About
Masako Matsushita is an Italian-Japanese artist and choreographer whose work unfolds at the intersection of movement, cultural identity, and sensory perception. Born in Italy to an Italian mother and a Japanese father, she embodies an ongoing dialogue between East and West, reflected through a refined and multidisciplinary corporeal language. Her artistic practice includes choreographic projects, performative installations, research-based processes, and community engagement, aiming to explore the presence of the body in time and space while activating perceptions linked to memory, transmission, and corporeal archiving.
Trained between Italy and the UK at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, Matsushita creates works that transform performance spaces into shared environments for sensorial experience and embodied reflection. She collaborates regularly with curators, sound artists, cultural institutions, and professionals from various disciplines, including Ingvild Isaksen, Irina Baldini, Sivan Rubinstein, Curandi Katz, Elisabetta Consonni, Laura Pugno, Antonella Sabatini, Bruxias_Lab, The Sound of Marcello, Orbe Digital, Matteo Maffesanti and Paolo Paggi. Her works are characterized by their relational and spatial sensitivity, building artistic structures that interconnect cultures, aesthetics, identities, and traditions. Among her most significant recognitions, she was selected for NID Platform 2019 and Aerowaves Twenty20 with the piece UN/DRESS Moving Painting, which has also gained academic interest, cited in Acts of Undressing by Barbara Brownie (2016) and The Erotic Cloth by Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle (2018), both published by Bloomsbury.
Matsushita participates in several European projects including Dancing Museums – The Democracy of Beings (2019–2021), Museum of Human E-Motion (2019–2020), Dance & Dramaturgy European Network, VIBES (2020–2022), and Replay (2023–2025). In 2020, she launched the participatory project Diary of a Move, engaging over 60 citizens from different countries in daily diary-writing during the lockdown. This initiative led to a multidisciplinary outcome: a human heritage catalog, a performance, and an exhibition at the Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa. The documentary, directed by Matteo Maffesanti, is available on the platform italiana.esteri.it.
Continuing her collaboration with Maffesanti, she created SCARTO/SCRAP, a project exploring the relationship between artificial intelligence and sustainability, currently touring high schools from Bergamo to Helsinki. The project was awarded by the Culture of Solidarity Fund and Culture Moves Europe. Masako is also a certified teacher for the Dance Well project and a co-founder of 4bid Gallery in Amsterdam. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with Hangartfest, an international contemporary dance festival based in Pesaro, contributing as both artist and curator. Her work consistently places the body at the center—as a site of knowledge, relational exchange, and transformation.
preview picture by Sara Lando side picture by Stefano Anzini
