Free & open to the public
About this Event
Join us at the Arts Research Center for Breath in this World, a solo performance of spoken word, sung voice, and body by poet, artist, and performer Aine Nakamura.
The moon holds no light of its own. It receives the sun’s light while the earth’s shadow reshapes it. Two years ago, Nakamura began to consider the moon’s shape as a membrane between stories, between inside and out. Since then, its swaying line and rings of light have led her toward questions of soul, wounds, and the human eye. In this work she follows light and darkness, line and shape through voice and breath.
Premiered in March 2026 at Indexical in Santa Cruz, Breath in this World has traveled to the UCSD Music Spring Festival, ZK/U Berlin, Baiju Theatre near Beijing, UrBANBUILD in Kyoto, and Chicago. It continues to evolve through each performance and the time shared with audiences, who help shape what it means to see.
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 a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley and is based in the Bay Area/East Bay, presenting 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, and will be presented at Arts Research Center; 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 in NY. She also engages in listening and walking in relation to long-term soul work, which resulted in her performance at The Listening Biennial Singapore. In exploring the presence of wounds and repair, she seeks the concepts of fragile kindness and love to access pathways to vulnerability. She is also a committed collaborator and improviser, through which she develops her approach to attunement, spaces and listening.
More information available .
Event venue & nearby stays
Arts Research Center, Hearst Field Annex, Berkeley, United States
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