表現者としての、自由と美。

Feature | 2025.9.24


《Performing artist》
アオイヤマダ Aoi Yamada


長野県松本市出身。
90年代以前のアートシーンやアンダーグラウンドカルチャーに影響を受けたことが活動のきっかけとなる。
身体と記憶、食と人、音楽と心の繋がりを信じて現在は独自の感覚と日常からのインスピレーションを融合させ、楽曲制作、エッセイ、パフォーマンス作品に取り組む。
Instagramでは、素敵な野菜に出会ったときに展開される『野菜ダンス』や日々の夫へのお弁当作り『おべんとうのおと』を発信中。
多くの映像作品をはじめ、ダムタイプ『2020』、
東京2020閉会式ソロパフォーマンスや舞台『星の王子さま』などに出演。
Netflixドラマ『First Love初恋』、映画『Perfect Days』では役者として出演。
また、宇多田ヒカル『何色でもない花』MVでは振付を担当しACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDSスタッフ賞を受賞。
NHK『ドキュメント72時間』のナレーションなどに携わるなど、身体と声で活動を広げている。
生き様パフォーマンス集団『東京QQQ(トウキョウサンキュー)』、
踊り語りユニット『アオイツキ』としても活動中。
所属するクリエイティブチーム”海老坐禅”の作品集『EBIZAZEN』が発売された。

“目に見えないものづくり”をしている。
アオイヤマダはループしていく世界を表現する。

Freedom and beauty as an expressive artist.

Aoi Yamada creates things that cannot be seen with the eye, expressing a world that moves in loops.


Where is the source of one’s aesthetic sensibility? I found myself asking this while watching Aoi Yamada dance freely, unconstrained by any rules. Famous for her “vegetable dance” videos on SNS and her role as Aya in the film Perfect Days, Aoi is a multi-talented artist, working as a dancer, actor, and model.”I don’t think of myself as a dancer, or an actor, and I feel even more distant from the term ‘model,'” Aoi says.
She doesn’t feel limited by genre, explaining that her work, from making a bento box for her husband to performing on a stage, is all on the same wavelength. She sees her creative process like a multi-course meal, where she expresses what she feels from each course—from the appetizer to the main dish—through her performance.
Born and raised in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Aoi moved to Tokyo for high school and began her career as a dancer. When the genres she was taught didn’t feel right, she began creating her own costumes and music, dancing as she pleased, and people started calling her unique style “interesting.” This is when she discovered her true calling: a “comprehensive art” born from various forms of expression, inspired by artists like Sayoko Yamaguchi and Shuji Terayama.
A couple of years ago, she struggled with the purpose of her art until a doctor offered a clarifying perspective: “I can take something from a negative to a zero, but you can take something from a zero to a positive.” That statement was a flash of light for her, and she realized she was creating “something invisible.” This discovery brought her a sense of calm and a feeling of finally reaching her starting line.
By questioning, struggling, and finding her own answers, Aoi continues to become freer in her expression. I am excited to see what she creates next.


おばあちゃんの家、そこで採れる元気な野菜、美しい記憶のなかに美意識の在処がある。

Her grandmother’s house, full of fresh vegetables harvested there, is the source of her aesthetic sensibility.


When asked about the whereabouts of her aesthetic, Aoi Yamada shared a conversation with a hairstylist. “My aesthetic is in my posture,” the stylist said. “After all, you wouldn’t want someone with terrible posture cutting your hair, would you?” Aoi agreed and began to examine her own sense of beauty.
She realized that she often can’t recognize beauty in what she already possesses. Instead, she finds beauty in external things—like someone else’s perfect nails—and incorporates them to build her own aesthetic. “I constantly find beauty in things outside of myself,” she notes.
She also draws on her childhood memories, digging up moments she found beautiful and expressing them in her performances. “There’s nothing that can surpass childhood memories,” she says. “They’re feelings of doing something for the first time, or simple moments of happiness. They never fade or disappear.”
Aoi shared one such memory: “At my grandmother’s house, the smell of mosquito coils filled the air, my grandfather was watching high school baseball, and my grandmother was boiling somen noodles, adding chopped tomatoes from her garden to the broth. My grandmother was wearing a thin dress, glistening with sweat as she slurped the noodles. I saw this scene when I was at a young age, and it was so beautiful.”
She has even used this memory as spoken word in a dance performance. She aims to perform with a natural authenticity that comes from tracing these memories, hoping that the “superposition of coincidences” will create a true and genuine beauty.
Aoi finds it difficult to trust her own internal emotions, which is why she looks to the outside world. The memory of her grandmother’s house is an external experience she can trust because it has stayed with her. “It has become a foundation for my expression,” she says.
The conversation then shifted to her grandmother’s garden, where Aoi once planted a carrot seed. “When my grandmother harvested it, and I dug it up, I thought, ‘How beautiful it is!'” She realized that her beauty was similar to that of a carrot.
“The carrot works hard to live and grow, getting energy from the universe-like expanse of the soil. Then it is picked and eaten by humans, becoming nourishment for new life. Carrots—vegetables—are truly incredible and beautiful.”
Growing freely in nature, becoming delicious, and then providing nourishment—that may be the performance Aoi aims for, and the home of her aesthetic.


2025年11月8日(土)・11月9日(日) 10時〜17時


◎千葉県木更津市 クルックフィールズ
『EARTH BEAT FES』



2025年11月23日(日)・11月24日(月・祝)


◎長野県松本市 まつもと市民芸術館 小ホール
『ROOT:根』
アオイヤマダ × 小野龍一 × ひびのこづえ



2026年2月14日(土)〜3月1日(日)


◎KAAT神奈川芸術劇場
『未練の幽霊と怪物 ―「珊瑚」「円山町」―』


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美意識の在処。

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VOL.21

美意識の在処。

誰かの美意識が自分の美意識を高める、という話。

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