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Fumi Okiji and Ben Davis
Open Fell
Saturday, July 11, 2026 | 4pm
Location: Slash (1150 25th St, San Francisco)
Press Release (Hyungtae Kim)
Fumi Okiji is an improvisor and vocalist. The uneasy marriage of lyric and free improvisation, ballad’s quiet predictability alongside the hazard and caprice of extemporized form, continues to orient her music-making. She uses her voice, sometimes extended through audio processing, to share songs, standards, prose and improvised ideas. Okiji is Associate Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, working across black study, critical theory, and sound and music studies; her most recent book is Billie’s Bent Elbow (Stanford University Press, 2025).
Ben Davis is a cellist and improvisor who made his name in the London jazz scene—leading his Mercury-nominated group Basquiat Strings, collaborating with Ingrid Laubrock, Julia Biel and other F-IRE collective members, and playing with Evan Parker, Django Bates and Wadada Leo Smith—before moving to the US in 2016. Since then he has developed a distinctive voice in free improvisation, collaborating with Bay Area musicians including Chris Brown, Zeena Parkins, Ben Goldberg and Myra Melford.
Hyungtae Kim is a poet based in New York, NY. He writes about hesitation and black art.