Research-Based Performance Practice
Cay Izumi is a Japanese performance artist, dancer, aerialist, creative director, and founder of Tokyo Dolores, based in New York.
Her work explores embodiment, memory, perception, and Japanese aesthetics through performance, research, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Drawing from dance, aerial arts, philosophy, and futures thinking, she creates immersive experiences that invite audiences to encounter new ways of sensing, remembering, and imagining possible futures.
身体・知覚・記憶といった言葉以前の経験を探究するパフォーマンスアーティストです。ダンス、エアリアル、演出、執筆、そして研究を通して、人間がどのように世界を知覚し、意味を見出し、まだ存在しない未来を想像するのかを探っています。
日本の身体観や美意識を背景に、哲学、パフォーマンス、デザイン・フューチャーズを横断しながら、作品制作とリサーチを続けています。
現在はニューヨークを拠点に活動し、Tokyo Doloresの主宰として国内外で創作活動を行っています。
Research & Philosophy
Her work begins not with choreography, but with questions:
How does the body remember?
Where does identity reside?
How do unseen experiences take form?
These questions are not meant to be answered directly. They function as openings — invitations to enter deeper layers of memory, sensation, and human experience through the body.
Selected Works
Tokyo Dolores
Interdisciplinary performance platform exploring body, memory, ritual, and identity
founded in 2012
Body / memory / ritual / identity
Aerial Performance
Movement research through aerial and physical practice
Embodiment / gravity / intimacy
Film / Moving Image
Visual storytelling through movement and cinematic space
Movement / image / narrative
Cross-disciplinary Collaborations
Projects developed through dialogue across movement, music, visual art, and immersive environments
Dialogue / experimentation / co-creation
My practice explores how memory, identity, and human experience emerge and are shared through the body.
I am a performance artist, director, and founder of Tokyo Dolores, working between New York and Japan. Through movement, aerial practice, visual media, and embodied research, I create works that exist between artistic creation and physical inquiry.
The central question I continue to explore is:
How does the body perceive, remember, and shape who we are?
I believe that the body may contain dimensions beyond thought and language. While thinking is often shaped by language, society, and expectation, the body may function as a medium through which we can access deeper experiences and sensations that exist before words.
For me, movement, dance, and performance are acts of entering territories that cannot be reached through thought or ordinary perception alone. I often think of this process as diving into the deep sea — encountering sensations, memories, and deeper layers of human experience, then bringing those vibrations into a shared space.
Through Tokyo Dolores and collaborations involving music, visual media, performance, and immersive environments, I approach works not as completed objects, but as spaces where people, environments, and time can encounter one another.
For me, creation is not about explaining ideas. It is a process through which new meanings and resonances emerge through the interaction of body, time, and space.
Research Statement
Practice
Over the past decade, Izumi has conceived, directed, choreographed, and performed in more than 30 original productions across Asia, Europe, and North America.
Her interdisciplinary works integrate movement, video, sound, costume, architecture, and ritual elements.
Her artistic language combines underground performance culture, contemporary stage practice, and international aerial movement research.
Current Focus
Currently based between New York City and Japan, Izumi continues to develop projects connecting philosophy, embodiment, and cross-cultural dialogue through performance, education, and collaborative creation.
Selected CV
Performance & Direction
Interdisciplinary Collaborations
Independent Research & Practice
International Festivals & Projects
Open for Collaborations, Research, and New Encounters
Open to performances, artistic collaborations, workshops, and projects where body, space, and story converge.