In April 2025, I was fortunate to be selected to present my work as part of the Candy Box Dance Festival at the Southern Theater.
I Was There to Be Here reflects on the passage of time since leaving our hometowns and the ongoing search for “home.” Drawing from all the places I’ve called “home,” from Tokyo to Minneapolis, I explore how memory shapes identity. It’s a moving dialogue between my past self and present self, weaving belonging into the body I inhabit today.
The piece was inspired by my experience returning home in 2023—the first time since COVID-19 began. The hometown I once lived in, and even the language I used to speak every day, suddenly felt foreign. That moment of estrangement made me think deeply about the passage of time. I revisited childhood photographs and the physical habits shaped by each place I’ve lived. These memories surfaced as textures in the movement—small gestures, fragments of soundscape, postural tendencies, and rhythms I had unconsciously carried with me. The process became an excavation of how the body archives time, revealing what I’ve held onto and what I’ve outgrown.
In the rehearsal process, my duet partner, Rachel Holmes, and I spent time discussing memories, our relationships with the past, and how those histories mirror who we are in the present. We talked about how time grows out of the past while continually shifting and moving forward. We brought various props into the studio to visualize imagined conversations between our present and past selves. The two benches became a door, a bridge, and a landmark of life. The piles of rocks and eight buckets with internal lights represented the emotional temperature and texture of different memories. We treated the studio as a site of remembering, and these practices allowed us to build a movement language that felt intimate, porous, and always in conversation with change.
Presenting I Was There to Be Here within Candy Box gave me space to explore the concept more fully and allowed the piece to keep evolving. This felt true to the theme of “home” as something fluid rather than fixed. I was surprised by how many people had different interpretations of our relationship—seeing Rachel and me as friends, sisters, or reflections of one another—and yet how many resonated with the larger journey of seeking. I realized the work was not only about my own story but also about the universal feeling of being shaped by the places and people we move through.
This project is part of my ongoing investigation into cultural hybridity and the body as a living archive. I Was There to Be Here continues to push me to ask deeper questions about how we carry history, displacement, and belonging within our bones, and how movement can reveal what words cannot.
The leaves have colored bright red and oranges and started falling off from the tree. It signifies the year has been 3/4 down and two months left of 2024. It seems like yesterday was just a hot summer day and now I feel a little cold wind that passes my face. Time flies so fast.
I wanted to write down my experience in working with theater production for the first time in my life! Strangely, my undergraduate program was very connected with Musical theater majors, but I never dreamt of being on the Broadway stage. I do love singing and dancing. Yet I have never had an idea of me standing on the theatre stage. Therefore, I never thought I would be involved in Theater production.
During the couple past of weeks of August and September, I had a wonderful opportunity to choreograph the musical production, Cabaret. I knew the production because I have danced to some of Bob Fosse’s repertoire and I performed in “Mein Herr” as an excerpt dance number. The story is centered around Kit Kat club singer, Sally Bowles and a young enthusiastic writer Clifford in Berlin during the 1930s. It depicts the arousal of political tensions and racial problems and showcases the complex sexual orientations and gender roles, questions what life is … to sum it up, Cabaret is not a happy story.
As a choreographer, I researched many documentation of previous Cabaret productions, watched the film that Bob Fosse directed, and went to Berlin to see Cabaret production to fully understand what this production is about. At first, I was terrified. I pondered what would required for students to perform as club dancers safely. How do I prioritize the comfortability of some sexual expression while creating safety in dancers’ bodies? Some dance numbers were very challenging, dealing with race, sex, and politics.
In my rehearsal, I always started checking in with the dancers’ bodies. We circled up and asked how they felt today, and where in their body they felt okay or not good to be seen and touched. They scanned from head to toe, gesturing “yes” or “no” to everyone in the circle so that we all know. I also asked dancers to consent every time if some choreographic choices have some sexual expressions. It helped them feel secure and allowed them to speak up about their choices and comfort.
Another pressure was time constraints. I had only six days of three hours of rehearsal to finish seven dance numbers! The very little amount of time to teach the choreography and ready to set them on stage was a drastic difference from how I choreograph dance works or films. Thankfully I had a great dance captain who could clean and polish after these intense 6 days of setting the choreography. Transitioning from the dance studio to the actual stage was also another beast. Not only working with the limitation of the size of the stage but also entering, and exiting with stairs or dancing on the different levels were challenging. I asked dancers to trust their artistic choices on the stage and fully immerse in their characters. The performance is the art of being therefore whatever they do I leave the choices up to the dancers.
