Koto Koto…Kara(da)Kara
Vocalization and Dance — On Words, Voice, and the Body
Friday, August 21 2026 7:30 PM
ARCANE Space
324 Sunset Avenue Unit G Venice CA 90291
Featuring:
Aine Nakamura
Oguri
Artist biography
Aine Nakamura is a performer of voice and body, poet, and artist. She focuses on the potentialities of an injured voice and the listening and sensing bodies. She often writes words and considers shapes as if her throat is a membrane and each body part is a shape, phenomenon among worldly phenomena, in relations. Through her practice, while aiming to be a vessel, she understands about herself and pursues meanings of lines, seeing and connecting.
She is currently based in the Bay Area/East Bay, and presents works locally and internationally. Her recent works include solo performance Breath In This World premiered at Indexical in SC, which continues to evolve at ZK/U Berlin, Baiju Theater near Beijing, UrBANGUILD in Kyoto; month-long site-specific exhibition and performance project hands on tape, presented at The Lab in SF; solo performance Under an Unnamed Flower during an invitation to the 50th International Theatre Festival at the Venice Biennale; solo multiple performance project Circle hasu We plant seeds in the spring of mountains, presented at Theatertreffen at Berliner Festspiele after its premiere at the Gallatin Galleries. She also engages in listening in relation to wounds and soul work, which resulted in her performance at The Listening Biennial Singapore. She is also a committed collaborator and improviser. Through collaborations, she develops her approach to attunement, spaces and listening.
Aine Nakamura by Moe Staiano
Oguri is a Japanese-born dancer and choreographer whose journey into dance began after meeting Ankoku Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1985, he joined Min Tanaka’s Mai-Juku and participated in the founding of Body Weather Farm, where rigorous dance practice was integrated with traditional organic farming, shaping his lifelong investigation of the relationship between body, nature, and environment.
Since moving to Los Angeles in 1991, Oguri has co-directed Body Weather Laboratory Los Angeles with Roxanne Steinberg. For more than three decades, he has created solo, duet, ensemble, and community-based works for theaters, public spaces, and site-specific environments. His collaborative practice spans dance, music, visual art, literature, and improvisation, creating performances that explore the relationships among body, place, memory, language, and time.
Since 2005, Oguri has co-produced Flower of the Season at Electric Lodge in Venice, California, an artist residency and performance series that supports emerging and established dancers, musicians, and interdisciplinary artists through workshops, mentorship, and public performances. As Artistic Director of Body Weather Laboratory, he continues to mentor artists and develop community-centered projects that make dance accessible across generations and cultural backgrounds.
During and following the COVID-19 pandemic, Oguri presented the live remote dance performance Inhabit the Skin and Dance and Eye, a collaborative project with four photographers, at ARCANE Space, produced by Morleigh Steinberg. Dance and Eye continues to evolve as an interdisciplinary dialogue between movement and photography and will be presented as an exhibition at Château La Coste, France, beginning August 29, 2026.
His recent projects include “Sky. It's! Celestial Bodies in the Mouth”, an ongoing interdisciplinary performance project exploring the relationship between vocalization, sound language, and the dancing body.
Oguri by Ray Barrera