Sticky Hands, Stitched Mountains | Nanako Matsumoto and Ciwas Tahos

Since ancient times, deep mountains have often been portrayed as realms inhabited by marginalised and enigmatic beings. In Japanese folklore, Yamamba is a type of yokai (supernatural being or spirit) that manifests as an old woman residing in the mountains. In the oral traditions of the Taiwanese Indigenous Atayal people, a community of women lives deep within the mountains, a place known as Temahahoi. What if these mountains of Japan and Taiwan were interconnected across borders, allowing Yamamba and the Temahahoi people to meet?

Sticky Hands, Stitched Mountains is the inaugural collaborative project by Nanako Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based dance artist and Ciwas Tahos, a Taiwanese visual artist based between Taipei and Melbourne. Matsumoto’s “Yokai Body” methodology, which constructs texts and choreography through meticulous research, merges with Tahos’ queer approach to exploring culture and gender identity, resulting in a transnational mountain within the theatre. What voices will these women employ to convey their stories?

Together, the artists ask how the space of Temahahoi and Yamamba can survive when the mountains, the land and the trees are taken away and traumatised by neo-liberal patriarchal capitalism, and hope to grow the baby camphor tree back and expand the mountain using recycled paper.

See it at Liveworks, Performance Space’s flagship festival of live art at Carriageworks.