Ibuki Kuramochi is a Japanese dancer and performance artist living in Los Angeles. Trained in Butoh, Kuramochi’s style mixes mysticism, sensuality, and the macabre. Videos and performances display themes of the body and motherhood by representing childbirth interplayed with allegories for non-binarism.

In a natural-digital hybrid environment, Kuramochi’s work is equal parts dance and tech. The body is used, but so is AI. The result is an innovative artistic practice that looks forward by reimagining traditions. On June 18th, Kuramochi will open a solo exhibition titled m/Other at the Japan Foundation in Los Angeles, and it includes a live performance on July 10th.

Tom Winchester: What brought you to LA, and when did you move there?

Ibuki Kuramochi: I moved here in 2019. I grew up in Gunma, a rural prefecture surrounded by mountains, and then lived in Tokyo for ten years. Tokyo was vibrant and creative, but I always carried a longing for the spaciousness and quiet of the countryside. LA is rare in that it offers both—the expansive feeling of nature and the pulse of a global city. I was also drawn to its rich queer culture. That mix of urban energy and open space, queerness and fluidity, is what called me here.

TW: Ibuki is a non-gender specific name. Does that influence your work?

IK: In Japanese, we don’t use gendered pronouns as much as in English. My father gave me the name Ibuki, and when I was younger, people often assumed I was a boy. At the time, I disliked it—but now I love it. It’s my favorite word. In Japanese culture, there's the idea of kotodama—that words carry a spirit. Ibuki holds a strong kotodama.

My father came from a traditional background—he was the eldest son of a long-standing sake shop—and struggled under the weight of societal expectations of masculinity. I believe he subconsciously gave me a name that allowed me freedom from rigid gender roles. In that sense, Ibuki gave me my identity as a member of the they since birth.

My piece HUMAN PERFORMER (2021) was also influenced by him.

TW: Can you please explain the use of AI in your creative process for that piece?

IK: In HUMAN PERFORMER, AI played a crucial role in deconstructing identity. I used AI to generate an image of myself—masculinized and aged—which I then layered with my real face and traditional Noh masks. The AI-generated face resembled my grandfather.

That image carried an unexpected weight of authority. It revealed how patriarchy is encoded not only in tradition, but also in how we read age, gender, and appearance.

TW: The use of the Noh mask in HUMAN PERFORMER serves to subvert the patriarchy. For those not familiar with the patriarchal construct of Noh, how transgressive is that piece is in terms of breaking traditions?

IK: Noh has long excluded women from performance. Female roles are traditionally played by men, and the most sacred mask in Noh—the Okina, representing an elderly man—is revered as nearly divine. This reverence for male identity reinforces a deeply patriarchal system where male performance is seen as superior, even when representing the feminine.

In HUMAN PERFORMER, I confront this hierarchy by fusing three faces: my own, an AI-generated version of myself as an old man, and the traditional Okina and female masks. By embodying these layered visages, I question the foundations of gendered value and the privilege embedded in age and masculinity.

The work disrupts traditional expectations not only by placing a female body at the center, but by using technology and performance to dismantle the inherited symbols of power. It challenges the idea that male performers in female roles represent the artistic ideal—asking instead, why is the presence of actual women so often erased from cultural memory?

TW: You studied Butoh with Yoshito Ohno. What was that like?

IK: The Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio was a welcoming and open space. There were no auditions or formal requirements. I simply made an appointment for my first visit, and after that, I was free to join whenever I wished. Dance experience wasn’t necessary, and the focus was never on mastering choreography—it was about discovering your own internal dance and personal philosophy through movement.

When I first visited, Mr. Yoshito Ohno—Kazuo Ohno’s son—was still alive. Meeting him and learning under his guidance remains one of the most emotional and transformative moments of my life.

Hijikata and Ohno had different philosophies. Kazuo Ohno, a Christian and a war veteran, infused his Butoh with themes of life, death and motherhood. His dance was filled with tenderness, love, and reflection on mortality.

Our first class began with the idea of "encountering the space." The studio was quiet, charged with a creative tension.

We were guided to imagine ourselves as a fetus, each connected to the heavens by an umbilical cord. As I danced, I felt a profound connection between my own physical expression and Ohno’s philosophy. I vividly remember tears streaming down my face—I felt as though my art and his philosophy had embraced and blessed each other.

Although Mr. Ohno passed away in 2020, his teachings remain deeply alive in me. I’m endlessly grateful for the time I had with him.

TW: The use of white makeup is a tradition of Butoh. You also wear a flesh-toned body suit and other minimal garments. What choices do you make while deciding what your costume will be?

