Mina Nishimura: Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist
Thursday, November 3 at 7:30pm
Friday, November 4 at 7:30pm
Saturday, November 5 at 7:30pm
Please check back soon for more information regarding accessibility.
A new work by Mina Nishimura, performed by Emma Rose Brown, David Guzman, Sabrina Leira, Stuart B Meyers, Mina Nishimura, Glenn Potter-Takata, Evan Ray Suzuki, and Jace Weyant, with Music Composed by Kenta Nagai
By conversing with peripheral spaces and invisible inhabitants through specific physical modalities, Nishimura continues to sketch out an alternate dimension of St. Mark’s Church, where “multiple energies, traits, memories, and identities are fluidly bubbling up and disappearing.”
Explains Nishimura, “I’ve also been furthering my relationship to Buddhism-based concepts of ‘emptiness (or 空 kuu)’ and ‘no-mind (or Mushin無心)’ through creation of this work as a fluid zone of potentiality, which welcome, embrace and internalize any ‘arrivals’ from outside our known territory.”
Danspace will partner with APAP’s Arts Forward project to provide Nishimura an additional residency in Danspace’s Sanctuary in September. During this time, unannounced pop-up performances will wander out to random public spaces across the city: a subway corridor, a parking lot, a residential street, and the space around St. Mark’s, expanding an invisible web of searching bodies.
The development of Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist was supported, in part, by Danspace Project’s Renewal Residency program, residency programs at Topaz Arts and Bennington College, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and a Creation Grant from Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Download the performance program
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Mina Nishimura, originally from Tokyo, was introduced to butoh and improvisational dance through Kota Yamazaki, and studied at Merce Cunningham Studio in NYC. Buddhism-influenced concepts and beliefs are reflected across her somatic, performance and choreographic practices. She has been performing and collaborating with a number of groundbreaking artists, in the most recent years, such as Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Yasuko Yokoshi, Jasperse, Dean Moss, Vicky Shick, Neil Greenberg, and SIA for her Saturday Night Live performance. Nishimura’s choreographic works have been commissioned by NYU Skirball Center, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, Mount Tremper Arts Center, Dance Theater Workshop, UC Davis, Sarah Lawrence College among other organizations. Nishimura is a recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists 2019, and is the 2021-22 Renewal Residency Artist at Danspace Project. She completed the MFA Fellowship at Bennington College in 2021, and currently teaches at the school. Nishimura also is a member of the curatorial artist collective, whenever wherever festival, in Tokyo. minanishimuradance.com