Artist Statement
My multicultural background as a choreographer in NY who grew up in Japan led me to assess movements from the West and East to find my Japaneseness in movement. Currently, I’m researching Japanese Tea Rituals and Zen philosophy through writing (https://www.culturepush.org/push-pull-issue-20) and performance. The Japanese Tea Ritual aims to listen deeply to your own mind and those of your guests, finding relationships of care and paying attention to our environment (including sound, body, and space) through the act of making tea. For my work, I use the body, video, text, and an audience-participatory approach to build new methods of thinking about 'silence,' providing a quiet but active mindset to heal and unite the community. At the residency, I'll research the relationship between Zen meditation and body movement. Referring to Zen philosophy, I’ll create a method for experiencing several ways of listening to 'silence' through movement scores.
Maho Ogawa_"s-silence"_performance_2023_premiered at the Mix Festival at Abrons Art Center, NY_