Photographer Solene Ballesta’s latest series—created with Japanese dancer Kana Kitty—moves at the intersection of Butoh, mythology, and nature. Rooted in the legend of kami (神), the sacred spirits inhabiting rivers, mountains, trees, and wind, the work imagines the body as vessel: untethered, fluid, dissolving into landscape.
Ballesta met Kana in 2020, and what began as collaboration has since become a long-term dialogue: thousands of images tracing their shared language of freedom, femininity, and devotion to the natural world. This new series feels like its clearest expression—where movement blurs into stone, water, and shadow, a dance that doesn’t simply take place in nature but becomes it.
To watch Kana move is to witness transformation: a spirit awakened, water taking human form, the body no longer just body but offering, prayer, reflection. Through Ballesta’s lens, the boundary between human and environment dissolves—what remains is something sacred, fleeting, and profoundly alive.
Photographer: @soleneballesta
Model: Kana Kitty
