As we conclude this year’s performances of Privilege At Home, we talk with Erika Mitsuhashi, who has been performing the work with Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa.

What do people not realize?

I’m not 100% certain whether people fully realize that Jennifer has been working super academically with the material. She's really working so specifically with different systems in the body and creating like full alphabets with a movement for each different kind of note - whole note, half note, quarter note, 16th note. Each one is completely tied to a somatic impulse. I think the end result has an extra layer of nuance. It has been super challenging.

What does that mean about your experience with the audience?

Jennifer works a lot with eye movement and focus. The eyes not only lead the movement in some cases but can be a whole other set of choreography that is linked to all of these different somatic systems. I’m finding that I feel more connected to the audiences because of this work with eye focus and eye contact and what can be inherent in each movement.

What is your go-to quote?

It's hard to describe. Someone once told me to really do some listening - and they did this gesture from here (just below chin) down. So it’s priorizing listening to what I am thinking or what I'm feeling from the neck down. But it's specifically this gesture - this person did this and pushed down - you've got to listen. You're down. So if there's a way to describe that?

Tell us a memorable interface with the audience, performing Privilege@Home.

Last year, at one stop I performed for a friend's parents party. It was so sweet because I had no idea who I was going to be performing for, and suddenly it was a bunch of people I knew, and it was the first time I had performed for them.

It was a large party with lots of people there. And it was a time a year ago when we were all in the first layers of finding moments to connect safely after pandemic isolation. It felt really special.

And it was the tiniest little space to perform into; a tiny square of driveway into someone's backyard, with a fence. I was playing with revealing and concealing myself below the fence as well. There were so many things about that all came together, then we zipped away in the truck and it was just really fantastic!

Can you talk a bit more about what it felt like to perform this way last year, during the post-COVID re-entry?

It really was so lovely. As we were driving in the truck between houses, people were stopping in the street to listen to Rachel play music. And every stop we went to, people were so happy and appreciative.

It was also during the heat dome and everywhere, people were out on the street. It was that Vancouver summer moment where there’s just no one inside. Everyone was outside.

Jennifer has described it as feeling like going home, like returning - and this really resonates with me. Getting to dance and perform in someone else's work really does feel like I'm returning to a part of myself that had been quite silent during COVID.

Me going home in my body and then going to people's homes and performing and people cheering. It was all around so sweet and so beautiful.

And this year?

It’s a different time of year. We’re not quite in the full summer moment, summer hasn’t really bloomed yet. This makes it a little bit more intimate, which is also really sweet in its’ way. It’s lovely. I also feel really good and grateful for another chance for what we're practicing to have a performance moment.

What’s your sweet spot in Privilege@Home?

It’s been really fun to lean into what Jennifer has seen and has offered to me through her attachment of movement and notes to different somatic systems and different kinds of notes. I’d thought of myself as all flow, as a mover. But she sees me as someone who is accessing bones and joints and placement.

So I get to interpret Jennifer's vision, which is really fun. I've been really leaning into that – learning more about how I move and what I can offer and to indulge in. I think I think I offer a real willingness. I just love dancing for other people. So I think that's inherently a bit of a sweet spot.

What’s your pre-game go-to?

I took Jennifer's suggestion about how she prepares for things that have an improvised element or improvising. Do exactly what I want in the day leading up to performing and to make decisions and to really just listen to anything that I want to be doing. And she gave an example of like, okay, I want to go eat breakfast. I want to go read the newspaper. Just a series of decisions that are kind of light, not agonizing over.

My days are quite full and I’m happy that I'm busy - a lot of things that I'm busy with are wonderful things. But it has been really nice to make a five hour window before I perform where I just follow any impulse or desire that I want.

Any thoughts on how that informs the improvised performance?

It just gets you primed and ready to just be present with decision making. It’s a light way of exercising it.

Thank you, Erika – for the chance to talk with you - and

for your presence in Privilege At Home.

Thanks!

Meet the Artist: Erika Mitsuhash