Aine E. Nakamura: Artist Feature
Meet Aine E. Nakamura: voice, body and theater maker whose artistic quest began as a search for her own language to embrace and express self.
We sat down with Aine to speak about her latest projects, inspirations, and her fascinating background that’s led her to where she is now.
ABI: You’ve studied opera to jazz voice to composition to foreign studies! How did all of these pathways lead you to where you are now? Is it where you thought you would be?
AEN: I knew that I was a singer since my childhood and wanted to continue singing all throughout my life, about which I wrote in my essay upon the entrance to my first undergrad (not music school) in Japan! But, I never imagined to be where I am today. After having several musical backgrounds and experiences, performing with my band in Japan, and after going through certain gender politics, I decided to come back to my first country, the U.S., to pursue my artistic path and career. It was a difficult situation as a woman and carrying a woman's illness then that led me to my life-changing decision, which was the start of everything for me.
ABI: We met at The New School’s Krymov Lab – an interdisciplinary theater workshop led by Russian director Dmitry (Dima) Krymov. This program had a lasting impact on my artistic practice and my future career. What was your experience in the program, and how (if at all) did it affect your current work?
AEN: Dima asked me to sing without melodic lines without hinting at a certain culture in a funeral scene. Or, he would later ask me to sing as tuna, eel, or California roll, after I created a dolphin lady. It was completely different from what I had learnt and known from music as a singer, but I found my voice being one with my body when I improvise, body and voice being connected through theatrical subjects. This became one of the events for me to pursue my art of voice and body.
I recently found out more about Dima's work, how he creates the opening of his work, gradually and comically unfolding, and by the time we notice, the story is already starting, us being in the world.
Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
ABI: We’d love to hear what projects you are working on right now.
AEN: I have been creating art about ownership of a woman's body, sexuality, and sensuality recently. I realized that I am really not connected to them because we are not allowed to talk about them, and the authors have not been women. I perform with paper and cloth, both of which relate to my family's business, embracing them and deconstructing the grammar I know simultaneously to have the courage to perform about them. I premiered my first work Kusottare! at The LAB in SF in December 2022 and have deepened the theme and performed at UdK in Berlin in early March with a new title, Yami and Iro. I will have another showing of a short-version of the work Kusottare! in NYC at the SEAMUS Conference in April. The process has allowed me to write new poems, and I perform the calligraphy of them poetically in abstract ways.
Kusottare! at The LAB SF. Photo by Stephen B. Hahn
Another continuing solo project is my art about war, peace, silk contextualized through issues of objectification, mourning and mending. War and peace has always been my theme because of my transnational background, lived experiences, and my ethnicity. I premiered a 40-minute performance Under an Unnamed Flower at the Venice Biennale in 2022, which was a wonderful occasion for me, performing outdoors, sonically and spatially interacting with the outdoor space Campo Santo Stefano. The work was site-specific to Venice, and I wish to create a new version of the work so that I can present the work internationally. The topic has become very difficult and politically sensitive as the war is continuing, but I wish to approach the topic poetically, connecting multiple delicate stories through gestures of weaving.
ABI: Your work sounds deeply reflective and rewarding. What’s your favorite part of your art-making? The development of the concepts, narratives and performance structures? Or performing itself?
AEN: As much as I love the difficult and focused preparation period, my favorite part of my art-making is definitely the performing, and how the art evolves site- and time-specifically at the environment and upon space-creating with the audience.
Sometimes it happens, the moment after my performance that I myself cannot even grasp but probably only the universe can, by myself devoting my utmost self and love, the art itself being connected to a larger thing.
“My name, Aine, is written as
‘sound of love’
or ‘love (ai) - sound (ne)’ in Chinese characters.
Ultimately, that is my goal,
to create and present sound of
deep Ai through my art of voice and body…”
ABI: Who or what inspires you in your art-making?
AEN: I am inspired by my former and current mentors and artists I communicate with, including: composer Elizabeth Hoffman, who taught me that I can be the creator of my own art form; actor Anna Deavere Smith, whose commitment in art is tremendous and is about humanity; Richard Harper, who guided me that I can focus on my spirituality in my art-making; composer pioneer Annea Lockwood, whom I look up to and whose care and encouragement I am grateful for; dancer Yuko Kaseki, one of the artists whom I truly admire and who recently offered me so many important words and taught me unspoken practices; Eiko Otake, we discussed about war, peace, and Constitution of Japan; Nina Katchadourian, whose light is always positive and empowering; and Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte of the Venice Biennale Teatro, with whom I worked for my performance; I am continuing to learn from their advice about objects, audience and space, and more, and so many other artists.
Berliner Festspiele Theatertreffen. Photo by Piero Chiussi
Because of my upbringing, not having a specific home country or furusato, and not belonging to a certain group, I have come to see myself as a being of this Earth, and see myself as a part of nature. Nature inspires me, and I also fear it.
I am fond of old potteries for tea, stone gardens, calligraphy by Toko Shinoda, paintings by Jakuchu Ito and Togyu Okumura, novels by Yoko Tawada and Kenji Miyazawa. I am also inspired by dancer Min Tanaka, dancer Yoshito Ohno, under whom I studied and continue to learn Butoh, dancer Kazuo Ohno and their family, composer Yoshio Hosokawa, whom I met recently and whose humility I am learning a lot from, and sculptures and space of the museum of Isamu Noguchi. My late grandfather and my late great grandmother have continued to support me and my fundamental being.
ABI: What’s your dream? What’s your if-I-could-carve-out-my-perfect-future-it-would-look-like-this vision?
AEN: My name, Aine, is written as "sound of love" or "love (ai) - sound (ne)" in Chinese characters. Ultimately, that is my goal, to create and present sound of deep Ai through my art of voice and body; it is my new art, which I wish to continue to develop and to show to the world as a new art language that may allow delicate multiple stories to coexist and give space for multiple feelings.
Berliner Festspiele Theatertreffen. Photo by Piero Chiussi
Quick Links:
Watch some of Aine’s performances: Shape and Kusottare!
Watch to Aine’s introductory talk for “Circle hasu We plant seeds in the spring of mountains”
Learn more about Aine:
Website: www.evaaine.com
Instagram: @ainenaka
Check out more amazing artists like Aine on the Across Disciplines Database.