OMOTE (面) | Shion Skye Carter & Miya Turnbull
Presented by Springboard Performance and Esker Foundation as part of Fluid Fest 2026
Omote (面) is a co-creation between Vancouver dance artist Shion Skye Carter and Halifax mask maker Miya Turnbull. By choreographing with hand-crafted paper-mâché masks of each of their faces, coming in myriad shapes and facial expressions, the artists explore their mixed Japanese Canadian heritage, collating and contrasting their personal experiences, while evoking the ritualistic nature of Japanese traditions such as the tea ceremony.
Their performance challenges traditional ideas of beauty, while gestures and tableau articulate the Japanese concept of ‘honne’ (a person’s true feelings) and ‘tatemae’ (their public face). Omote (面) translates to both ‘surface/face’ and ‘mask’, and explores multitudes of layers of being and the self, manipulating what is revealed and what is hidden, honing in on the churning, transitory nature of identity.
TICKETS – are sold out*
*ADD YOUR NAME TO THE WAITLIST
Shion Skye Carter (they/she) is a dance artist originally from Gifu, Japan, based in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded, traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Through a movement language of sensitive intensity, hybridizing choreography with heritage art forms like calligraphy, and interweaving materiality into performance, Shion’s artistic practice peels apart layers of identity and reflects on the complexities of the human experience. Their work has recently been presented at Vancouver International Dance Festival (BC), Tangente (QC), Live Art Dance (NS), Art Gallery of Ontario (ON), b12 free radicals (Berlin), and L’AiR Arts Atelier 11 (Paris). Performances and touring with dance companies include Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman, Furious Grace Dance Theatre/Anya Saugstad, Odd Meridian Arts/Ziyian Kwan, and Wen Wei Dance. Shion’s choreography has been recognized internationally through the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2021), the Chrystal Dance Prize (2023), and most recently, their solo Cobalt was shortlisted for the Rose International Dance Prize at Sadler’s Wells, London, UK (Bloom category: 2nd Edition, 2027).
Miya Turnbull (she/her) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, NS), originally from Alberta. Working across sculpture, photography, video and performance, her practice is rooted in mask-making. She is best known for her ongoing series of Photo-Masks; life-like self-portraits that are altered and reconfigured to explore identity, persona and cultural hybridity as mixed Japanese Canadian. Miya holds a BFA from the University of Lethbridge, and her art has been exhibited across Canada, the US, Europe and Asia. Her work has been featured in Visual Arts News, Art Reveal (Germany), and Vogue Thailand, and she has collaborated with dance artists such as Shion Skye Carter and Emiko Agatsuma, performing with her masks in Halifax, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver. Her masks also appeared in the short film Nô Feminist, which premiered at Cannes (2022). In 2025, Miya was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award.
Esker Foundation is thrilled to continue working with Miya Turnbull. Her work was included in the Esker Foundation exhibition Like everything alive that we try to hold forever, in 2023, which is currently touring to Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Pratt Institute NYC with Independent Curators International – opening on 24 September 2026 until 19 December 2026.
. 
