My friend Wakako gave birth to Shihoko earlier this year.
Dancer Wakako Asano and I have been collaborating on our project In Repose, which involved creating site specific performances in Japanese cemeteries around Australia in remote locations such as Townsville, Broome and Thursday Island. She had told us when we first began our project that exploring death and returning to earth through burial was an important process and a part of understanding and giving birth. During the four years we worked together, although Wakako and her husband Tatsunosuke tried, they were not blessed with a baby. Finally after four years and just after our last performance in Adelaide at the OzAsia Festival, Wakako conceived Shihoko.
Watch an excerpt from In Repose on Thursday Island here.
– Mayu Kanamori