Portraits

2018 Lilly Awards photo booth

2018 Lilly Awards

Monday, May 21st, 2018
the Minetta Lane Theatre
New York City

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Marina Kondo

Timothy Huang: You were born in the Netherlands, but raised in America. Is there anything about Japanese culture that you have discovered is different from American culture?

Marina Kondo: I think as a performer I bring a lot of simplicity. And in Japan that is a very huge thing. Simplicity is a sign of beauty. My senior thesis was about this: if there’s a cup and there’s a crack on it, in Japan the crack is the beauty. That missing part, that emptiness represents something. And I feel like that’s a great metaphor for Japanese art and culture. In America we try as much as possible to fill every single white space with some color or design. In Japan it’s the emptiness that is mesmerizing. The missing part. The silence.

full conversation