Omote (面)
“Omote (面)” is a multifaceted project conjured through the collaborative process between two Japanese Canadian artists: Vancouver-based dance artist Shion Skye Carter, and Halifax-based visual artist Miya Turnbull. What first began as a long-distance, digital collaboration culminating in a short art film, will be developed as a live performance work in 2023.
Hand-crafted paper-mâché masks, coming in myriad shapes and facial expressions, become extensions of the body in this work. The masks’ distorted imagery borders on uncanny, challenging traditional ideas of beauty, while gesture and tableau articulate the concept of honne (本音) and tatemae (建前): when a person’s true feelings and desires (honne) contrasts from the behavior and opinions they share in public (tatemae). The masks also serve as tools to reflect on self identity, affected in part by the artists’ shared mixed-race Nikkei (Japanese Canadian) heritage. How do cultural expectations, and one’s ancestral history, influence the parts of ourselves that we express to the world, and the parts that we keep hidden away?
This project has been supported by Yume Digital Dreams by Tashme Productions, and CanAsian Dance’s KickStart Festival.
Creation/performance: Shion Skye Carter, Miya Turnbull
Music: Stefan Nazarevich
Dramaturg: Julie Tamiko Manning, Gitanjali Kolanad (for development of live performance in 2023)
May 12-14, 2023
*UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Toronto, ON
Presented by CanAsian Dance‘s KickStart Festival
May 6-9, 2023
*UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Tangente, Montreal, QC
Presented by CanAsian Dance‘s KickStart Festival, co-presented with Tangente and Festival Accès Asie
November 2022 – February 2023
Acadia University Art Gallery, Wolfville, NS
(film screening)
November 10-20, 2022
International Portrait Film Festival, Sofia, Bulgaria
(film screening)
August 3- October 16, 2022
Fashion for Bank Robbers Exhibition at MaximiliansForum, Munich, Germany
(film screening)
Sept 15-23, 2022
FIN (Atlantic International Film Festival), Halifax, NS
(online screenings, plus in-person at Cineplex Park Lane Theatre 8 on Sept 18, 2022)
July 31, 2022
Powell Street Festival, Vancouver, BC
(film screening, Yume Digital Dreams)
May 16, 2022
Yume Digital Dreams, by Tashme Productions
(online screening)