Photo by Corrie Eggimann
Overall, it was fruitful to see my contribution to the production plus witnessing choreography and dancers’ performances enhance the shows. The cast of Cabret was full of talented actors and I really admired their dedication to the performance. The show ran for two weeks from October 3rd to October 13th. There is always something I can learn new things every semester I am teaching at MNSU. In the future, I hope to integrate my learning and teaching in different disciplines in the performing arts.
This month, I entered the 28th cycle of the sun. The year of 27th, I had a drastic change in my life. I encountered a new environment, people, responsibilities, and opportunities. It’s almost like the universe shifted underneath where I was standing. In the unknown current of the ocean, I was trying to find the calm wave to put myself together.
Entering 2024, There were many fresh experiences. I was fortunate to find the support and exciting opportunities. Started to feel the tide and let it flow inside of me.
In January, I performed my solo, “The Discipline Body” at Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis. I was a part of the work-in-progress sharing called “Tiger Balm.” This was my first time sharing my work in the Minnesota dance community, which was super exciting! “The Discipline Body” examines how one’s culture shapes the body to regulate one’s behavior in public space. It is inspired by the Japanese educational system that teaches students to behave “appropriately.” This performance was an autobiographic reflection of unfolding the embodiment of the education system through my body. The great thing about the showing was the feedback session. I was able to hear from the audience their sensations and questions that arose from viewing.
This is the video recording from Tiger Balms (work-in-progress sharing) at Red Eye Theater, Minneapolis MN.
Another experience I valued was participating in the ACDA (American College Dance Alliance) in the North Central region. This year was held in St.Olf College. I taught Introduction to Dance Film, which introduces students to dance-making from different angles and viewpoints by using the camera. Instant composition was a fruitful experience to see students’ creativity and playfulness. Also, I brought my dance piece from the Fall Faculty Concert, “Can I See You on the Other Side.” Calling the lighting cue and watching my choreography from the lighting booth was a new experience for me. Overall, it was a great opportunity to introduce myself to the regional institutions, and seeing students learning, performing, and connecting with the dance community was a treat to me as a dance educator.
Concluding the academic year of 2023-2024, we had “Carmina Burana” to celebrate the new departure as the Performing Arts Department of Minnesota State University Mankato. “Carmina Burana” is composed by Carl Orff, inspired by Latin songs of the circle of life. We fused live dance, chorus, and orchestra. I participated in this huge production as a choreographer. Embodying the strong introduction of this opera was very exciting and scary at the same time. I normally don’t work with classical music, so generating the materials was based on the theme and story of the opera, which was a fun experience to collaborate with my talented students. Also, composing the movement ideas into the big casts was a good challenge for me. I had 19 casts in one section, and moving the stage with that amount of movers was spectacular. It was quite an experience to work with live musicians and singers as well as theater technicians to put on this production. I am looking forward to having more collaboration beyond the disciplines in the future.
Photo: Dan Norman
Without the huge wave hitting at me, I am centering myself during the summer. More fresh experiences to come in the future. To prepare for the new wave, I am practicing letting go of judgment, expectations, and assumptions, and starting the conversation with open-ended questions. How to allow myself to be always open and available to the world? This is a difficult task, but I would like to practice every day. I am welcoming the new circle of life.
It’s already at the end the end of the year 2023. What a year of CHANGE! Since graduation, my life has hugely shifted. I felt like I almost lived two lives in a year, the first half as a graduate student and the other half as a dance faculty.
After I graduated from Ohio State University in May, I moved to Mankato, Minnesota, where I started as an assistant professor in Dance at the Department of Performing Arts. Learning new theater and dance department ecosystem, adjusting the new school schedule as a faculty, adopting the cold Minnesota weather… All happened in less than five months. It was a huge learning curve to be an instructor of college-level movement courses with various students, not only dance major students but also Theater students and dance minor students with different movement backgrounds. I aim to offer a class where students can feel safe to be curious, explore, and deeply listen to their bodies and internal desire to dance. Ultimately, I want my students to look forward to taking classes. I wanted to write it down here to remind myself of the future -Where I started and what dance educator I want to strive to become.
