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Supported by the Center for Japanese Studies and the Department of German at UC Berkeley, I will be in residency in Hachiouji for my study of my generational maternal family house, at Nokogirini (Hiramatsu weaving factory) in Ichinomiya in preparation for my solo exhibition in 2025, in Berlin, and in Singapore for my war and peace listening project, during the summer of 2024.
I look forward to my involvement and collaboration at the Listening Biennial in Berlin to be held September 3-7 2024.
Duo performance with Kanoko Nishi-Smith on koto at West Oakland Sound Series on September 15 2024.
Performance at Kühlspot Social Club in Berlin on July 21 2024.
OPERA: SITE will be presented on May 29 at Judson Memorial Church in NYC. I will perform as a part of the members of this project with Luc/Lucie Vítková. This project was first premiered at Roulette Intermedium in November 2023.
I will present a solo work 息 at the Hertz Hall at UC Berkeley and Cal Performances upon the occasion of Eco Concert on May 9 2024.
息 (sounding: いきiki) (meaning: breath or breathing)
The character is written as self and heart.
I was born in this country because my father was working for a paper company. It was in 2022 when I first started performing with paper. Since then, it has become a swaying membrane, betweenness of the surface and what may be beneath it. Since I grew up however, paper for me has been about trees, as my father was dealing with wood chips. Delicate paper such as 表皮 is made of skins of trees. My father, an introvert, was always traveling for business, but I knew his expertise was paper and trees. He would be proud if he knew that I perform with paper.
I have somehow connected deeply with trees and nature and animals since childhood. As a transnational person, nature gives me a sense of belonging, and that idea gives me strength. I am now reminded that I breathe because of trees.
I will premiere my new work Floating Tree for Del Sol Quartet (Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Benjamin Kreith, Charlton Lee, Kathryn Bates), performing with the members, on April 27 2024 at 8pm at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. Seeing one coyote on the Angel Island became my inspiration. Her voice might have been silenced, but a floating tree might be looking at us.
Her soft hair on her cheek
out of her tears
flies twinkling seeds
toward fluffy new leaves
on a tree in a field where the ocean can be seen
Her cheek plants seeds on the leaves
putting soil on them
watering them
The cheek plants seeds
Her legs fall down
In the land of the dream
One bird
In nothingness
She
lays an empty body
on the sand
The wind blows through her body
Insects crawl on her body
Insects lay their eggs in her body
The moths fly out of her body
Empty vessel
only nails grow
to touch a bird
Eyelashes
are feathers
Special thanks to my Asian American creative writing community led by writer Fae Myenne Ng where I nurtured stories.
I will present a new solo work Okaiko (Silkworm) at Center for Japanese Studies at UC Berkeley on April 10 2024. A talk and Q&A will follow the performance, moderated by Professors Marié Abe (Music, UC Berkeley) and Andrew Leong (English, UC Berkeley). I will perform as a silkworm, voicing muted sounds.
I will collaborate with Balinese dancer Cok Pring in Bali, Indonesia, to create our new performance (March 25-March 31). We will explore masks, story, body, and voice, respecting traditions and creating a new art idea. The performance will be presented at Sanghas Puri Saraswati on March 29 2024.
Shades of Edge is a new work and continuing collaboration of poetic exploration by performer-composer Aine Nakamura and visual artist Olivia Ting. They have each shared their stories about their respective physical experiences apart from the able-bodied, through assistive hearing devices, surgeries/treatments and recovery. The present state becomes a constant negotiation between the before and after conditions of the body. The use of mask, paper, and fabrics have allowed the artists to retreat from surface boundaries and connect with depth of undefined selves to open a space.
Sound and sight and touch become facets of the reality of our bodies and experience. There are many explanations and understanding of a truth. Senses together reveal a rich and thoughtful embodiment of our existence. Seeing becomes hearing becomes voicing becomes touching becomes listening... becoming feeling.
The show will premiere on March 9 2024 at The Lab in SF, sharing the night with Viola Yip.