Japanese

Space Making Workshop 11/18

Research Project

At the beginning of 2022, I started to reach out to many Japanese female dance artists in the United States. Because, over these 7 years of staying in the U.S., I realized how important to understand my upbringing in terms of refining a relationship with my cultural identity and dance-making. Therefore, I looked for someone who shares a similar background as me and is able to tell the struggles and success stories with me.

When I came to the undergraduate program in Oklahoma, I was the only international student, Asian student in the department. I was super visible and aware of my skin, body, and how I move. Regardless of the visibility of my ethnicity, I had never met anybody who immigrated from Japan and pursued a career as a dance maker. I also started to figure out that I have the ability to sense and understand the choreographer’s mind. For me, dancing to someone’s choreography is some kind of translation and also a transformation of myself to be their voice. On the other hand, dance-making is embodying my own creative voice. It was more difficult to process than translation. I felt I needed some assistance in understanding what is my creative voice, and how to polish it.

The generous artists named, Ayako Kato (Chicago IL) and Nami Yamamoto (NYC, NY) are willing to share the stories of their careers in dance-making in the United States. They are born and raised in Japan, and at some point in their life, they came to the U.S. and decided to stay here in the U.S. to pursue dance-making. Their decision itself is super brave to me but also they have been actively making work. Nami is awarded by Bessie Award in 2017 for her work, “Headless wolf” and Ayako just completed her performance series Ethos started in October 2022.

Photo: Nami Yamamoto (Left) and Ayako Kato (Right)

I communicated with them over 5 months about the idea of hosting a workshop to connect us as well as share their story in a public space. We named as “Space Making Workshop” to invite people to experience Nami and Ayako’s dance practice and have a conversation with them.

I organized the “Space Making Workshop” in November 2022 at the Ohio State University. Both artists traveled to Columbus for the first time on November 17th. The workshop was at the Barnett Theater from 3 to 5 PM. Nami started to make us move. She brings us to a circle and shifts weight from one leg to the other. Looking at each other, sensing each other’s weight. Naturally, we were smiling at each other. Nami incorporates puppetry in her work. She and I made the puppet on the site, and we offer participants to try puppetry. In Japanese puppetry, Bunraku is usually three puppeteer move one puppet. It’s coordination, communication, and storytelling. Next, following Ayako telling Japanese philosophy, Furyu (Wind and flow). Back to the circle, opened both arms, and breathe together. Found a partner and slowly improvised with music. 

After all the movement sessions, we formed the circle at the Barnett Theater. I asked them prior to the workshop, What events/What things/who did shape them. It was so interesting to hear about their upbringing; what was important and affected them being who they are. As I write above, I felt my cultural identity always come forward more than myself. I was always grappling with authenticity and cultural representation. What does it mean to be an “Asian”, “East Asian”, or “Japanese” woman? I was curious to hear about their journey to think about the intersection between cultural identity and dance-making. Ayako is externally expressive about her choreographic inspiration which is based on the Japanese philosophy, Furyu while Nami doesn’t mention “Japanese culture” in her work. However, the way Nami communicated with dancers and how she utilized the space between dancers and movement phrases are informed by her college time in Ehime, Japan. No matter how much explicit their Japanese upbringing, both said “I am proudly being a Japanese woman making a dance work in the United States.”

During these intense two days, I spent a wonderful time sharing my and their story of struggles and successes. Moved and shared the space. Even though we were born and raised in different times and places, this workshop made a space for us to gather here, in Columbus, Ohio. Currently, we were working on a solo collaboration that I am going to share at the MFA thesis project showing on February 16th-18th 2023. Each artist oversees my work and creates the solo together with me over zoom and in-person studio rehearsal. I am excited to share our work at the end of my journey in the MFA program at Ohio State University.

Stay tuned!

