I am a dancer, choreographer, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. I was born in Okinawa, a small island colonized by Japan in 1879 and controlled by the United States from 1945–1972. I make site-specific performances, theater-based productions, research-based scores, and musical compositions.
My work investigates labor and interpretation as embedded in contemporary Western dance. Having trained in postmodern American dance, I’ve inherited a tradition whose assumptions, implications, and hegemony I seek to challenge—as an arts worker in late-capitalist New York and as an Okinawan-American woman. Through collaboration, my choreography addresses labor and power in artmaking as well as translation. I use improvisation, imagination, and critical theory and analysis to explore new ways of experiencing ourselves, our connections to others, and our relationship to place.
My choreography has been presented by The Chocolate Factory, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Movement Research, and Roulette. I have held artist residencies at Center for Performance Research and Abrons Arts Center (2022), Lower Manhattan Cultural Center and ArtCake (2021), and Movement Research Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellow (2018). As part of my residency at CPR, artist Jesi Cook and I recently co-organized a performance marathon fundraiser for Red Canary Song, an organizing collective for Asian & migrant sex workers. My works-in-process were supported by AUNTS, Seoul Dance Center, Knockdown Center, Movement Research at the Judson Church, among others. My writings on dance are published in Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence and I teach at Gibney Dance, freeskewl, and Pageant. I have received funding support from Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Mertz Gilmore Foundation. As a performer, I’ve worked with Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Jessica Cook, Milka Djordjevich, devynn emory, Simone Forti, Okkyung Lee, Haegue Yang, and Kyli Kleven. I’ve performed at venues including the Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, Guggenheim Museum, the New Museum, MoMA, MoMA PS1, Pioneer Works, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago and REDCAT.