How is psychoanalysis seen differently between Japanese society and American society?

I don't think there’s a huge difference between the two. But I am not a doctor; I don't have the same knowledge as my father, who is a trained psychoanalyst. So, I couldn't tell you the details. But what I feel is that in the U.S. everyone is more open to counseling than Japanese people are.

Were there not many other kids when you were growing up who had dads who were psychoanalysts? You must have had a very unique experience compared to your friends.

I certainly didn't have any friends with fathers like mine. And, yes, my circumstances were always connected to his job. For example, the way we would play included things like me watching him draw, then handing the drawing to me, and then I would add something and then give it back to him. That’s also a tool for the analysis of children.

I’d imagine that this childhood experience of having a psychoanalyst parent informed your thinking in many ways.

Yes. My pink-bunny show is deeply connected to topics of that kind. Jung often wrote about how the persona, the face we show the world, the personality or identity we use, is always changing when you're living within a society. We change our persona depending on the circumstances of any given social situation.

Before we touch on that, can you please talk more about the pink-bunny concept?

When I was a kid, like two or three, I really wanted to be a pink bunny. I truly believed that I could be. But then when I started to grow up and know what's real and possible, I realized, oh, I can't be a pink bunny. Years later, when I came to the U.S., my English was a disaster, and I didn't have much knowledge about the culture. In a way, I was like a kid again, and then I was like, well, maybe I can be a pink bunny now, and make my dream come true here.

What an unexpected way of coming full circle.

Right. And so then I become a pink bunny—among other things. In the show, I’m changing my face, and therefore my persona. That's the whole theme of the show.

One understanding of the way we change our personas in different groups is that we subconsciously believe it will prevent confrontation and help us to get along better with people.

In my show it's really dreamy, but my personal experiences in the real world are kind of similar to that in terms of how I communicate.

In terms of your performance practice, who do you consider a foundational artist?

The Russian theater director Dmitry Krymov. I saw his work in New York when I started creating puppet shows. I knew I wanted to portray daydreams and share them with others, and when I first saw his work, I was overwhelmed by how he used different mediums on the stage. That had a serious impact on me. I also really like the work of the Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer.

He’s excellent. That inspiration makes sense in light of your work. There’s a dreamlike surreality in what he does, but there’s also a tactility in terms of the materials and the worlds he builds. The same can easily be said of what you do.

It's like he makes collage works, but with moving images. He mixes living things and inanimate things together in layers. That kind of juxtaposition is something I wanted to try in my performances. That’s why I work between two-dimensional and three-dimensional. And then my character, that's my grandfather, but what I'm wearing is my elementary school coat, so there’s an age paradox, and then I'm female and he was male, and I'm Japanese, but the show is in English. It's about the boundaries between worlds. That is also a theme of my creations.