Oyama’s grandmother taught her how to use a sewing machine by sewing a particular cross pattern on rags. Oyama recalls of this memory, “This was the first complicated machine I learned to use as a child. Today, as an adult while using machines like this one, I began to feel that everyone was turning into mechanical humans.”

In the project Modern Ballet Duo & Trio, Oyama uses ‘Duo’ as a metaphor for a couple or partnership, and ‘Trio’ for a family or team of three. As in her artwork Helmet-River, which used a large group of nine, actors become like robotic soldiers in their activities. Red, used in Modern Ballet Duo, is the colour of the thread that is traditionally used to sew rags to wipe floors in Japan. It is also believed that couples who are destined to meet and marry are connected with a piece of invisible red thread tied around their little fingers.