Photos from the Fall Dance Concert 2023
I also would like to mention some of the choreographic projects I participated in this year. I was honored to be chosen as a dance artist to perform outside of the school system. Yujie Chen and I performed “Motion of Seeing” at the Detroit Dance City Festival in September. This piece we created was the second iteration of “Body Negative” and it expanded the idea of mobility in seeing the performance. I also deepened my choreography to think about how BIPOC artists deal with cultural representation. We received the National Exchange Award. Even though I am still in search of my artistic voice, such rewarding to share and recognize dance works that My collaborator and I put the effort into.
Photos from the performance, “Motion of Seeing” at the Detroit Dance City Festival
Another chance that I could explore my artistry was through dance filmmaking. I was fortunate to be part of the project, Dance for Diversity. Dance for Diversity was founded by Elizabeth Roskph and envisioned to amplify visibility and create a platform for BIPOC Artists to center their unique voices and their stories through their art while fostering a place of belonging and reclamation of their true identities. I had the privilege to collaborate with the videographer, Rachel Malhorn. I had an idea of visualizing in-betweenness that I experienced as a first-generation immigrant. I wanted to showcase the acknowledging upbringing and how we adopted, changed, and merged our living experiences in different cultures to live in the U.S. For 4 months, we had great communication back and forth to discuss creative direction. We filmed all the materials in Milwaukee WI in 2 days and assembled the film. The level of understanding and trust made us create a dance film, 藍 (Ai).
Photos from Dance for Diversity, at the Film Series Premiere
I want to conclude this post with appreciation and hope. The job and many choreographic projects that I participated in were extensions of what have learned and inserted in working with during my graduate time. This year gave me confidence and autonomy in what I want to do. I hope to expand and grow more in 2024.
It has been a while since I present my thesis project. However, I would like to reflect before I move on to the next stage of my life. My thesis project, “we carry to depart” was premiered in February 2023 at Barnett Theater at the Ohio State University. The creative process took me almost a year and a half to complete. The journey felt really long but super short at the same time.
My research interests started from a simple question, “How do we define ourselves?” There is a past that shaped us that reflects who we are yet it will not define who we are. For example, I grew up in Tokyo, Japan. The fact that I was born and lived there constitutes how I see the world in a certain way. However, it does not mean that it 100% defines a current me, who studied dance in the U.S. for 7 years and has absorbed various cultures. It is part of who I am.
As a dance artist, during this whole three years of the MFA program, I was in the endeavor of looking for “who truly I am” and what is my “authentic” artistic voice that represents Yukina Sato. I came to the graduate program straight from the bachelor program. It is a rare pathway for people pursuing a career as a dancer. However, this opportunity gave me a place and time to test, fail, explore, and seek what I really want to do.
The key term here is authenticity.I viewed and investigated myself from both outside and inside. From the external point of view, I questioned how I am perceived by others. What community do I belong to? How society defines people in categories, called identity. From the internal view, I asked what shaped me into who I am. Is it the people around me, the space I live in, my nationality, or my body?
Also, dance is tangible but intangible in a way. It requires the physical ability and duration of time to describe intangible things. Always battling with time and ideas. If you exist in the dance industry where so many people have tried and executed various amazing ideas and creative approaches, what you can do? What makes you absolutely unique? How you are in conversation with the past, current, and future?
The thing never changes where I go, and who I am interacted with, are my mind and body. The accumulative experience and memories are stored in the mind and they are unfolded by the body. How do we unpack this complexity of self through body movement? For me, the process of accumulating was unconscious. Therefore, it took me a long time to unfold them.
In my second year, I focused on my present self and created the practice of “body-doodling.” Every day, I took time only 1-2mins to log the location, time, and sensation. And I created a short phrase inspired by the daily record. So if you do it for 7 days, it creates 7 phrases. The practice of dailiness of making and tuning into my mind and body. One example was
Shaky legs Hugging the void Pacing fast Lost the sound of shoes Scared to go out in the lights I wasn’t full
Then I also invited 5 dancers with me to try the same exercise. My interest was to examine the various perspective on archiving themselves every day. Also, questioned how to log ourselves daily to trace the change consciously.
This practice informed me to move on to the next step. During the daily log, the most impactful part for me was where I reside in my body. If I was laying on the grass or sitting on the dining chair… where my body created very different sensations, emotions, and thoughts. It could be I would be in the space because I had to do so and so that day, however even though I did have control over my schedule, my body was affected by the “space”.
