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Visual artist and mask maker Miya Turnbull and dance artist and choreographer Shion Skye Carter perform Omote (面), which makes its Eastern and Western Canadian premiere in Halifax on Feb. 28 and March 1, and in Vancouver on March 12 and 14. Photo courtesy of the artists.

The performance Omote (面) melds the artistic expressions and experiences of two mixed-race Japanese Canadian artists from opposite coasts of the country. The collaborative creation of dance artist and choreographer Shion Skye Carter and visual artist and mask maker Miya Turnbull makes its Eastern and Western Canadian premieres in the artists’ home cities, Vancouver and Halifax, in March.

Turnbull is a Yonsei multi-disciplinary visual artist from Onoway, Alberta, now living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has created hundreds of masks, using her photo-mask technique to make life-like representations of her face, often distorting or manipulating her image. These three-dimensional self-portraits are explorations of her identity and self-image. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recently, Turnbull has expanded her practice into photography, film, and performance.

Carter is a first-generation contemporary choreographer and performer, born in Gifu, Japan, and immigrating to Vancouver as a child. Carter creates choreography that explores intersectional identity and heritage art forms like calligraphy through movement. Carter has performed across the country, and their dance films have been screened at festivals and exhibitions globally. An award-winning artist, Carter is the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2022) and the Chrystal Dance Prize (2023).

In Omote, the two artists perform wearing Turnbull’s hand-crafted papier-mâché masks in myriad shapes and facial expressions. The masks become extensions of their bodies and represent an exploration of their identities as they collate and contrast their personal experiences as mixed-race Japanese Canadians.

The first iteration of Omote began virtually during the pandemic when Turnbull and Carter participated in the project Yume. Digital Dreams, which paired 14 Japanese Canadian artists from across disciplines and the country to create art together. Since then, Turnbull and Carter premiered a 20-minute version of Omote in May 2023 in Montreal and Toronto. Now, the two have reunited to expand the work into a 50-minute performance, along with origami and movement workshops.

Nikkei Voice caught up with Turnbull and Carter between practices to discuss how Omote—and themselves as artists—have grown through their multi-year collaborations.

Nikkei Voice: The last time we connected was for the first live performance of Omote in May 2023. How has the performance grown and changed since that initial presentation? Has audience feedback helped develop the show further?

Miya Turnbull: Expanding the performance longer to a full length has allowed us to go back into the original choreography and take more time with everything. We also took out a couple of parts we didn’t love, and we were able to dig deeper into the parts we did. It was also so fun to create new sections, make new masks for the longer piece, and explore new ideas together. We had great feedback from the audience, mostly guiding us in the sense that we had created a compelling performance and should keep going. We also had the chance to work with Laura Fukumoto, who is not only a poet and multi-disciplinary artist based in Vancouver but also has a theatre production and costume design background, and she custom sewed us a stretchy kimono that we needed for the full-length piece.

Shion Skye Carter: One of the most exciting aspects of expanding Omote into a full-length has been the opportunity to dig deeper into ideas of distortion and multiplicity. This concept shows up both in the movement vocabulary and the masks that Miya has custom-made for this newest version of the performance, which conjoin multiples of our faces together, the largest mask with 13 of our faces! Having space to further explore distortion and fragmentation has led to new choreographic ideas that bend, twist, and glitch to evoke a warped sense of reality when wearing these larger, conjoined masks.

NV: Working on Omote has led to this wonderful cross-discipline sharing and exploration between you two. How has this exploration impacted your work individually?

SC: Collaborating with Miya over the past few years has opened my eyes to all of the possibilities that exist when involving objects/materials, sculptures, and props in performance. I’ve always had a keen interest in cross-disciplinary explorations, but since beginning our journey with Omote, I’ve had more and more ideas for new dance projects that involve visual art pieces, garments, and other objects as extensions of the moving body and as performative beings themselves. Each mask that we use in this project holds such a strong presence on stage, which has taught me to truly value the objects I choose to perform with and treat them like collaborators, in a way.

MT: I’ve noticed big changes in my individual practice, especially wearing the masks in my video performances. After working with Shion, I’m more aware of embodiment and full-bodied expression and the power that certain gestures can convey without saying a word. It’s also empowered me to work with other dance artists, such as Emiko Agatsuma, a Butoh dancer from Japan. I never would have performed live on stage if it weren’t for Shion and the original Omote 20-minute version.

NV: You’ve been collaborating since Yume. Digital Dreams in 2022. What do you enjoy about working together?

MT: I love working with Shion, who is always so open to my thoughts and ideas but also contributes in such a huge way. I feel like we are very balanced in our work ethic and standards. We both strive to produce quality work, which is amazing that we will both go the extra mile to make our show even better. She’s also just so much fun to work with. I also want to give a shout out to Julie Tamiko Manning, who (along with Matt Miwa) first of all paired Shion and me together during Yume, which was such a blessing, and we’ve continued to work with her as our dramaturg for both the previous and this current version of Omote. Her expertise as a theatre artist was crucial in guiding us through the performance arc and strengthening the piece. Also, the fact that she is Japanese Canadian and half-Japanese, like both of us, really made working with her even more special.

