Japanese improving vocalist, kokyu player and composer. Born February 17, 1953 in Osaka. Mukai studied improvisation under Takehisa Kosugi at the Bigakko art school in Tokyo in the mid-seventies. Her first performances were with her Bigakko classmates in the improv group East Bionic Symphonia. In 1981 she started her song-based unit Ché-SHIZU. Two years later she started the groups dadunr and Enkidu, which have more of an improvisational/multimedia element. From 1998 Mukai has run the Perspective Emotion international multi-media art festival/workshop.