Yūgen is named after a concept that is central to Japanese traditional aesthetics. It describes when something evokes a beauty that it doesn’t literally exhibit and cannot be seen directly. For instance, a garden might be designed such that a particular rock evokes a feeling of the coast, although it is inland.

Yuiko’s practice seeks new ways of working in the ballet form by defamiliarizing traditional notions of perfection and beauty. In Yūgen, two ballet dancers shift slowly and with care through modes of choreography that are familiar and unfamiliar to them. The dancers’ movements evoke seasonal and life cycles, transporting an audience into a shifting and fertile ecology.