Yokomeshi is a Japanese phrase describing the peculiar stress of speaking a foreign language. Additionally, it can describe a meal eaten while speaking a foreign language.
Yokomeshi: A Meal Eaten Sideways is a performance piece first researched and developed in Japan in 2018. It explores such issues as consumerism, post-colonial legacies, and late-capitalist malaise through the use of miniatures, dolls, and live-feed video. Presenting a miniature world on a tabletop to be controlled and manipulated by the god-like hands of the performer, Yokomeshi takes the audience on a journey of discovery from the perspective of the foreigner, confronting and interrogating the role of the artist in a globalized world.
I researched and developed the first iteration of this piece as part of my three month residency with AIR 3331. It has since been performed at CCA in Santa Fe, NM (2018), the Network of Ensemble Theaters National Gathering and Symposium in Tempe AZ (2018), the TPAM Fringe Festival in Tokyo (2019), and Performance Potluck and Punch in Detroit (2019)
This project has been selected as a finalist for SPREAD 7.0 from SITE Santa Fe.
Photos by Melanie Teresa Bohrer. Videography by Luke Fitch
My video pitch for funding for Yokomeshi for the 2021 SPREAD micro grant launched by SITE Santa Fe