voice, body, stories, composition/improvisation, performance/theater art, interdisciplinary art
What formal details do I choose or not choose? What grammar do I create or not create? What do I listen to? I pursue sensibility and spirituality as my aesthetics through a focus on the nuanced potentialities of my voice and weaving of multiple. My voice is of and with my body. I am song itself.
I produce a sonic and visual space through my performance of voice and body. I focus on orality—nuanced possibilities of my voice from my moving body. I cross boundaries within and outside of my body, defying traditional power structures that preclude new ways of feelings. I give thoughts to the sound of the snow outside the window, a song inside body, and memories at site. I listen to inner, the space across the wall, silence, temporality of the insects’ singing, recovery, and then the unknown. Based on concepts, site-specificity, time-transcending stories, personal ethnography, and research, and through my time- and site-specific presence, I weave shapes and stories. I transform myself from a cicada to an old man, from an infant to water, from a storyteller to a flower petal. Wearable and objects change their shapes and become calligraphy, connector of delicate stories, or building for transformation. My voice and body seek a borderless state of being, and respect the depth of undefined selves. I am a medium in addition to me being in body, for multiple, and space for feelings.
I was born in Pacific Northwest where the rain was beautiful, and grew up in two countries of the U.S. and then mainly Japan. I remember seeing nature and animals. Instead of belongingness to a certain group, a sense that I am a being of this universe supported me. I seek transborder art. Gender politics and experiences of surgeries affected my embracing of body and woman artist consciousness. Upon my relocation from Japan back to the U.S., I started to acknowledge my transnational complexity and ambiguity, and my self, which cannot be told simply through one disciplinary or cultural frame. I learned to generate my art form. While nurturing my spiritual, artistic and intellectual space, gradually, my aim has developed into a shared space for beings in a new art I investigate.
My recent works include my solo performance of sung and spoken voice and body Under an Unnamed Flower during an invitation to the 50th International Theatre Festival at the Venice Biennale (Jun 26-Jul 3, 2022), which focused on war, weaving, silk, mourning and mending, gestures and objects connecting the multiple; solo performance project Circle hasu We plant seeds in the spring of mountains, which I presented at Theatertreffen at Berliner Festspiele upon an invitation as a Stückemarkt artist (May 11-15, 2022) after its premiere at the Gallatin Galleries (Jul 16-Aug 13, 2021), focused on time-transcending healing and nature as I recovered from a surgery and from hatred in the rhythm of season change; solo abstract arts Yami and Iro I premiered at Berlin University of the Arts (March 2 2023) and Kusottare! (December 4, 2022) at The LAB, focused on authorship in storytelling of body through my performance with paper and poems, which would change their shapes in poetic and unexpected ways; and an audiovisual performance Cicada premiered at Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (May 7 2023) in collaboration with visual artist Olivia Ting and sound technologist Luke Dzwonczyk, focused on unfolding stories and physical experiences outdoors and exploration of renewal through projections on membranes, movement, and spatialized voice.
I have presented my other performance, media and mixed artworks at HfM Hanns Eisler Berlin, Errant Sound in collaboration with Brandon LaBelle, A Concert of Electronic Music in honor of Mario Davidovsky, Dias de Música Electroacústica, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, compositions at New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival performed with cellist Madeleine Shapiro, October New Music Festival in Finland performed with Mikro Ensemblen, Abrons Arts Center with International Contemporary Ensemble, DiMenna Center for Classical Music for Bent Duo at the APNM Concert, and CNMAT for bassist Richard Worn. My other appearances include The Two directed by Dmitry Krymov (New York Theater Workshop project), and OPERA Ensemble at the Watermill Center and OPERA: SITE at Roulette with Lucie Vítková and the ensemble. I am an awardee of the Venice Biennale 2022 Site-Specific Performance Grant, the Fulbright Fellowship in the arts affiliated with Berlin University of the Arts and Humboldt University of Berlin (2021-2022, Berlin), The Leo Bronstein Homage Award from New York University for my MA Studies (My Art of Voice and Body), and The Honorable Mention Award for the 2020 Pauline Oliveros New Genre Prize. I have given workshops and talks at Berliner Festspiele, University of Pittsburgh, McGill Schulich School of Music, Humboldt University of Berlin, and Meiji University.
