Meet Masumi Kambayashi | Dancer, Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Masumi Kambayashi and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Masumi, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
when I am taking risks I usually don’t feel like I am taking risks. I am doing this just because I know I should do this to make my dream come true. And later on I realize that I was taking risk.

For me taking risk is always uncomfortable because I am trying something new. But risk has taught me that trying something new is to know myself more, exploring what I have/ I want to have in the future. So taking risk makes my life so much more valuable and fun.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
For me I dance from my heart not only doing the movement. It’s very interesting to see how people moves differently even when everyone is doing the same choreography. Everyone has different understanding the movement, emotion and mood when they learn the same movement and it shows very clearly. I used to be focused on only the movement and less emotion but I realized that I always get inspired watching someone who has strong emotion with the movement because I feel like I am reading a book or watching a movie from them. It is very hard because it’s just too much sometimes to dive into my emotion deeply and opening up to everyone. But at the end of the day just letting my emotion go with the movement helps me get away from some sort of negativity in me and it just feel good. My challenge is that knowing that I am on the right path and not compare to other people. So I always remind myself why do I dance and choose this art. I do this art because I like explaining myself with dancing, I can fully be myself.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I will for sure take them to explore ice cream store in Grove Street, NJ and get ube ice cream from somewhere! and maybe sit in front of the pier in Newport and talk random thing and little catch up. Then go to union square park and look around all the thrift store around the area because all the thrift store there has different styles and it’s just so much fun to explore. And head to high line which is also located in Manhattan and walk around. And probably get halal food from adel’s famous halal food or Artichoke Basille’s pizza!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There are so many mentors in my mind I appreciate so much, in here I would like give special thanks to Megumi Kaneko and Victor Rojas. when I was in high school I was originally planning on getting nurse’s license back in Japan. But part of me I knew that wasn’t something I really want. During that time I met those 2 amazing people and they helped me realizing what I really want which is impress people with dance and art I create. They will forever me my biggest inspiration and I can’t thank them enough.

Instagram: @masumicam

Image Credits
@indiastokesphoto @geomantillaphoto @gcope.nyc