THE SKIN BETWEEN US

Choreographer

Selina Shida Hack

Dancers

Gio Cruz, Nana, Yurika S. Yamamoto

Text

Chardonay Taylor Lemon-Jones

Where is Home?

I grew up between worlds. My mother is Japanese. I moved between Japan and New York for my first twelve years, learned the language and traditions, yet never felt fully claimed. My darker skin marked me as different. My father is Guyanese, but his family immigrated to New York before I was born. Guyana remains a name more than a place.

I answer Queens, New York when asked where I am from. Berlin is where I live now, where I build my daily life. A semester in Hong Kong changed me profoundly. It holds a piece of my heart.

I have met others like me who carry homes scattered across parents, partners, current lives, future dreams. Our lives are mosaics of fragments. Home emerges from the connections and memories we gather.

The Skin Between Us is grounded in autobiography and the stories of four dancers. It uses recorded testimonies, movement scores drawn from personal memory, and images the dancers brought into the studio. It holds the reality of mixed race experience precisely: in these four bodies, four histories, four voices.