IK: I started wearing the skin-colored bodysuit after moving to LA. I think the queer culture here inspired that shift. In Japan, the white Butoh makeup is traditional and symbolic, but in LA, it can be interpreted as part of drag culture or experimental performance. I love that intersection.

The bodysuit reveals the female form while remaining minimal. Rather than the fully painted white body that abstracts the flesh into sculpture, the bodysuit keeps the body visible, grounded, and human. I like that aesthetic—it allows me to combine other elements fluidly.

TW: If at all, how does your work relate to the pseudo-shamanistic works of Joseph Beuys? With your use of mysticism and spirituality in an artistic setting, his work with the coyote I Like America and America Likes Me (1974) comes to mind.

IK: Before coming to LA, I had never really been aware of coyotes. But in the area where I lived, they were frequently seen. Since dogs and cats were often preyed upon, I had to keep a close eye on my beloved dog. One day, a coyote appeared right in front of my house. I can’t forget the loneliness and otherness in its gaze.

That solitary gaze resonated deeply with my feelings as an immigrant—its presence felt overwhelmingly other, ghostly, and Butoh-like. The coyote became an embodiment of otherness and became a vital essence in my dance practice here in LA. That inspiration carried into the themes of m/Other.

I think what connects my work with Joseph Beuys's is the ritualistic nature. His approach to the body—what he called "social sculpture"—feels to me like a form of Butoh dance. Beuys's coyote symbolizes the wild, the land, the mythical other. My performance with my beloved dog, on the other hand, focuses on the time we had left together, the womb, and acts of care. Still, I think both works share a fundamental question, what does it mean to be with others—in their strangeness, vulnerability, and presence?

TW: In a previous interview, you mentioned Donna Haraway. Are you influenced by her Cyborg Manifesto?

IK: Yes, Cyborg Manifesto has been a powerful influence on my practice. The more I read it, the more I see parallels with dance—especially Butoh, which embraces transformation, ambiguity, and otherness.

Haraway’s idea that women of color are inherently close to the cyborg identity resonates deeply with me as an Asian woman navigating the American art scene. The cyborg’s in-betweenness—its refusal to belong fully to one category—mirrors my own experience of dancing between cultures, bodies, and systems. That sense of being “other” isn’t just a challenge; it’s a generative space for resistance, creation, and becoming.

TW: The duration of your piece The Cycle had a duration of two hours! What was it like to perform for so long?

IK: It was my longest performance ever. But I didn’t approach it as a dance—I thought of it as sculpting myself within the space. The room became part of the work.

It was intense, but I loved it. Being part of Irrational Exhibits—a group performance show—was one of the most meaningful artistic experiences I’ve had.

TW: What will you be showing in m/Other at the Japan Foundation? Will you be performing?

IK: In this exhibition, I’m presenting m/Other—a body of work that explores kinship, the maternal, and Otherness as shifting, unstable forces. The show weaves together video, performance, and installation, and reflects on what it means to mother—not only a child, but also an idea, a creature, a memory, or even a wound.

The central video is a 10-minute work, supported by projections and physical installation. I also created a fictional sci-fi poetry book, co-written with AI, about a woman who gives birth to a dog. That narrative intertwines with the visual material and deepens the meditative, emotional space of the show.

The "/" in m/Other stands for rupture, for opening, for a non-linear kinship. The maternal here isn’t just biological—it’s spectral, conceptual, posthuman. The work invites viewers into a space of mourning, remembering, and reimagining what care could mean—across species, generations, and time.

Inspired by Donna Haraway’s philosophy of companion species and drawing from Japanese custom, I ask: What does it mean to mother—not a child, but an idea, a creature, a memory, a wound? To me, the uterus isn’t just biological. It’s a haunted space—a conceptual matrix of inheritance, trauma, and transformation.

At the heart of it is my late dog—my beloved companion—whose life, and death, are deeply woven into this exhibition. His presence guided me. His passing broke me. He still lives here, in this work.

In February of this year, I performed a piece titled The Otherness Child with my dog.

On July 10th, I will perform a live piece where I dance with a transparent dog.

Just before he passed away, I held him in my arms and sang the Japanese lullaby Yurikago no Uta—a song mothers sing to their children to help them fall asleep. My own mother used to sing it to me when I was a child.

As I held him and sang, the lullaby became his requiem as he journeyed to heaven.

On July 10th, I will dance with him to that same song.

Since his passing, I have always felt that I am not alone. I see his dreams every day.

He has become my spirit guardian—my invisible performance partner.

Written by Tom Winchester

Images Courtesy of Ibuki Kuramochi

The Mythical Order