Aine E. Nakamura, with the piece she presented from her transborder project, Under an Unnamed Flower, by virtue of a melodic use of the voice, of an original process of deconstructing and reconstructing language, of freeform figurations and three-dimensional words that without prejudice reach across the boundaries of Theatre, Dance and Music, bouncing us within a poetic vortex of light, that spills forth visions, dreams, memories, colours and feelings, catapults us – while maintaining an uninterrupted relationship with her personal past, her family and one of her countries Japan – into a Present that is highly ambivalent and complex, in which the dramatic events of History, such as wars, the violence of invasions, the uprooting and loss of one’s personal land, intertwine with the breath of her rarefied and enigmatic narrations, implacably becoming entangled in her private life as an exile, as a wanderer who pleas for non-violence and quiet resistance.
Intimately connected to her château intérieur and the surrounding spiritual world, her ashen face appearing historiated by the snow, Aine E. Nakamura, as an unnamed flower that lives at the site in the wind, her legs and arms constantly moving for the accuracy of the Ritual, her nimble eyes scrutinising contemporary society, her ears collecting the stories that spin through the airwaves as an antidote to oblivion, in a symbiotic relationship with Nature (plants, animals, earth) and Humanity in its entirety, absorbing their every mood, listens to their voices which she then relaunches in a peacefully “revolutionary” way, reclaiming the emotional universes that each of us carries within.
As she thus moves away from the routine courses of performance and the conventional modulations of sound in the western tradition, with an enthralling plurilingualism unfettered from the obligations of reality, Aine E. Nakamura morphs into a sort of hypnotic pied piper who, behind her apparent childlike awe, leaves us spellbound – like one of those creatures in a fairy – talking in soft tones of things that she actually steadfastly disapproves of, and refusing, even when the darkness forces its way like a spectral beast into the labyrinth of existence, the unavoidability of compromise and objecting to the oppressive social coercion of the political pigsty.
- Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte, Venice Biennale 2022 Site-Specific Performance
Its intense vulnerability and the beautiful layering of voices—distant, close, together with [her] movements, flowing was very moving.
- Annea Lockwood
Circle Hasu evokes in me a deep need and desire for a geopoetical sensibility that emphasizes care and repair. Acts of recovery held together by the delicate bonding of voice, body, and memories voiding otherness. - Ogutu Muraya
Circle Hasu We plant seeds in the spring of mountains” she impressively switches between her Japanese and American identity. In fact the cultural split of the two identities is constitutional for her minimalistic, contemplative yet intense performance on stage. It is astonishing how deep the simple lines of her storytelling took us into the alienations of an Asian woman in New York. And the elegance of her choreography up into the tips of her fingers provide a glimpse into the rich traditions of Japanese dance. Along with her short performative interventions, Aine Nakamura transformed the space in front of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele into a sacral landscape in which every detail suddenly became important and a little stone was valued equally to a vulnerable and fragile living existence. - Laudatory speech Stückemarkt by Thomas Frank, Marleen Ilg, Enrico Lübbe (Schauspiel Leipzig)
Ongoing & Future Projects
○new work in collaboration with Douglas R. Ewart and Mat Muntz at Pillsbury House Theatre. January 27 2024, Minneapolis
