@gigil.arthouse

Ayako (Kate) Tsuchiya, on the afternoon of October 13, 2026

She needed five minutes and the ability to play a song. She didn’t mind that there wouldn’t be time to rehearse beforehand, and when she arrived and I showed her that there would be far less space on the stage to perform than I had originally promised, she said it was fine. She gave a simple cue to the tech team for when the music should start and then went to change into her costume, an all black ensemble of tunic-like shirt and three-quarter-length pants. She also went barefoot.

I didn’t notice that she was wearing a ring until her improvised performance began;  when, as she descended one of two staircases in the space, she grasped the metal railing and began tapping on it rhythmically. She moved, unhurried and considered, in a manner that made evident her focus on the present moment.

For the duration of her piece, I was captivated and envious. I resolved to aspire to a fraction of her self-possession. For the first time in a decade, I wanted to figure skate again. I had expected to be impressed, but it had been a while since dance had left me inspired.

That I’d had the wherewithal to record her and to have documented it so that I can rewatch it whenever I want feels like a transgression. Like all live performances, you just had to be there to really feel what it was like. Words fail where the body senses. She alluded to this later in a reflection when she confided she was shy around new people. I respectfully disagree. She is not really shy so much as she is expressive with her whole body rather than mere mouth. She reminded me how much you can say with the turn of your wrists and the stomp of your feet, how much you can move if you mean it.

It was a brilliant demonstration of attunement, the kind that some would call virtuosic or masterful. But those words belie dominance as the ultimate goal, and that doesn’t seem to be what drives Ayako as an artist. She seems most interested in moving through space thoughtfully, and watching her navigate those five minutes — which felt eternal in the best sense — certainly snapped me into attention. So much so that I’m here, at 2am, trying to explain what I was lucky enough to witness last month: aliveness.

Written on November 2026