“Egao” is an intensively expressive performance art piece where I bring and put into action sensible elements of Butoh accompanied by live rhythmic percussion. The piece addresses and questions the impossibility to smile in a natural, open way experienced specially among Asian women; which is mostly caused by the repression imposed by the cultural education, that eventually leads them to deal and struggle with social and emotional limitations. With reference to that reality, the title of this piece is also a direct allusion to it, since Egao in Japanese means “Smile.”

I originally felt the need to create and express this idea based on the concept of Ochobo, or “small and modest mouth,” which is a centuries-old tradition and legacy regarded as an attractive trait for women in Asian culture. Clearly, these are perceptions and aspects that are culturally and socially dependent, which deny, ignore and deprive authentic individual subjective preferences. While it is openly known that beauty and attractiveness are subjective to the eye of the beholder, what happens when the beholders don’t have the freedom to express their genuine personal choices? This is the main reverberating question that prevails and flows through “Egao.”