Yu SHIMOMURA
Dancer

Yu received a grant to participate in the Camping project organized by the Centre National de la Danse.

What is your artistic background ?
In 2005, I started at the literary & art department at Kindai University with the ambition to be an actor. That was a turning point for me because I started to perform in Laban Movement Analysis and worked with pieces of contemporary dance. After graduating from Kindai University, in 2009, I started to dance. But, in Japan, you can only apply for competitions and grants when you are a choreographer. For this reason, at the same time, I began creating my own pieces. I have learned from a lot of people and keep joining all kinds of workshops and studying other people’s pieces. In 2012, I started to create my own works following the concept “dance is a device by which people everywhere can co-exist”, which I call dance communication work. I am always thinking about "What is dance?", "Why do we dance?", "Where do people come from, and where people are going?". I am always approaching these questions in a physical, cynical, and theatrical way. In 2019, I won the first prize at Yokohama Dance Collections for Defection for Beginners: the Country of Dreams, which I created in 2018. 

How do you see your profession today ?
"Something can only be completed by dance and be understood through dance”. These thoughts are always on my mind. I always communicate with audiences through my work. Dance needs no language. This is an attractive quality for me. Especially with contemporary dance, when audiences see the beginning of a piece, they are already communicating with performers. I want to create a piece which makes fellow creators and audiences feel that they are sharing and spending their time and space well. Through my productions, I also want to transmit, although we live in an intolerant world, that "you can be just the way you are". 

How do you see yourself in five years ? In 10 years ?
Actually, I don't really know how to answer this question. Because I live in this world. Before seeing myself in five years or 10 years, I prefer thinking "how this world will be”. But I cannot tell how this world will be. The only thing I know is that I will still dance and create and be inspired by the concept of this world. Because we are the world, and I am you.

This interview was conducted in 2019
Photo credit: Amandine Besacier