Performance information is here -> https://dance.osu.edu/events/mfa-concert-0

Reflection of Transcendence -時を超えて- 4/16/2022

Performance, Research Project

I have been searching for who I am as an artist. And getting into the beginning stage of my thesis, I pondered the experience of being a Japanese female contemporary artist in the United States. I have my own unique experience of how did I arrive at this point in my life. However, I was curious to hear the story of precedents.

Over this spring semester, I have researched one Japanese female contemporary artist, Saeko Ichinohe. Saeko Ichinohe came to the U.S. in 1968 and since then she performed/choreographed/taught dance as a cultural exchange experience. She was inspired by Japanese culture, philosophy, poems, and literature. She was well-known for bridging Western concert dance and Nihon Buyoh (Japanese traditional dance). She passed away in 2021 though I was fortunate to access her choreography through Labanotation. I chose “Chidori” because she notated the choreography by herself in 1972. I wanted to know her movement pattern through how she notates.

I asked for help with reading scores from Dr. Williams and my cohort, Forrest Hershey. We met two times a week to read and move our bodies to connect with Ms.Ichinohe kinesthetically. She emphasized the location and direction of the weight. Weight drives the movement the most and clearly draws the space between two dancers. “Chidori” is a love story between a fisherman and a bird, so I imagined that she has a specific instruction to deliver this story.

I wanted to know more about her artistic journey outside of notation score. I have researched her online yet there were only a few materials available. Then I found out that there are a couple of her personal archives are stored at New York Public Library. So, I decided to go to New York City in March to trace her footsteps. At the library, I watched many video recordings and read her artistic statements, CV, company record, and choreography notes. All the materials help me to understand her deeper than it used to be. Also, I visited all the locations she filed as her company locations and performance venues. Even though our paths did not cross, through her archives I could know her and her passion deeply. Sharing the same space where she practiced, performed, and choreographed was meaningful to me. I summarize my research journey on Saeko Ichinohe in a short documentary film.

Tracing her footsteps made me think about how I want to proceed with my career as a contemporary performing artist. Ms.Ichinohe made the most of her Japanese upbringing and integrated it with her primary dance training; ballet, and modern dance. I have a similar background in former movement practice as her. Although, I have a huge resistance to being perceived to be unique because of my cultural heritage. I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan where I can encounter many people visit from around the world. And since I came to the United States in 2016, I have absorbed multiple cultures into my body. However, I cannot get rid of the labels such as “female”, “East Asian,” and “Japanese” from my body. When I stand on the stage my body speaks out louder than who I am. Therefore, dancing serves me how to free myself from the labels. How I can challenge my audience to see my authenticity that is coded in the movements that I create. This question was the start of my solo practice.

The research journey concluded on 4/16 performance “Transcendence -時を超えて-” with amazing collaborators, Columbus Koto Ensemble/ Forrest Hershey/ Yujie Chen. I also have huge thanks to Dr. Williams, the Institute of Japanese Studies, and the Center for Ethnic Studies to make this performance happen.

What’s next?

What does it sound to you? -Japanese project-

Choreography Workshop

Over the quarantine, I have started teaching Japanese online. And it was so interesting that while I am teaching the language, I relearned how to speak my mother tongue and realized the significance of the language. This experience inspired me to corporate my mother tongue and dance.

So I have a concept in my mind that “what if the dancers heard their own story in a foreign language, what movement comes out?.” It was on Friday, after the Choreography Workshop, walking the aisle with John Cartwright, Ishmael Konney, and Quianna Simpson. I asked them if they were interested in working with my concept. Fortunately, they said YES! So we started meeting on Thursday afternoon to rehearse.

At first, I asked all of them to write a paragraph of their self-introduction. I translated the texts into Japanese and recorded them. Dancers danced with their own biography, which they could guess what I was talking about, yet it was hard for them to fully understand. Quianna shared that she recognized some words such as”African dance” but she was influenced mostly by the rhythm of speaking. Also, John mentioned that it was dancing in between familiar from and unfamiliar. Next step, I asked them to dance with other’s bio which they have no clue what I was talking about. Ishmael shared that he was inspired by the speed of my speaking and almost echoing with his body. Dancers were definitely hard to react to speaking voice with unknown topics since no connection nor inspiration to their movement. What they react was the sound, rhythm, tone, speed I made. It was a great discovery to me since I was seeking an authentic reaction from dancers to the foreign language.

