Ayako Kato is both an improvisor and choreographer who seeks to express furyu, the beauty of being as it is, in dance. To explore the fundamental value of life, she focuses on nature within and outside of the body and strives to find the way of nature through movement. Ayako is influenced by the Japanese haiku poet Basho and Chinese Taoist Chuang Tsu. Her training background is in classical ballet, Tai Chi, Noh theater dance, butoh and modern dance, both in Japan and the US.

Ayako created a dance installation Sound and Movement Mandala - 
Ten Nights Dream that followed the structure of a mandala, a Buddhist geometric figure representing the universe, which means "circle" or "completion" in Sanskrit. The significant core symbol of a mandala is always in its center. Ayako approached the development of her dance through the study of Japanese improvisational chained poetry, Renku, and Ten Nights Dream, written by the Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume. In Ten Nights Dream, the final state of the waiting man recognizes the way of nature corresponds with the figure of Buddha who emptied himself, sitting in the middle of a mandala. Ayako layered the episodic structure of the performance as if it is spiraling around the core, so that all the movements and sounds culminate toward a moment of blooming in the center.

Ten Nights Dream: Sound and Movement Mandala was an interdisciplinary collaboration embracing western and eastern cultural perspectives through dance, music and installation art. The performance was arranged as a mandala, a Buddhist geometric figure representing the universe. Mandala also means "circle" in Sanskrit. Audience members were invited to contemplate the Japanese traditional aesthetic of furyu-the ephemeral, yet eternal cycles of nature-while experiencing this contemporary performance from different viewpoints.