Mitsu Salmon’s “Tsuchi” at the Chicago Cultural Center
Combining a variety of multimedia elements and object manipulations, Japanese American dancer Mitsu Salmon’s “Tsuchi,” a collaborative performance with sound artist Alyssa Moxley, musician Kevin Carey and Mike Hero, as part of the Chicago Cultural Center’s “In the Works” program, was ambitious in the scale of its narrative sweep and in the challenge of balancing all of its many moving parts. Relating aspects of her heritage and cultural identity channeled Proust-like through her recent experience working as a server in a sushi restaurant, and combining space-composition techniques that incorporate unusual interactions, including balancing a pineapple on her head as she moves, for instance, or baptismally dousing her head with alcohol as a statement of immersion. Simultaneously moving, informative and at times heart-wrenching, the ambitious scale of Salmon’s work continues to impress.
