Desert Turtle

Overview

Desert Turtle is a multimedia solo performance piece that looks at ideas of shelter, landscapes, and migration, drawing from family history, voice, and geology. Mitsu’s mother arrived from the wet and dense city of Yokohama, Japan, to the vast and dry Mojave desert. She related to the turtles she found in the landscape, hiding in their shells and traveling with their home on their back. In Japan, a turtle was a symbol of longevity, and in the expanse of the Mojave desert, she felt a sense of infiniteness. This piece indulges in the beauty of the landscape but also acknowledges its complex history. Additionally, the work parallels Mitsu’s mother migrating to the desert, as Mitsu herself becomes a mother in the desert. The piece interweaves music, dance, video, and non-linear storytelling.

“Desert Turtle reflects on the artist’s mother’s migration from a subtropical city in Japan to the Mojave Desert. Salmon is a powerhouse.”

-Kerry Cardoza- Chicago Reader

About the Artist

I create original dance performance and visual works, which fuse multiple disciplines. I see the creation in differing mediums as connected to translation of cultures and languages. I was born in the melting pot of Los Angeles to a Japanese mother and American father. The last few years, I have creating work drawing upon my mothers family tales of travel and diaspora as linked to mine. My work explores how personal and family memories connect and collide. How are ancestors held and expressed in our body? How do we remember their stories? And what does it mean when we forget?