates them.

Asakawa received formal industry training through Sony Digital Filmmaking, Kodak Master Class Series and the PBS Producers Academy at WGBH in Boston. His work has been supported by grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts/COMBO, PBS, San Diego Community Foundation, San Diego Port Commission, City of San Diego, City of Yokohama, Center for World Music and numerous other government agencies and foundations.

His documentary works range from Brothers in the Wind, an early exploration of Southern California Harley-Davidson biker culture, to nature documentaries such as Whales of the North Pacific and River Stories. Asakawa also collaborates with dance companies, choreographers, musicians, visual artists and writers, and his work has taken him around the world from Tbilisi Georgia and Russia, to Brazil, Japan and China.

Most recently Asakawa has been collaborating with ethnomusicologist and UCSD neuroscience researcher, Alex Khalil, working on how to best utilize digital filmmaking techniques for communicating the complex harmonics and ancient spiritual traditions of Byzantine chanting. They are also analyzing ways to use digital filmmaking to experientially transmit three thousand years of non-physical subtle energy embodied in classical Chinese guqin music and performance.