During VERS&GERS – from 13 to 30 June – young makers and established choreographers show their work in HUIS Conny Janssen Danst. Dancer and maker Mariko Shimoda (Japan, 1984) is one of them.
Mariko has been a prominent dancer in the company of Conny Janssen Danst since 2012. For the program FRAMED Extended (2021) by Conny Janssen Danst she made the piece Nukegara (Japanese for “shell”, something that is wrapped and from which you crawl out). In Nukegara, Mariko explores the connection between thoughts and movements. From 20 to 23 June the work can be seen again in HUIS Conny Janssen Danst during VERS&GERS.
About the maker
Dancing and creating were already Mariko’s passion at a young age. She started practicing classical ballet at the Nagano Ballet when she was three years old. She continued her education in the United States at the Boston Conservatory where she created her first creation “Taiko” for her fellow students.
After graduating at Codarts (Rotterdam) she worked as a freelance dancer with Regina van Berkel, Paul Selwyn Norton and Arlon Luijten and with the International Dance Theater in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
She has been dancing for Conny Janssen Danst since 2012, where she has been given various opportunities to create her own work. For example, in 2020 she made a solo called ‘1711’ as part of the performance Monuments in Solitude. A solo about her experience of giving birth to her son and about the isolated small bubble she was in during Covid.
Next to dancing and creating, Mariko enjoys teaching ballet classes and workshops at Conny Janssen Danst, Codarts and the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.
About Nukegara
For Mariko, the starting point for Nukegara were her daily ongoing thoughts and the music of Vivaldi. Nukegara is about three women coping with their overwhelming thoughts, their environment and each other. She explored the connections between thoughts and movement: how we can move along with the sounds of our voices and with the emotions of our thoughts.
Shimoda's trio Nukegara catches the eye because she presents three women as expressionless looking dressage horses (...) As if they were Chekhov's parading Three Sisters, they play so coquettishly with desires, sighs and expectations. See their trained toes and fingers. de Volkskrant