Over the next year+ I’ll be supporting choreographer Yayoi Kambara‘s upcoming project, IKKAI Means Once: a transplanted pilgrimage, as a set-designer. The piece is an evening length immersive dance project exploring the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, struggles for reparations and healing, and current & future solidarities with communities facing the violence of xenophobic policies. This is my first foray into set design and direct collaboration on a performance project, so I’ll be collecting some of the work-in-progress documentation here as it continues to unfold. (My first artistic connection with Yayoi was in 2018 when she invited me to create a pair of sculptures (about my new normal & two wooden planks, six holes) that were installed at ODC Theater for the premiere of an earlier iteration of IKKAI.)

The project is being designed to travel and will be presented in community venues like gyms, churches, and multiuse spaces, so the design needs to be light, flexible, and adaptive. Ideally the structures will need to be reconfigured for multiple scenes and act as tools for the dancers as they perform, integrated within the movement language of the piece.

In mid-2021, I started by creating small folded paper sketches, including some initial animations, to start brainstorming potential formations and actions.

I then translated some of the pieces to small tyvek mock ups—which added a new layer of possibilities and challenges due to the shift from stiff paper to malleable sheets and the introduction of posts as handles for performers and structural support.

In October 2021, Yayoi organized a studio session where she and her dancers could develop the specific movement language for the piece and we could begin playing with the set. This meant translating the mock ups to scale–first in tyvek, which ultimately proved to be too noisy (for most elements), and then where possible, in cloth.

(previous two photos by Miles Lassi)

The weeklong session offered room for responsive experimentation: to see pieces of the set in action, return to the studio to reiterate and adapt pieces, and see how they worked out the next day. As more of the piece unfolded, there were also new opportunities for elements to be introduced, so there were potential bits of traditional origami to make their way into the mix.

More updates to come as the project unfolds!