○new work Shades of Edge in collaboration with Olivia Ting. Mar 9 2024, The LAB, SF
○collaborative project with Balinese dancer and singer Cok Pring. March 23-31, 2024, Bali Indonesia
○solo performance Okaiko, Center for Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley, April 10 2024, Berkeley CA
○composition for Del Sol Quartet April 27 2024, Berkeley CA
○new solo work, Hertz Hall May 2024, Berkeley CA
○OPERA: SITE at Judson Memorial Church May 29 2024, NYC
Selective Performances & Presentations
○OPERA: SITE with Lucie/Luc Vítková and the ensemble at Roulette, NYC / 2023.11.16
○boundtogether in collaboration with Bent Duo at Brick Aux, Brooklyn / 2023.11.15
○Silkworm, performance of voice, body, fixed media, and paper at the 2023 Larnaca Biennale, Larnaca, Cyprus / 2023.10
○Honehitotsu, solo performance of voice, body, and masks created by Keiko Miyamori upon exhibition Me, The Timeless Self - within the Umwelt by Keiko Miyamori at
○Cicada, collaborative show with visual artist Olivia Ting at Center for New Music and Audio Technologies / 2023.5.7
○mystery in itself, work for Richard Worn, bass and fixed media, at Center for New Music and Audio Technologies / 2023.4.24
○but will always find, its freespace, work for Bent Duo, APNM Concert at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music / 2023.4.17
○"Aine Nakamura & Srayamurtikanti" solo, Oni no namida, and collaborative performance with Sraya MurtiKanti at Center for New Music San Francisco / 2023.3.24
○Yami and Iro 闇と色, solo performance of voice, body, paper, cloth and visual at Musiktheaterabend at UdK (Berlin University of the Arts) / 2023.3.2
○New Year's renewal solo performance of voice, body and found objects at Spectrum, Brooklyn / 2023.1.6
○Kusottare! solo performance of voice, body, objects and video at THE LAB, Sound Encounters III, SFCMP & CNMAT San Francisco / 2022.12.4
○Under an Unnamed Flower at La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale) - Biennale Teatro Site-Specific Performance / 2022 6.26-7.3
○Ohajiki and pink shoes, Medientheater at Humboldt University of Berlin & Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum Library / 2022 7.7-12
○Circle hasu We plant seeds in the spring of mountains at Berliner Festspiele 2022 Theatertreffen - Stückemarkt / 2022.5.11-15
○An evening of listening, dreaming, voicing with Brandon LaBelle and Annette le Fort, performance my skin listens to voice at Errant Sound / 2022.4.30
○Performance at Loophole Berlin / 2022.3.14
○Oica, premiere of a mixed art of multi-channel media, voice, and body / Studiosaal HfM Hanns Eisler Berlin / 2022.2.6
○Performance at Sowieso Berlin / 2022.1.7
○composition Kaya no Soto for vocalist Kanae Mizobuchi, pianist Satoko Inoue, and tubist Kota Sakamoto / Tokyo Arts and Space / 2021.12.11
○composition Elevated Moon for cellist Craig Hultgren / presented by Composer's Voice / 2021.11.26
○Late Autumn (performance), Okaasan, and Now Our Hands are Safe (video works) / Green Hill Gallery Berlin 2021.11.5 - 12.5
○Solo show Circle hasu: We plant seeds in the spring of mountains / The Gallatin Galleries NYC 2021.7.16 - 8.13
○new work for the Masked Music Commissions, The Association for the Promotion of New Music / 2021.7
○kaeru, fixed media work, Earth Day Art Model / 2021.4
○Circle hasu, video documentation, Earth Day Art Model / 2020.4
○Circle hasu, mixed music, A Concert of Electronic Music in honor of Mario Davidovsky, winner / NY 2019.12
○Sound installation (8-channel work), Dias de Música Electroacústica, Culture and Sustainable Cities / Lisbon 2019.11
○pieces on prayer, The VU Symposium for experimental, electronic and improvised music: Pushing the envelope, My appearance was supported by C.V. Starr Fund of the Asian Pacific/American Institute and, NYU Dean's Conference Fund Award / Park City, UT July 2019
