Joyce Yuriko Cole

Joyce Yuriko Cole was born December 25,1952 in Denver, Colorado. Her parents moved to the Five Points neighborhood in Denver after their time at Heart Mountain incarceration site in Wyoming during World War II, and they were originally from the Los Angeles area. Joyce and her siblings attended Columbine Elementary, Cole Junior High and Manual High School in the 50s and 60s, and she graduated in 1970 during the Black Panther, Viva La Raza, Martin Luther King era. She became an actress and dancer, and though roles for Asians were limited, began working full time as a musical theater performer and choreographer. She worked for the Colorado Music Hall, Eugene's Dinner theater and the Actor's Company produced by Robert Garner. She faced a great deal of adversity being typecast into roles and facing racial prejudice throughout her career.

Joyce eventually became a teacher and she and her husband also supported missions to places overseas like Kazakhstan and South Africa to provide support for children and adults in need. She taught dance for Denver's Model Cities project as well as offered free dance instruction for children and adults in Aurora at the Vineyard. She has also choreographed and performed for the past eleven years with Broadway to Africa, a fundraiser which supports young leaders in Africa and the Middle East. 

Most recently, she helped to devise a role in the immersive theater production ZOTTO: A Supernatural Japanese Folktale in Sakura Square. She depicted ‘Obachan’ a grandmother who died while living at Amache incarceration camp in Colorado who visits a liminal world between space and time to help guide her granddaughter, Yuri, through her trauma and heartbreak from WWII incarceration, and to help heal Yuri’s relationship with her own granddaughter, Miya. Following each performance, Joyce bravely shared her personal family history of incarceration and vulnerably told audiences about the generational trauma she experienced and the sordid relationship she had with her parents during Denver re-settlement. 

Joyce’s incomparable talent as a storyteller and heart-centered openness with audiences provided context for all to consider what kind of ancestors they would like to be for future generations, and left a deep and lasting impression on everyone she encountered. She is inspiring to people of all ages, and has a deep care for the arts and for cultivating space for AAPI women to have theatrical and artistic voices.

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