[3] Dance commentators have found her work difficult to classify; in a 2006 profile, Dance Magazine speculated that "One might call her a postmodern choreographer, a movement designer, or a visual artist whose primary medium is human beings--dancers, musicians, pedestrians".
[4] Chuma favors abstract art and discourages efforts to interpret her work, telling Bloomberg that "What I do is ambiguous.
[5] Chuma arrived in the United States from her native Japan in 1977, settling in Manhattan and subsequently becoming a leader in modern American dance.
[6] Her avant-garde pieces have included the seven-hour-long "Sundown", an exploration of cubism mounted at Issue Project Space in 2006.
"[4][9] Chuma also credits artist Alex Katz and composer Alvin Curran as among her diverse inspirations.