I have talked a lot about “space” in the last blog post. For my thesis project, I focused on the physical space such as a classroom, a city, and a living room in the house. Especially I deeply searched the location I grew up. In December 2022, I had a chance to be able to back to my hometown after three years since COVID-19 hit. I felt the hometown was no longer what I remembered. Everything looked, heard, and sensed new to me. I visited many places that were memorable to me and videotaped the locations. Also, I recorded many soundscapes. These files created a distinct outline of the piece.
In the last year of my MFA program, I was super fortunate to have 6 dancers with me to play and experiment together. Some dancers had been working with me for two years! They were willing to be with me ups and downs. I was immobile due to my knee surgery in Autumn 2022, so it was really difficult to know exactly what I want during the rehearsal time. I asked dancers to try many prompts and improvisations. I sometimes lost in experiments or composition, not liking what I suggest, finding interesting movements, or back to scratch. (*I don’t think not many artists don’t disclose how rough the creative process can be — Just a thought…)
The piece starts at the train station. There is a video of a train departing playing in roop in the background. A dancer, Aya Venet sits on the bench, waiting for the train. “ガタン、ゴトン…(the sound of the train moving)” Then the backdrop video infuses more video clips at the stations and crossing in Tokyo while more dancers start to walking across the stage. When all five dancers sit on tiny benches, there start pushing each other to claim their own spot on the tiny bench. Transitioning the train station to my hometown, where many waves of people walk directly to their destination. The kinetic energy of urban life was embodied by five dancers through simple walking back and forth between two benches. The synchronous sound of feet, non-stop walking back and forth, and direct and intense focus was formed by the walk.
A dancer, Yitong Chen disturbed this established system by walking across the dancers. Yitong’s movement sparks on the stage, shouting “1, 2, 3, 4!” and transferring their energy to others. All the movement was extracted from the so-called box phrase. The number 1,2,3,4 is the surfaces or directions of dancers’ orientation on the stage. And specific number is in relation to specific memories with family members. Their movement becomes bigger and travels across the stage. More spreading their range of movement and suddenly a dancer, Rani Bawa, who only keeps walking shouts the frustration, “AHHHHHHHHH!!!” The frustration comes out from being alienated from the group. This section represents how people establish the system and the reality of whether some can adopt it and or not. Her shout transitions the scene to the physical space created by two benches, representing Japan and the U.S. Dancers leap over and push and pull them, and the distance between benches gets closer and closer and makes them blend into one long bench. Then, dancers transform benches and create many different spaces such as a slider at the schoolyard, a hiking trail, a dining table in the kitchen, and lastly a small closet, where I hid many internal emotions, trauma, and thoughts.
Coming out of the closet segways to my solo. I travel across diagnose from the left corner to the right corner. Each movement represents specific life events and memories from the day I landed in Oklahoma till the current moment. When I reached the right corner, two dancers, Kara Philoon and Aya Venet enter the stage. Their duet consists of many weight shifts. They represent the relationship between mother and daughter. The mother supports the daughter but eventually, the daughter has to leave the mother and move forward without her. I incorporated my experience of recovering from a knee injury as a method of slowing myself down to reflect on my relationship with people around me and myself. The rock music start kicks in and as the duet finishing, I am blasting the energy on the stage. Throw my body out, kicks and turn, flipping my arms around… it is the internal pain and acceptance of what I become. The dancers observed me from a distance on the stage. I slow down the movement to take out the knee pads and give a piece of them to each dancer. The knee pad stands for my shed skin, a part of my body. I give a piece of myself to my dancers as members of the collective identity we created throughout the piece.
The last unison showcases my movement vocabulary which consists of influence by six dancers and what I have been trained and learned. It is a mixture of the past and the embodiment of the current self. And all dancers drifted away from the right corner to the left corner leaving me alone on the stage. They carry each other to leave me behind. The last scene cites the very beginning. I stand in the same spot that Aya was sitting down and rephrase her movement in different ways how we create the space and how I leave the past behind, how I carry forward and depart to the new chapter of my life.
This piece is the creative process and archive at the same time. I feel like it made me realize the power of dance-making and how I want to embody my vision as a member of the human race.
