maira shimada
嶋田舞良馨

documentation for Moon Rabbit Rising
at The Belvoir St Theatre


Moon Rabbit Rising was devised in June 2022 and ran a two-week season. Nicole Pingon who was directing the production invited me to attend the rehearsals. A selection of the following documentation was exhibited at The Belvoir St Theatre for the duration of the production season.

“In times past, there were ten suns in the sky. Each sun would take their turn to rise and set, until one day all ten suns leapt out together and ran wild.

In-between suns, moons, heaven and earth lives the story of 后羿 (Hou Yi) and 嫦娥 (Chang’e); two dreamers connected through time, and bound to our present. A story retold, and reimagined for millennia.”


devised by the company
directed by Nicole Pingon
produced by Little Eggs Collective



ink on cartridge paper, 2022


Rehearsal notes and conversations:

it’s bizarre owning a body and watching you use yours in a way that I haven’t
(but could)
to make art as if painting
you behave with all the totality of a breaking point as if it is natural to you
I wonder what children are and what resistance is between their palms
I wonder the sensation of relenting after pushing as if to kill
you make waves with your arms in three circles
your knee trips over your ankle over the hand that prevents the fall
I wonder what is dangerous

I speak of 'you' as if you were one person but you were many
I picture you threaded on a string
you would pull apart and rebound, rippled like a ribcage
I’m remembering someone use the words ‘arena’ and ‘new emotion’
I’m remembering I didn’t know whether you spoke of suns or sons
I’m eating a mandarin as I write
I got the peel off all in one piece
It has those uneven ridges that make it look like a geode
I’m remembering the way you would break apart and reform, each one of you a segment

big shadow small man
haha crying?