The choreographer and dancer led an eleven-person ensemble at the Dojo de Paris, accompanied by live piano music from Koki Nakano.
Tess Voelker opened Issey Miyake’s Spring/Summer 2027 show at the Dojo de Paris during Paris Fashion Week with a specially developed performance. Voelker choreographed the opening and performed the lead role alongside ten dancers, bringing her movement language to the collection’s exploration of the space between body and cloth.
The performance began with a solo by Voelker before the ensemble joined her in closely aligned formations. Layered bodies and synchronised gestures created shifting patterns around her, moving between compact groupings and sequences close to the floor.
As the dancers unfolded a vast sheet of pale pink fabric, the choreography expanded across the space. Their coordinated movements drew air into the material, lifting it into sweeping waves and rounded, billowing forms. Voelker moved beneath and in front of the fabric as it rose and settled around her.
From closely intertwined bodies to the expansive sweep of the fabric, the performance moved between intimacy and openness. The material seemed to breathe, giving tangible form to a space that could hold, conceal and reveal.
Following the final runway looks, Voelker returned for a second solo before the collective finale. Sweeping gestures, turns and deep bends brought the focus back to the body itself. Her two appearances framed the runway presentation, carrying the relationship between movement, material and space from the opening into its final moments.
The work responded to Figure of Ma, Satoshi Kondo’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection for Issey Miyake. The Japanese concept of ma refers to the space between things — explored here through the relationship between body and cloth. The collection’s starting point, the simple act of playing with a large piece of fabric, found expression in Voelker’s choreography.
Pianist and composer Koki Nakano accompanied the performances with his original music, played live. His compositions developed in dialogue with Kondo and the design team, connecting music and clothes-making throughout the collection’s creative process.
I wanted to explore how space changes through movement — between bodies, within a group, and between the body and the fabric. We worked with moments of closeness and expansion, allowing the same space to feel intimate one moment and vast the next.
Tess Voelker
About Tess Voelker
Tess Voelker is an American dancer and choreographer whose work moves between the deeply personal and the rigorously physical. After rising through Nederlands Dans Theater, working with Crystal Pite, Paul Lightfoot, Marco Goecke, and Johan Inger, she became, at 23, the youngest choreographer ever to create for the Paris Opera Ballet. Independent since 2023, she has presented solo work at Théâtre National de Chaillot, Musée National Picasso-Paris, and Guggenheim Bilbao, and created work for Ballett Dortmund.
Credits:
Opening Choreography: Tess Voelker
Concept development and original music: Koki Nakano
Collection design: Satoshi Kondo for Issey Miyake
Performers: Tess Voelker (lead), Jade Albrieux, Noah am Ende, Félix Bossard, Alvin Collantes, Anna Freedman, Victoria Graßmugg, Amanda Lana, Matteo Manzoni, Reika Shirasaka and Yasin Sönmez
Opening Choreography: Tess Voelker
Concept development and original music: Koki Nakano
Collection design: Satoshi Kondo for Issey Miyake
Performers: Tess Voelker (lead), Jade Albrieux, Noah am Ende, Félix Bossard, Alvin Collantes, Anna Freedman, Victoria Graßmugg, Amanda Lana, Matteo Manzoni, Reika Shirasaka and Yasin Sönmez