SC: Working with Miya is a gift! Collaborating feels organic and nourishing; we’re constantly bouncing new ideas off each other during our creative processes. I love that we each bring a different perspective to the project, ranging from our disciplines in visual art and dance to our family histories and backgrounds as a Sansei/Yonsei (Miya) and a first-gen immigrant (Shion). As Miya mentioned, bringing Julie Tamiko Manning on board as dramaturg has only deepened our explorations of Japanese Canadian identity and how it infuses our performance.

NV: Miya, Omote was your first time performing in front of a live audience. Now, performance is becoming a part of your artistic practice. Can you take me back to that first show and how you’ve grown since then?

MT: I was so terrified to go on stage that first time. I still am, but now I also know how powerful it is to show my masks in real life and bring them to life through movement, which is very different than seeing a video. To hear the audience react to the masks is so rewarding and validating! So I have to push myself to keep doing this, but it’s really worth it.

NV: Shion, as a dance artist, I imagine movement extends to your facial expressions. Can you tell me about performing with your face concealed behind masks (sometimes of your face, sometimes of Miya’s)? Was it challenging? Freeing?

SC: Dancing with a mask, or sometimes many on at once, feels both liberating and like a big challenge for me. I do find it freeing to not have to think too much about how my face looks while underneath the mask (I tend to furrow my brows often!). Without the use of facial expressions, I also find that I’m dialing up the intensity of expression in my movement in Omote, especially during moments of curiosity and discovery when interacting with Miya. Like you mentioned, I perform in this piece using masks of both my face and Miya’s. At times, I try to tap into the expression or ‘character’ of the mask I’m wearing and really allow it to influence how I move. At other times, I hone in on one movement dynamic, even if it’s not specific to the faces on the masks I’m wearing. For example, there are moments when I pile on as many masks as I can onto my head, arms, and legs; they look like growths on my body. Even though I can’t actually see anything because my head is covered in many masks, I imagine how it would feel if each of these masks could see the world around them and trigger a movement impulse. This leads to an unraveling, multi-directional, almost disembodied kind of movement, which is really cool to feel in my body.

NV: Can you tell me about the concepts of honne and tatemae and how they reflect the use of masks in the performance?

Miya/Shion: The concepts of honne (a person’s true feelings) and tatemae (their public face) are extremely ingrained within Japanese culture and definitely passed down through the generations. However, these concepts are universal across humanity and cultures: the facade we build to protect ourselves contrasted with how we really feel inside. We think that everyone can relate to this on some level. What happens when these public and private selves, thoughts, or feelings align? What happens when they don’t? We often discuss ideas of authenticity; the moment in Omote when we reveal our faces for the first time after being masked for most of the performance, is a big moment that feels like a step towards self-realization, connection, and transformation.

NV: What can people look forward to in the upcoming origami and movement workshops accompanying the performances? Do you feel these workshops further the collaborative process to audiences/the community?

Miya/Shion: We feel that people will be really engaged with all aspects of the workshop. We’ll begin hands-on with folding origami designs with Miya’s faces on them, which are quite humorous and fun. We made sure the origami is accessible and engaging for the general public, who will get to take their creations home with them. The origami portion will be followed by guided movement explorations translating the origami designs through dance, from balancing the origami on the body, emulating how the origami designs move or look, and even folding our bodies in the ways that we fold the origami paper. We’re both really looking forward to the workshops; we’ll facilitate one in Halifax on Feb. 23, and the one in Vancouver on Mar. 8 sold out quite quickly! It’s great to know that the public is curious and interested in doing this workshop with us.

NV: What do you hope audiences will take away from the performance?

Miya/Shion: We hope the viewers are swept away for an hour into a surreal and weird world, transported out of their daily lives into the atmospheric visual landscape of the show. Everything we express onstage is open for interpretation, so we hope audiences see something in our performance with the masks that resonates with them on a personal, deep level. We also hope the show inspires people to reflect on the masks or external emotional walls they may have built up in their own lives and consider the importance of being your vulnerable, authentic self.

Omote (⾯) Performances in 2025: Halifax + Vancouver
Shion Skye Carter + Miya Turnbull

Eastern Canada Premiere: Live Art Dance
Feb. 28, 8 p.m. (SOLD OUT) and March 1, 2 p.m. (TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE) and March 1, 8 p.m. (SOLD OUT)
Bus Stop Theatre, Halifax, NS
Tickets
Origami + Movement Workshop: Pier 21, Feb 23, 2 to 4 p.m. (Registration required)

Western Canada Premiere: Vancouver International Dance Festival
March 12 and 14, 7 p.m.
Roundhouse Performance Centre, Vancouver, B.C.
Tickets
Origami + Movement Workshop: Roundhouse Exhibition Hall, March 8, 12 to 1:30 p.m. (FULL)