Kanami Kusajima just wants to dance. Having graduated with a degree from SUNY Purchase during the pandemic, her options were limited.

 

“I took dance classes in my apartment,” she recalls. “But it felt so weird. It made me crazy dancing to the walls, the couch, the table. It felt wrong, it was depressing.”

 

With no job opportunities looming, Kusajima ventured from her apartment in Queens to Washington Square Park in September of 2020, where she began collaborating with painter Pinokio. The dancer/painter collab ran Tuesday – Saturday until November when Pinokio left the city.

 

Kusajima wasn’t so comfortable continuing to perform on her own, but Pinokio encouraged her, saying “New York needs art.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Graniela, now a retired Apple Developer, Cinematographer, is now free to express my soul...