In the wind,
sway wildly
Lotus
I feel the wind together
The noon has passed
Leaves are in free-spirited shapes
Swelled flower buds
stand, in love
Young flower buds
stand, upright
These postures they stand in
are beautiful, I feel
Letting their bodies
flow in wind and be in water,
each innerness extends toward the above
The sacredness of these flowers
is also shown in the
life
of this whole lotus lake,
I think.
Those born, those dying
they all gather here
They are held by something big
and yet, each stands by
itself
This beauty blooms only to the sky
kind holiness.
風に大きくゆれたなびく
はすをみて
一緒に風を感じる
お昼もすぎて葉も自由な形をし
ふくらんだつぼみはうっとり立ち
若いつぼみはすくっと立つ
この立つ姿が美しいのだ
ゆられながらも
水に体をゆだねながらも
そのしんを上の方にのばす
この花の神聖さは
また、はす池全体の一生観にもあるようにおもう
生まれたもの死にゆくもの
それらが一堂にあり
どこか大きく包まれながら
一つ一つ独立の様子
この美しさは天のみに咲いている
ゆらぎのないやさしいうつくしさ
わたしはただただ一人の人として、ひとつの花、はすを感じる
ただただうちゅうの人、うちゅうのはな、として
Exhibition-Performance
Link to the new exhibition website at GALLATIN GALLERIES
The postponed exhibition was held from July 16 until August 13 2021.
Schedule planned before the pandemic started:
Performance on Mar 30 2020 mon 6pm
Performative installation everyday, and sound & poetry Installation: Mar 25 wed - Apr 1 wed (closed on Sunday)
Previous artist statement and the exhibition website
Gallatin Galleries
1 Washington Place, 1st floor, New York
Video Work, Art of Voice and Body
I presented a mixed music version of Circle hasu at A Concert of Electronic Music in honor of Mario Davidovsky as a winning work of the APNM 2019 Electronic Music Competition on December 19 2019 (excerpt (03:43), whole work (09:27)). I further developed the work, investigating and creating my art form that enabled the synthesis of voice and body: I documented my art of voice and body Circle hasu (duration: 27'00") on March 18 2020 at Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts with the support of Jeffrey Yoon while a solo-exhibition that includes poetry, sound, and daily performative installation is now postponed due to the pandemic (Gallatin Galleries, NY).
I presented the documented video work at the Earth Day Art Model 2020, and received the Honorable Mention Award for the 2020 Pauline Oliveros New Genre Prize.
Circle hasu is a spiritual one-woman art of voice and body. I produce a sonic and visual space through my idiosyncratic performance grammar and a focus on orality—nuanced possibilities of my voice from my moving and improvised body, which supports a storyline about nature, animism, peace, and my woman’s body. This is my way of practicing resilience in a world in which there is surrounding violence among humans and against nature. My transnational body seeks a ‘borderless’ state of being, through my voice with and of my body. Two languages of English and Japanese are used; in addition, Japanese poetic words are conveyed as abstract sounds and textures.
Hasu means lotus in Japanese. Hasu can be seen in many places including temples—it is a symbol of peace. While I have a personal feeling toward hasu, I am not able to remove from my intellect the cultural and religious background behind hasu.
One of my languages, Japanese, and some of my ways of feelings about my ethnicity and cultural practices have been profoundly informed by the privilege conferred in Japan on elders and men. And yet, I want to explore how I can challenge these traditional power structures that preclude new ways of feeling. I want to see hasu as itself. I want to relate to it, myself being one living thing on this earth. Under the sky, in front of the sea, I am only a being of this earth. I connect with lotus, in this circle of the whole cosmos.
For the whole description, my initial poems, and about the work, please see this page from the exhibition website at The Gallatin Galleries.
Lecture-Recital
I presented my lecture-recital, "Voice as Body, Voice and Body" at the Music and Movement Virtual Conference on January 24 2021 at University of Pittsburgh, and at The Penn State 2021 New-Music Festival and Symposium on March 19 2021; and "Circle hasu: My Art of Voice and Body" at The 2021 McGill Music Graduate Symposium on March 13 2021 at McGill Schulich School of Music.
In the lecture-recital, I presented Circle hasu, and showed several examples of my transborder art of voice and body, my idiosyncratic performance grammar, and possibilities of switching between “voice as body” and “voice and body.” I also discussed about site- and time-specificity in telling stories about different places from different time through my site-specific presence with and of my woman's body.