○The Two directed by Dmitry Krymov / NY 2019.2
○The Unseen World premiered at the Abrons Arts Center, for and performed with ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) / NY 2019.4
○Exploration in Sound and Body, collaborators: dancer Miki Orihara, pianist-improviser Yuko Fujiyama, and producer Junko Arita, supported by First Performance, New York University / NY 2019.3
○The Story of Oica, October New Music Festival for and performed with the Mikro Ensemblen / Oulu, Finland 2018.9
○6 stories, mixed music, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival performed with Madeleine Shapiro, Abrons Arts Center/ NY 2019.7
○The River, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts / NY 2018.5
○Listening to Nature, self-curated show, supported by Tishman Environment and Design Center / NY 2017.6
○MoMA Bang on a Can: Music Among Friends, John Cage for MOMA, Mannes School of Music Ensemble / NY 2017.5
○Live Show at Kitasando Strobe Cafe with Mitsue Yamamoto piano, Nobuhiro Denda guitar, Akihiko Watanabe percussion, Ban percussion, Kayo vocal / Tokyo 2015.11
○Live at JZ Brat SOUND OF TOKYO with Mitsue Yamamoto piano, Keisuke Tanaka bass, Ahihiko Watanabe drums, Nobuhiro Denda guitar, Kayo vocal & collaborators, painter Shinichiro Sugiyama and singer songwriter SuzKen / 2014.11
○Asagaya Jazz / 2012.10, 2014.10
○Sophia University, Education in Ghana x Share / Tokyo 2014.3
○Tokyu Plaza Omotesando Harajuku / Tokyo 2013.12
○Live show at Strobe Cafe sponsored by TV Kanagawa, with Mitsue Yamamoto piano, Keisuke Tanaka bass, Akihiko Watanabe drums, Nobuhiro Denda guitar & collaborators, tap dancers Shoko Taniguchi, Taka, yoshiko, Kahiko Hula dancer Miilani Cooper / 2013.6
○Okirai Summer2012xLIGHT UP NIPPON / Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture 2012.8
○Furano, Hokkaido 2012.7
○Tokyo Midtown / LIGHT UP NIPPON 2012.7
○One Woman Live Show at Shibuya PLUG / Tokyo 2011.9
○2011 Canadian Music Fest / Toronto 2011.3
Selective Awards, Grants & Residency:
○New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellowship poetics of peace 2022-2023
○Venice Biennale 2022, Winner, Biennale Teatro Grants for Site-Specific Performances
○Berliner Festspiele 2022 Theatertreffen - selection to Stückemarkt
○Fulbright Fellowship in the arts 2021-2022 Berlin, Germany
○Honorable Mention Award for the 2020 Pauline Oliveros New Genre Prize, The 39th IAWM Search for New Music Competition 2020
○The Leo Bronstein Homage Award, New York University 2020
○APNM 2019 Electronic Music Competition, winner 2019.12
○Dean's Award for Summer Research, and Dean's Conference Fund Award, orality in ritualistic songs in Okinawa and Yaeyama 2019
○C.V. Starr Fund Award, Asian/Pacific/American Institute 2019
○The Aiko Susanna Tashiro Hiratsuka Memorial Performing Arts Scholarship, Japanese American Citizen League 2018
Selective Publications
○Body in Costume Critique in the Front Line, International Association of Theatre Critics Hong Kong, Sept 2023
○The koma top is not for spinning, fixed media, APNM, Vol. 3, Music from the Association for the Promotion of New Music, New Focus Recordings 2023
○Space Sculpting, fixed media, The SEAMUS Electroacoustic Miniatures Series - Monophonic 2020
○Composition, poem, On the Rabbit Hole, Gallatin Galleries 2020
○On the Night of the New Moon, poem, Eleven and a Half Journal 2018
○Vocal contribution for catchat for babies (DVD) released by TBS and Columbia Entertainment 2014
Selective Media Appearances:
○Fixed media, The koma top is not for spinning. Massachusetts, Martian Gardens Episode 1145. 2023.5.25
○Review: Les mémoires enfouies dans les pierres de Aine E. Nakamura à la Biennale de Venise by Amélie Blaustein Niddam. Toute La Culture 2022.7
