By Andrew Hamlin
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Photo credit: Bruce Clayton Tom. Courtesy of On the Boards.
It’s fair enough to call Seattle’s Haruko Crow Nishimura a dancer. Just don’t overlook everything else she is.
“I am a generative and interdisciplinary artist creating entirely contemporary and experimental work,” explained Nishimura, who performs in “Boy mother / faceless bloom” at On The Boards, as part of an ensemble called Juni One Set. Her work integrates Japanese Butoh dance, and theater, with improvisation and vocals.
Nishimura normally collaborates with her co-director and musical director, Joshua Kohl, calling themselves the Degenerate Art Ensemble, or D.A.E. “Boy mother / faceless bloom” finds Nishimura and Kohl joined by visual artist Senga Nengudi, from Colorado, and New York City’s yuniya edi kwon (spelled in all lower-case), a violinist, singer, and interdisciplinary artist.
“We make interdisciplinary performances that we like to call multidimensional storytelling experiences,” explained Nishimura, “inspired by the aesthetics of punk, comics, cinema protest, nightmares, and fairytales, fusing myth with reality.”
Photo credit: Bruce Clayton Tom. Courtesy of On the Boards.
She’s a Japanese immigrant, but she’s called Seattle home for more than 20 years now, after traveling through Australia, Syria, and a few other U.S. cities.
“My work is not overtly Japanese, but always had strong roots in Japanese contemporary art and culture.”
This isn’t the creative team’s first collaboration.
“Senga and I met in 2017 for her solo exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery, where she asked me to dance with her sculpture installation along with another dancer, Joseph Blake. We have become very close friends since and she has led me to meet yuniya through email.”
Putting the pieces together wasn’t easy.
“Each artist living in a different state, and a project that spanned the years of the pandemic, were both enormous challenges, the keeping in touch with each other and keeping the creative process moving along under the circumstances. Throughout these times, we all have developed a very special friendship.”
Photo credit: Bruce Clayton Tom. Courtesy of On the Boards,
As for the piece itself, “Boy mother / faceless bloom” emerged as a special kind of shared space, a dream landscape and ambiance into which dreamers can detail their own specific experiences in accordance with the laws of a new land. The collaborators mixed remembered mythologies with invented ones, with movement and attitudes holding respect and defiance, by turns.
One conceptual theme, yuniya edi kwon’s own journey through a queer and trans identity, motherhood, and self-discovery, finds kwon mixing violin techniques from along the history of Western music.
Nishimura herself focused on the Japanese legend of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. She shut herself into a cave, the world, without her light, plunged into constant darkness. Only the goddess Okame, with her wild and passionate dance (said to mark the birth of Japanese taiko drumming), lured Amaterasu from her hiding place and restored order to nature.
Senga Nenguidi works by transforming common household objects, together with garbage, into structural alternate universes. She honors Oshun, goddess and spirit of the river in the African Yoruba belief system, along with Yemaya, the Yoruba goddess and spirit of the ocean.
Joshua Kohl furnished music and music production, along with stage design. Other collaborators include Degenerate Art Ensemble’s video artist Leo Mayberry, lighting designer Jessica Trundy, and costumer Willow Fox.
On the whole, the piece, developed by the collaborators over the last four years, mixes the results of work, play, and conversation, steeped in the ever-deepening friendship amongst the creative team. The viewer forms the final piece, stepping aboard to engage in the collective dream.
Juni One Set presents “Boy mother / faceless bloom,” Dec. 12-14 at On The Boards, the Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance, 100 W. Roy Street in Lower Queen Anne.
For prices, showtimes, and other information, visit https://ontheboards.org/events/24-25/juni-one-set.
Photo credit: Wolfgang Daniel. Courtesy of On the Boards.
Photo credit: Bruce Clayton Tom. Courtesy of On the Boards.
Photo credit: Bruce Clayton Tom. Courtesy of On the Boards.