OMOTE (面) | Shion Skye Carter & Miya Turnbull

Omote (面) is a co-creation between Vancouver dance artist Shion Skye Carter and Halifax mask maker Miya Turnbull. By choreographing with hand-crafted paper-mâché masks of each of their faces, coming in myriad shapes and facial expressions, the artists explore their mixed Japanese Canadian heritage, collating and contrasting their personal experiences, while evoking the ritualistic nature of Japanese traditions such as the tea ceremony.

Their performance challenges traditional ideas of beauty, while gestures and tableau articulate the Japanese concept of ‘honne’ (a person’s true feelings) and ‘tatemae’ (their public face). Omote (面) translates to both ‘surface/face’ and ‘mask’, and explores multitudes of layers of being and the self, manipulating what is revealed and what is hidden, honing in on the churning, transitory nature of identity.