○Review: Milo Rau e Aine E. Nakamura e il loro manifesto per un teatro democratico e di pace by Liliana Tangorra. Pane Acqua Culture.net 2022.7
○Review: Biennale di Venezia, un’idea di Teatro by Maria Dolores Pesce. Rumor(s)cena. 2022.7
○Review: Cronache dalla Biennale Teatro by Alessandro Cammarano. TVIWEB. 2022.7
○Review&News: Un semi di pace on VeNews 2022.6
○Artists’ Talk with Tjaša Črnigoj, Kolektiv Igralke, Aine Nakamura & Amanda Wilkin at Berliner Festspiele 2022.5
○FEM Music Radio Show, CoLaboRadio/Freie Radios Berlin Brandenburg (fixed media) 2022.1
○Yomi Time, [WHO] Interview 2021.9
○Fixed media, Biwa no ha. Radio Campus Brussels 2020.9
○Review: New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2018: EXCELLENCE by Jean Ballard Terepka 2018.7
○Nippon Broadcasting System, Suono Dolce 2011.6, 2012.10, 2014.12
○FM Nack5 2014.10
○FM Setagaya 2013.8
○J-WAVE Music Hyper Market / Toko no Dendo Featured Artist 2012.11
○Tamagawa Takashimaya x FM Setagaya, La Dolce Vita Cindy Suzuki 2012.9
○JFN, Once 2011.7 & 2012.9
○J-Wave Hello World 2010.11
Lectures:
○Workshop, Meiji University, Tokyo Japan 2023.7.22&23, 7.29&30
○Workshop and panel at The 1st International Symposium on Contemporary Asian Theatre, University of Göttingen 2022 12.8&9
○Lecture at the joint colloquium of Kolloquium Medien und Wissen & Kolloquium Mediendramaturgie, Institute for Musicology and Media Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin 2022.6.2
○Workshop, songs in bodies, at Berliner Festspiele 2022.5
○Lecture I am song itself at the symposium AKUSTISCHE INTERFACES, Humboldt University of Berlin 2022.5.4
○Lecture-recital Circle hasu My Art of Voice and Body at The 2021 McGill Music Graduate Students' Symposium & The 4th AEMC Conference on Music Communication and Performance 2021.3 & 2021.6
○Lecture-recital Voice as Body, Voice and Body at The Music and Movement Virtual Conference, University of Pittsburgh, & Penn State 2021 New-Music Festival and Symposium 2021.1 & 2021.3
Education:
○UC Berkeley, Doctoral fellow in Composition 2022-present
○Fulbright fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin, Media Studies, and Berlin University of the Arts, Composition 2021-2022
○MA, Composition and Performance concentration, New York University 2018-2020
○Jazz & Contemporary Music, The New School, BFA program 2016-2018
○BA in foreign studies and curatorial studies, Sophia (Jochi) University 2004
○Qualified as a curator (official curator certificate, Japan) 2004
Other backgrounds:
○Trained in Okinawan traditional music (uta-sanshin) under Isamu Goya, Noborikawa-ryu
○Studied Classical voice under Itaru Mitsuzuka
○special thanks to Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and Butoh dancer Yoshito Ohno
○special thanks to Butoh dancer Yuko Kaseki
For my full C.V., please contact.
中村 愛音
歌い手、コンポーザー、ストーリーテラー、シアター/パフォーマンス・アーティスト
体からの声と場からの声に着目して、うたとからだの表現を行う。窓の外の雪の音、体の中の詩(うた)、壁の向こう、無音、虫の音、時計の軸とは異なる時に耳を澄ませたい。物語りと、声と体の形を編み、まだ見ぬ未知に向かい、パフォーマンスを変化させていく。蝉になったり、老人になったり、赤ちゃんになったり、水になったり、語り手になったりしながら。うた、からだ、ことば、物語り、衣、そして最近ではお面や場の構造を通して、声と体の可能性を、探求している。
雨と霧が美しいアメリカ・ワシントン州に生まれ、最初の原風景は動物や自然。日米に育ち、どこかへの所属意識よりも、地球の生きものという意識が私をささえていて、ボーダーレスか境界があいまいな芸術を目指している。うたを最初にこころざしたのも、歌が文化、国境、言語の違いをこえて、心を打つことを知ったからだった。ジェンダーの問題や手術を数回経験したことにより、からだこころを大事にした芸術づくりや、トランスナショナルな複雑性と曖昧さを持つわたしを認めて、作品づくりをすることに影響した。それが、徐々に、個々が共存し、深く共鳴できるような場を生み出すパフォーマンス作りに発展していったように思う。
言葉になる前のうたは何か。複数の物語をどうだきしめ混在させることができるのか。からだのなか、からだのそとの境界線をまたいで、文法にとらわれず、自由な可能性、新しい言語に向かう。声と体という媒体でもあり、個でもありながら、複数形の在り方、複数の感情、やさしさと内面が、深層で共存できるパフォーマンスを、めざしている。
近年のソロ代表作は、2022年ベネチア・ビエンナーレ発表の『Under an Unnamed Flower』、2022年ベルリンTheatertreffen発表の『Circle hasu We plant seeds in the spring of mountains』。
米国を拠点に、ギャラテン・ギャラリー、ベルリン芸術大学、サンフランシスコThe LAB、ニューヨークAbrons Arts Center等、世界各地で作品を発表し、ワークショップも行う。2021-2022年フルブライト・フェロー(ベルリン)。ニューヨーク大学「Leo Bronstein Homage Award」、ポーリン・オリベロス・ニュージャンル賞特別賞等を受賞。UC Berkeley作曲博士課程にて助成を受ける。