Skeleton Flower is Degenerate Art Ensemble’s (DAE) performance of live music, visceral movement theater and dance, projected cinematic imagery and storytelling ritual. It is a semi-autobiographical exploration of Haruko Crow Nishimura’s (DAE’s director) struggle with identity, depression, childhood trauma, and the awakening of personal power. The piece deals with these issues with humor and imagination, casting her family as monsters from a Godzilla movie, and traces her personal struggle through three fairy tales which were read to her by her mother growing up (The Fitcher’s Bird, The Wild Swans, and The Red Shoes). The world of Skeleton flower is a multi dimensional patchwork quilt that conjures and consoles her female ancestors through the use of hand felted wools, ten thousand hand painted silk flowers, and knitted sweaters which fill fantastic worlds in the work’s cinematic imagery.

“The piece attains power and awakening by examining the fairytales that my mother read to me when I was young, which ultimately became clues, which through creative work, I was able to confront and navigate my own darkness. It also deals with a violent assault that I experienced as an adult which became the catalyst for healing and the realization of feminine power. Skeleton Flower is a commitment ceremony that confronts the painful energies and tangled karma of my women ancestors. It is an exorcism and personal proclamation to choose my own path consciously for my own life.”

Skeleton Flower was first shown as a work in progress in Plovdiv, Bulgaria as part of American Dance Abroad’s Spotlight USA Festival followed by its world premiere in Seattle in March of 2019. It was performed at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance (FIDCDMX) in Mexico City in August of 2021. The work has also taken the form of ceremonies in which members of the public shared the struggles and challenges that they are facing, and were given space to commit to overcoming them planting Skeleton Flower seeds as a symbol of hope.

IN THE PRESS

“Much in this production glistens, the costumes, the lighting and Nishimura’s exquisite butoh.”

- Bay City News (San Francisco)

Read an interview with DAE about Skeleton Flower in San Francisco’s 48 Hills HERE

RECENT PERFORMANCES

AUGUST 12 2021 at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance, Mexico City

JUNE 16,18 2022 at On The Boards in Seattle at the Fragmented Flow Festival

AUGUST 21&22 2022 Hans Christian Andersen Festival (Odense, Denmark)

MARCH 15-17 2024 San Francisco, CA ODC Theater

Production Team

Choreograhpy & Direction Haruko Crow Nishimura

Music Director & Composer, Producer Joshua Kohl

Video Design Leo Mayberry

Cinematography & Editing Leo Mayberry & Ian Lucero

Lighting Design Tom Wiseley & Jessica Trundy

Costume Design Wyly Astley, Willow Fox, Elizabeth Jameson

Scenic Design Elizabeth Jameson

Video producer Mischa Jakupcak

The Skeleton Flower, or Dyphalleia Grayi, is an Asian flower that becomes completely transparent when it rains. In Skeleton Flower we peer through the layers of reality to find the hidden forces that give us power.

This project has been made possible with the support of these fine organizations:

This engagement is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.