When I saw the ballerina Yoko Morishita perform
she was under a spotlight, dancing on this huge stage
and I thought, "that's where I want to be".
From then on I knew I wanted to be a professional dancer
I was about 7 or 8 at the time.
This is my first time choreographing a piece and I've found it fascinating
I never thought I would do this but now that I have
I've discovered a different part of myself.
My inspiration was the perfume Chanel No.5 L'Eau
when I smelt it I noticed two things
it was classic, but with a modern smokiness
I'm expressing that paradox through dance.
In dance the classic is the foundation of the modern
and so as a woman and as a dancer I feel I have to carry both.
I work on instinct a lot.
Almost, instinct has been the most powerful tool
that I trust in myself.
I use my arms a lot, I use the ground a lot.
Everything should feel robust, and like I'm being reborn
in some new primal sensibility.
But with that, I'm way more interested
in how it can have a feeling.
Even if it's just something simple,
I'm interested in how my dancers might find something
that almost stops it looking like dance, actually.
Makes it feel like a person doing something.
My work often has things in them that we recognise
as normal things of dance, yes.
But I think it's about reimagining all those things
and understanding context, understanding what that means now.
We often talk in the studio about
forgetting about these things that have been restricting us,
and talk more about who we really are
and how that can translate into movement language
from a central point, from one person.
They're calling me, 'Oh, Aya Sato, she's a vogue dancer.'
But I never learned vogue before, I never learned that.
That's the only one thing that I didn't learn.
My mom was a ballerina so I know about ballet
but I did, like, everything.
I took hip-hop or jazz-funk or waacking, a lot of styles.
I was thinking, everything has a lot of rules
and I don't want to do exactly the same as teachers.
I love math, I have a lot of numbers in my mind.
I need to connect everything.
Yeah, I'm sleeping like this,
sleeping like a baby.
Then when I wake up, I'm like, 'Oh, maybe I can do that,'
and then I can see myself already.
So maybe-,
'I think this is cool,' or, you know, recording myself.
The phone is right here, so I put the phone
and then I'm doing, here,
I can do something like this or this,
I've got a load of ideas.
When I was a kid, I was super sensitive.
I couldn't say anything about myself,
so I wanted to show something in my world.
That's why I started dancing, I feel like.
The first competition I was in was when I was 7 years old
I danced the solo of Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.
I didn't have the positions down at all
but I still danced as if I was that princess.
When I'm in the wings I don't feel very nervous
but once I'm on the stage I do feel different
I feel like I stop being me
The concept of this project is dual natures
we all have weak and strong parts at conflict within each other
we want to be strong despite our weaknesses that's what I wanted to show.
I used to go to this under-18 rock club.
The first time I went there,
there was this guy totally freaking out and waving his arms around.
I was like, 'Oh, I can do that in public?'
'Cool, good to know.'
You're always relating to a form that's external to you,
and that's generally a white dance canon.
I've tried to shed the situation that makes me feel
like I need to dance in a certain way.
But I think, if anything, I've enriched my understanding
of choreography and the tools that it gives me.
And I guess the thing with improv is
it's always in process, and this feels important.
Like a softer way of resisting objectification, I guess.
I don't go around feeling female.
I guess I generally think about the feminisation of my performing body
being something that other people do, rather than something that I do.
Something about disrupting the expectations
that anyone might place on our bodies.
Reversing the threat of racism and sexism
and all the other things that oppress us.
Hooking back into it and pushing it a bit outwards,
or making an audience or a viewer feel implicated in that.
Or just being that scary black woman of your nightmares.
What if we bring it?
What if we become all the things that you can sometimes sense
people are thinking about you, feeling about you, or it's stated?
What if we become those, and then what happens?
What I try and challenge with my work, actually,
are normal body types, normal body ideals.
How can we start pushing that?
What can we do to challenge
this structure that we're still working with,
and tell a new story that still has everything beautiful and exciting
and exhilarating about it, but isn't stuck in the past?
One thing that I've found you have to be so aware of
is not relying or relating back to your inherent movement.
So if you always do this,
how can you eradicate the fact that that arm always does that,
and connect with what it is you're trying to do?
As soon as you can liberate yourself from your mind, in fact,
and make it almost more like a meditation,
the best stuff is born in those times, I think.
There's a scene at the end of the piece where twins teach me to dance
it's a chapter that reminds us of what the true nature of dance is.
When you've been dancing for a long time
you develop your own style but you can forget where you started from.
I'm often told by directors not to try and be perfect because
the more I strive for perfection the less emotion I can express
I'm beginning to change my approach.
I want people who see this project to recognise their own dual nature
and to feel that it's completely OK to express it.