So we ended up using their biography with my speaking to generate the basic phrase. In the first version of this project, I was a narrator and started speaking Quianna’s story, then John’s and Ishmael’s at the end. The person who was spoken one’s bio leads the movement and others echoing. It was a clear structure of displaying how dancers embody the sound of Japanese.

Although, we received feedback about I and dancers’ relationship as well as an objective of this project. We discussed one more time to clarified the intention of this project and landed on offering a foreign experience to the audience but also showing the visceral level of communication. Also, we decided to not separating me from their narrative. I added on my story to move together as well as bringing back idea, authentic reaction; dancers react to what I spoke without knowing the content. We revised the movements, and space usage as well.

Over this process, we re-defined the fundamental of communication by using verbal and non-verbal tools able to understand, interact, respond to each other. Once Quianna shared that we seemed like creating harmony by bodies, which was a beautiful way to describe our creative journey and indeed it was a deep and interesting process. I would like to continue experimenting to combine my mother tongue in my work.

What is my significance in dance?

Research Project

In Dance Film 1, Professor Mitchell Rose said “there is nothing new in this world.” I was shocked! But it is so true that something human has been expressing either by films or music or dance is the same theme over and over again. We as humans are facing the same theme of life, but experience it in our own way. Also, he said, “but there is only you in this world” which means I can have the original viewpoint which no one can have. This encourages me to find uniqueness within me instead of looking outside and comparing what I am lacking. Since the beginning of this semester, I have been thinking about what I can bring to the dance community at Ohio State University. So, my interest is I would like to comprehend my artistry deeper and it is evolved into my first research topic, understanding self-identity.


I am hoping to learn self-identity by investigating Japanese heritage and the life experiences that I earned through the travels. First, I would like to reveal the relationship between dance and Japanese culture by seeking the answers to so many questions that I have not solved yet. Such as how Japanese people embody their culture through dancing, what movement is defined as “Japanese-ness,” and what makes me push to study contemporary dance abroad. Also, I am very curious about foreign experiences in the body, locations, relationships, and lifespan and what makes people decide to stay or leave from there. Foreign experience is always part of me where I go and I have been wanting to unpack my emotion and thoughts through migration from Japan to the U.S. And I am focusing on Issei, who born in Japan and immigrated to different countries, performing artists specifically. It is because one, I might be a possibility to become one of them, but two, it would be great to bring objectivity in my research. I would like to investigate the artists’ hybridity of cultural identity as in how they have been creating their “home” at the new place, people, culture while keeping their roots, customs, and tradition at the same time.

The second is the nature of communication. I have noticed that word selection is very sensitive especially in an academic setting. Verbalizing is a huge influence on creating meaning, culture, mannerism. Even though dance is called non-verbal communication, it has different movement vocabularies in different dance genres. Over the quarantine, I started tutoring Japanese to kids to the graduate students. And I have noticed the similarities between teaching language and teaching dance. In dance class, everyone brings a different language through their bodies. It is like everybody speaks a different language. So, I am interested in how I as a teacher can strip off the specificity of terminology and able to communicate on a visceral level. My goal is generating a way to hybrid the cultures brought by everyone in the classroom and to create one dance language to speak as a whole class. In order to reach this goal, I would like to synchronize my study in Japanese (as language) and dance pedagogy. By establishing the common dance language will help to unite the people beyond the borders in the future education setting.

I am still on the stage of brainstorming yet, getting clear each day. I am very excited to work on my research project! Please let me know if you know about the resources related to the research topics on comment below. I appreciated any comments, suggestions, and ideas:) Thank you!