About Tea Ceremony with Pacific Plastics

Associate Professor

Theater & Performance Studies

Michelle Liu Carriger, PhD has been studying the Urasenke tradition of chado (“tea ceremony”) since 1999, in various locations including Los Angeles, Colorado, Kansas, Boston, London, and in Kyoto during a yearlong Midorikai fellowship at the Urasenke Gakuen Professional College of Chado. She holds a second degree Urasenke teaching license and chamei (tea name) “Somi.”

Additionally, she researches and writes academically on tea practice and theory and spent two years in rural Ehime prefecture, Japan, studying in the Omotesenke lineage.

Project Architect

Hiro Chemers is a nascent designer and architect based in Los Angeles, California. His approach to architecture and design is materials-centric and positioned with a macro view of the built environment. By using vernacular architecture as a lens to present novel, high-performance, and sustainable materials, he hopes to participate in a sea change in the field of design and construction. The goal is to welcome the next generation of buildings and products that mesh seamlessly with the natural environment.  

Multidisciplinary Artist and Filmmaker 

Aldo Schwartz is a San Francisco-born writer, artist, and filmmaker, currently living between California and Japan.

Raised by a Swiss mother, American father, and Japanese stepmother, cross-cultural exchange and translation play a central role in his life and artistic practice. 

Aldo has lived on both sides of the Pacific, making art and building community in three languages (English, Spanish, and Japanese) through the mediums of photography, film, and haiku.

As a teenager, Aldo was introduced to Japanese tea ceremony by his stepmother and quickly became an avid practitioner. While studying film at UCLA, Aldo founded UTeaLA — a student organization devoted to the study and practice of chanoyu – which was featured on CBS News LA for AAPI+ Heritage Month.

Alongside Tea Ceremony with Pacific Plastics, Aldo is leading an international group of filmmakers and scholars to establish a film festival and host documentary workshops in the Seto Inland Sea.

Kaoru started to practice Chanoyu at the age of 10 and has been practicing in various tea schools including Urasenke, Omotesenke, and Edosenke. In 2014, before graduating from Sophia University, she founded Nippon Collection (link: https://www.nipponcollection.com/ ) to explore spirituality and lifestyles that are unique to Japan.After working in business consulting in Tokyo, she earned a master's degree in Marketing & Technology from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2020. From 2021, she is working on developing a business ZESSEE (link: https://www.zessee.com/ ) curating Japanese art in Los Angeles while pursuing a master's degree in East Asian Studies at UCLA. 

Ph.D. Candidate, Theater & Performance Studies

Elizabeth Schiffler is a PhD candidate at UCLA in Theater and Performance Studies, with a graduate certificate in Food Studies. 

She teaches in food and sustainability at UCLA, and is a part-time faculty at The New School. Her research focuses on contemporary performance that uses food in and as performance, and the ecological effects of thinking about food as an art. Working with food historically, artistically, and ecologically, she works with policymakers, nonprofits, and foodtech companies to contextualize and critically engage with food. 

She has given talks at UCLA and ASU, and has contributed to Theatre Journal, Food, Culture & Society, and the Graduate Journal for Food Studies. She is the 2022 recipient of the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Fellowship at UCLA, and a Global Food Initiative Fellow for the University of California Office of the President.

MFA Student, Film

Merry May Ma is a second-year MFA Directing student at UCLA. Based in Los Angeles, she is a queer woman filmmaker originally from Shanghai, China. 

Though she fights with a physical disability that may turn her into a subject of a film, she revels in becoming a writer/director/editor herself and captures the strength of human will and beautiful minds across the globe. The essence of her filmmaking voice and style is to recreate all these tiny meaningful moments in her works that showcase the diverse beauty of living, breathing, feeling and loving experiences. 

As a wild dreamer and a playful artist with immense imagination, she has written, directed, and edited 29+ short films and videos featuring unheard voices and unsung heroes. Due to her artistic achievement and commitment, she was awarded the Mary Pickford Award and the Motion Picture Association of America Award. And her works have premiered at the Asian Film Festival Los Angeles, St. Louis Filmmakers’ Showcase, and beyond. For a glimpse into her captivating body of work, visit https://vimeo.com/merrymayma and embark on a journey through the unique and thought-provoking stories she has brought to life.

During spare time, she loves drawing, painting, biking, swimming, meditating, reading, cooking, talking to friends one-on-one, going to the movies, and hosting screenings and mixers for more like-minded souls to mingle. 

 Jacob Blum is a materials engineer working to advance sustainability through the reclamation and repurposing of existing materials. He is interested in how advances in science and technology translate into new ways of sustainable living. His approach to engineering a more sustainable future centers on green infrastructure and strategies for the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and systems. Jacob was born and raised in San Francisco before moving to LA to attend UCLA where he graduated from in 2023 with a degree in materials engineering. He was introduced to Japanese culture through his grandmother who lived in Japan for several years during the post-war period. His first travels outside of the US were to Japan where he was introduced to Tea as a teenager. When not working on the Tea Ceremony with Pacific Plastics, Jacob is focused on developing sustainable concrete for 3D printing renewable energy infrastructure components. 

Student Research + Media Intern

Tyler Neufeld is a third-year undergrad theater major at UCLA. He is concentrating in playwriting and scenic design, and is excited for how those two passions can intersect in the future!

Last fall for UCLA’s new Bruin Fringe Fest, he wrote and directed a one-act called The Great Specific Garbage Catch. This show focused on the theatricality of activism, examines the line between performative activism and performance activism, and questions whether one person can ever truly make a difference. The set consisted of a single large ring of found and gathered plastics, and saturated color lighting was used to highlight the main performer (Kathryn Steenburgh)’s switches between character and human being. 

Tyler is looking forward to the evolution of his exploration of theater and the environment this quarter both through this research position and through Theater 113 - Thinking Planet Earth in Theatre and Performance Studies. 

In his free time, Tyler does stand-up comedy, works on short film sets, and leads the Playwrights Circle as the Development Director of Untitled Theatre Company. 

Yuko, originally from Japan, is a first-year undergraduate student at UCLA, majoring in Design Media Arts with a focus in graphic design.  With a passion for visual storytelling, Yuko has contributed to projects across artistic disciplines – including theater, film, photography, animation, illustration, and design. Prior to university, she excelled as a stage manager, set designer, and prop designer for musicals and plays. Yuko has worked as an Art PA and Set dresser on UCLA MFA film productions, and she currently serves as lead graphic designer for TFT’s annual API Film Night. Outside of the stage and screen, Yuko is a prolific artist, whose commitment to environmental conservation was recognized through an award-winning entry in a Japanese climate art competition. With a diverse skill set and passion, Yuko continues to work in the field of design and visual arts and strives to make a meaningful impact through art.