Mai ENDO

Grants

• 2026
• Visual Art
• Japan to Indonesia

To study the embodied history and practice of Japanese American dancer Teiko Ito (1913–1958), investigating how “Oriental Dance” was transmitted and transformed across Indonesia, Japan, and the United States in the 1930s. Centered in Yogyakarta and Denpasar, Endo’s research will combine archival and oral history collections with dialogue and embodied practice involving local dancers and scholars, exploring how marginalized bodily knowledge and somatic techniques are translated and reconfigured across cultures. In particular, she seeks to reposition the practices of Japanese-American women dancers historically marginalized in wartime Japanese dance studies, examining how Asian diasporic bodies negotiated expressive possibilities under colonial cultural policies and global imaginaries. She aims to make overlooked practices visible and to offer new models and perspectives for intercultural knowledge exchange mediated through the body.