Kimi Maeda is a theatre artist.

Weaving together the stories of the artist and her mother The Crane Wife, a traditional Japanese folktale, is a shadow-based performance piece which is a tale of sacrifice, love and secrecy. Structured as a letter from a mother to her child, the performance provides several re-readings of the tale, tying it to the experiences of the artist’s mother – who emigrated from Japan as a grown woman – and of the artist – who grew up with a bicultural Japanese/American identity.

This piece attempts to bridge the gap between the bi-cultural identity of an immigrant with that of a native born, but ethnically foreign American. Where the struggle of the immigrant is often centered upon the attempt to integrate old cultures and customs in a new setting, this piece also focuses on the challenges of being born in that very “inbetween-ness,” and not being fully accepted in either the new or old settings.