I am always fascinated by black and white photography. The simplicity of color yet provokes the imagination of what scenery looks and feels. I cannot deny my mother’s influence. In our living room, wherever we move to, she always hangs two black and white photographs on the wall. I am always fascinated by black and white photography. The simplicity of color yet provokes the imagination of what scenery looks and feels. I cannot deny my mother’s influence. In our living room, wherever we move to, she always hangs two black and white photographs on the wall. These photographs are taken by Ansel Adams. Very detailed, slow-shatter speed, high contrast photographs show the beauty of nature.
Oak Tree in Snow
Moonrise, Hernandez
In our world lives in, we prioritize speed. How quickly we can get to the goal, or achieve the results, find the fastest way to be successful… This semester, one of my favorite courses I am taking is the Darkroom photography course. The process of developing film photography in the darkroom teaches me howslow and delicate the process will assist in making the best result.
To see what you take in a film camera, start with developing the film roll to the negatives. Usually, the process takes 20-30 minutes. It required constant agitating with chemicals, almost like soothing the baby. The delicateness and slow porcess make a magic. There is one time, when I tried to develop the negatives by class time, I rushed the process and destroyed them… If negatives don’t develop well, all data turned out all black and will not restore the image. Also, it is impossible to recreate the moment you snap a photo. It gives you not only the sallow but the sense of loss. Same as human memories. We forget and lose someone, something, or some events in our life if we do not imprint them in our brains or recall them. These memories will vanish in the dark.
Correctly developed negatives
My damaged negative… so sad
After finishing making negatives, it’s time to make the prints. In the darkroom, use an enlarger to light up one negative on a printing paper. It requires experimenting with the duration of exposure time to get the preferred tone of color. The longer exposure to the light, the darker the color gets. Similar to human skin. After lighting up the negative on the paper, the print goes through 3 chemicals; developers, stop-bath, and fix. Sink it in each chemical tray for a couple of minutes with constant agitation. Finally, after all the processes, you are out of the darkroom and able to see the result.
Rehearsal process on film photography
The pictures above are the moments from my rehearsal. I documented when dancers talked about their stories about their memorable objects. Looking at the prints, no matter how much movement inside the frame, they exist at the exact moment when I snap the camera. It’s almost like the camera froze the time. The sense of time is totally different in film photography compared to photos on the digital camera or on the phone. I see this difference as the magic of being analog. This analog technology makes time tangible. It is interesting how humans create film photography to capture the fragment of time. We have a desire to conserve the time slipping through us. And for me, using analog technology such as film photography gives me an opportunity to re-think the definition of time and understand the meaning of documentation. Going through all the processes with many hours to print one frame of negative is more meaningful than an instant snap by the phone.
The last year of my MFA journey started this Monday. Time flies so fast. I cannot believe that it has been already 2 years studying at Ohio State University.
What has changed?
There has been a huge shift in my dance career. I injured my knee over the summer and I cannot fully capable of dancing by end of this year. The first thing I learned was how to rest by sensing and managing the pain. The second thing I re-learned was how to walk. Walking is like breathing in daily life so I have never paid attention to my bones and muscle that are utilized in walking. This injury made me feel like I was aging back to be a baby, which is very refreshing and I appreciate more about the human body more. It also drew my attention to somatic movement practice such as Bartenieff Fundamentals (which I am excited to teach this Fall 2022). The surgery was successful and after 9 weeks of surgery, I can walk without crutches and climb stairs without pain.
1st week after the surgery
Through this recovery journey, I had to ask myself,
“Why do I want to keep dancing?
First of all, I came too far to stop my dance journey. If I may speak bluntly, I am very stubborn so I don’t want to quit. I came to the U.S., finished my B.F.A. in Dance Performance, and I am here in Columbus to wrap up my Master’s degree in DANCE! Dance has always been in my life and no matter what I decided to live a life with dance. Dance is my priority, love, passion, and something I see myself can contribute to the world.
Dance is an underestimated subject if you are in school, underestimated career if you work as a dancer, and underestimated research topic if you are in academia. Not many people understand how much we dedicate our effort, labor, and time to use dance to challenge the world.
Even though the dance population is huge, the people who use dance as a lifestyle are very few. I am fortunate to be surrounded by people who dance with their life. In my last year as a dance student as OSU, I will prepare to go out to the world and make a community of dancers who create change beyond borders and cultures.
Yukina Sato 