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The Photographer and the Ballerina

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Look

When the photographer Sayuri Ichida moved to New York in 2012, she found herself plunged into an ice bath of alienation, depression, and regret. Born and raised in Japan, she struggled to settle into a groove in this unfamiliar city. Ichida’s friendship with the New York Theatre Ballet dancer Mayu Oguri, who also hails from Japan, bloomed out of a shared sense of displacement. Featured in the Fall 2019 issue, their ongoing visual collaboration sees the performer assuming ballet positions throughout the city—a clever take on the experience of immigrants trying to find their place in a foreign country. Below, a new set of images shows Oguri, thirty-three weeks pregnant, venturing out into the city once more.

 

Sayuri Ichida’s “New and Recent Photographs” appears, along with an essay by Chloe Honum, in the Fall 2019 issue.