Background
Shigematsu was born in London, England in 1971. His father was from Kagoshima, Japan, and his mother was from Osaka, Japan. He grew up in surrey, Vancouver, British Columbia, with four siblings, and studied in Montreal.
Shigematsu was born in London, England in 1971. His father was from Kagoshima, Japan, and his mother was from Osaka, Japan. He grew up in surrey, Vancouver, British Columbia, with four siblings, and studied in Montreal.
The show completed its final episode on November 4, 2005. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University.
He was the final host of Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio One"s former afternoon series The Roundup, where he replaced Bill Richardson in 2004, making him the first visible minority to host a daily network radio program in Canada. Prior to working for Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio, he was a writer for the Canadian television show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. He is currently a writer for The Huffington Post, and the president of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre.
His family emigrated to Canada in 1974.
In 1991, at the age of 19, Shigematsu became the youngest playwright to compete in the history of the Quebec Drama Festival. From 1993 to 1996, Shigematsu wrote and performed his one-man show Rising Son in Montreal, Boston, Los Angeles, and Tokyo.
In 1994, Tetsuro studied poetry with Allen Ginsberg. He then spent the following two years in Japan, where he studied Butoh dance with the founding master, Kazu Ohno in Yokohama, Japan.
In 1996, he starred with George Takei, (Star Trek"s Sulu) in the television movie Rinko The Best Bad Thing, based upon the novel by Yoshiko Uchida.
During that same year, Tetsuro began hosting the Montreal Asian Heritage Festival. In 1997, he created and produced three episodes of Louisiana Louisiana Pan-Asia, a half-hour television show showcasing Asian youth culture. In 1998 he was awarded Canada Council grant to write a new play, The Moons of Tokyo.
In 1999, Shigematsu was invited to be artist-in-residence at Technoboro, an artist-run media laboratory
In 2007, Shigematsu completed his feature film debut Yellow Fellas, which he wrote & directed. In 2009, Shigematsu appeared in Episode 2 of the television series Deadliest Warrior, as one of the experts for the Samurai team
In 2010, he returned for the Deadliest Warrior "Back for Blood" special, a transition from season one to season two, pitting the winning warriors from season one against one another. In 2011, Shigematsu gave a TEDx talk called The Awesomeness of Your Contradictions.
In 2011, Shigematsu began his Doctor of Philosophy within the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia.
He conducts research on social media, with a focus on the rising visibility of diasporic Asians on YouTube, for which he was named a Vanier scholar. In 2012, Shigematsu began writing for The Huffington Post. He speaks English, French, Japanese, and Persian.