Dance, dance, what is dance, why dance?

It is the New Year, 2014. How's my body and mind doing in the new year? Have I explored everything I had wanted to during the last year? Am I ready to embark on a new journey? I think so. In order to revisit my thoughts and ideas from previous years and to renew my hope and wish for this coming year, I decided to expose my work in a particular setup. A dance festival happening in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. This festival called "Modern Moves" is featuring twelve contemporary dance companies in D.C. The selection was done via invitation of Dance Place, a venue which has been presenting dance in DC since 1980. To be completely honest, I was a little surprised to receive this honor. As the readers of this blog might know, my work is experimental, bordering on dance, theatre, and visual art. I'm not what people consider as a legitimate dancer (if such a thing exists, I know). I'm also not a part of the dance community. My work is not technique-based, beautiful, athletic, vibrant, nor sexy.

My dance stands on fragility, imperfection, subtlety and sensuality. It is the exploration of the body within the frame of some form or content. It is not the exploration of a theme or a subject matter using the body as a tool. Participating in this concert gave me an opportunity to reflect upon my thoughts on dance and clarify what dance means to me.

Dance is ultimately very personal. It is the living body's business. What is inside, fluctuating mind, rhythm of breath, speed of the soul, all of these create pre-movement that eventually manifest in movements externally. What I'm sharing with the audience is what is happening inside of me through the moment-to-moment encounter with the external environment. I am exposing what is happening in the deepest part of myself to the audience, in a universal form, with the hope that perhaps there is something like this inside of them as well. Perhaps we share something in common. Do we call this resonance? If so, all the companies performed today were aspiring for that. What is the difference? I keep pursuing the question. What do I think is important in dance?

My dance doesn't have a reason. It doesn't mean anything. It is not about anything. It's not about war, violence, love, politics, and relationships. It IS love, politics, war, violence, and relationships.

I am dancing Naoko and my perception of the world, how I see and feel the world, seeps through the movements. I am dancing Naoko. I am, I would like to be, dancing space and time. Existing space and time and imagined space and time. Dance for me is a strong yearning for connection. Connection with the immediate and distant environment. Channeling what is not tangibly existing in the immediate time and space, and at the same time existing in the immediate dimension. By doing so, swirling the audience into a larger cycle of the universe altogether. Dance is also a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage into my own self. Deeper, deeper, going down into the deepest part of self. What kind of 'I' is there? Dance is also ultimately somebody else's business. Through the encounter with my dance, different individuals might be imagining and experiencing something completely different from each other. And that's completely ok.

After today's performance, two men came up to me on the street and commented on my dance. Two things they said - "It was so intense." "It's such control of the body to move so slowly." I'm actually not controlling. I'm being controlled. I'm rushing home to work further, train more, more time with my body, mind, spirit, and soul. Yes, this is the New Year's wish. Definitely.

Photo credit: Paul Emmerson

(Preview - http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/modern-moves-festival-to-feature-dc-areas-most-established-dance-troupes/2013/12/26/3e15d342-6b96-11e3-a5d0-6f31cd74f760_story.html)

What we see Why we see

We finished presenting "What we see Why we see" on January 8th at Dance Place, Washington, DC. This collaboration was one of the most adventurous and meaningful one for me in many ways. My collaborator, Tzveta Kassabova, and I come from a very different background. I'm from dance, theatre, literature and linguistics. She is from dance, gymnastics, and astrology. Since our common interest lied in sculpting the space, we started with a specific type of material to shape the space: plastic. For 7 days in June, we played with all kinds of plastic to see what intrigued us. In August, we met for 10 days to work with what we came up in June and generated some material. We documented everything we had in 45-minutes footage. Then I left for Japan.

Our real work started when I got back from Japan in December. We only had one month before the show opened. We viewed the footage and threw away 75% of the materials we came up with. We built the scenes. When we started deciding the details, we started clashing. Because we were both directors, choreographers, and performers of the piece, we made all the decisions together from large ones to the small ones. We not only came from different disciplines but also had different approaches in building work. So decision making sometimes took a long time.

In the end, I was glad that this collaboration happened. It was a kind of a relief that I was not alone in the decision making process. I still felt that it was my piece as much as it was hers. I faced my insecurities, relearned my weaknesses, and discovered my strengths. Tzveta and I were not playing in either of our backyards, but were taken into the third place borne out of all the clashes and harmonies between us.

The piece is not complete but is on its way and I hope we'll have another opportunity to work on it sometime soon.

0.01 Decibel ~ Improv. Menu

Just finished dancing "0.01 Decibel" at Improv Menu in DC. I asked my cellist/vocalist friend Audrey Chen to join me since she was back from Berlin for a short time. I have worked with Audrey a couple of times in small and big projects in the past and was missing moving with her sound. I wanted to feel her again and meet her with where I was now - it was like a impulsive short rendevous I looked forward to. The duet with her felt like 8 minutes instead of 18 minutes. I was thoroughly enjoying her sound, her presence, her silence, and give and take between us. At the end, she was going far and farther away from me. I caught the last glimpse of her and she disappeared from my sight.

Modernity stripped bare (3)

My injured leg is making me even more immobile than before. But is it really so? Protecting the injured leg, the rest of the body starts creating obscure movements. Strange balance, slow rhythm. Using a cane makes me feel like a mysterious character appearing in a fairy tale. This might be a super laid-back perspective for such an inconvenient situation I'm in right now. But once you accept the situation, you can actually experience a kind of peace. You start making new discoveries. People you meet with this new body don't know if the situation is permanent or not. So naturally, their reactions vary. Experiencing them, I realize that I'm standing on the other side. It's making me appreciate what I've been taking for granted such as people's kindness, my car, the luxury of going into the yard and touching the earth, morning light, and even listening to music. Perhaps injury and pain happen for an unknown reason that our beings are secretly in need of. My next question is, what kind of dance comes out of this body? 怪我をした足のおかげで以前にも増して動かない体になっている。が、果たしてそうなのだろうか？使えない足をかばって、体の他の部分はいびつな動きをし始める。おかしなバランス、スローなリズム。杖まで使っていると、なんだか変なキャラクターになった気分だ。とても不便な状況なのに、のんきなものだと思うが、一旦あきらめてしまうと、思いがけなく余裕が出てくるから不思議である。こうなって、いろんな発見がある。出会う人達は私がずっとこうなのかどうなのか知らない訳だから、反応は様々で、それを経験すると、普段立った事のない側に立たされている事に気づく。今まで、当たり前と思っていた事が新鮮に思えてくる。人の親切が身にしみたり、車の有り難さに感謝したり、庭に出て土を触れることがとても贅沢なことに思えたりするし、朝の光がいつもよりまぶしく思えたり、音楽を聞くのがとても楽しみになったりする。怪我や痛みは私達の理解を超えた、でもひそかに求めている為に起こるのかもしれない。どういう踊りがここから生まれてくるのだろう？

Modernity stripped bare (2)

アンサンブルでやる稽古も好きだが、一人でスタジォで過ごす時間は密である。動かない体に面しながら、新しい動きを発見して、病後の回復期のような気持ちになる。どこに私が居るのか。気合いを入れていかないと。。。 As much as I like ensemble rehearsals, I cannot appreciate enough of my time alone in the studio. Facing the body that doesn't feel like my body, I start discovering new impulses within as if I were on my way to a full recovery from an illness. Where am I now? Where am I in my body? Where am I in my mind?

Modernity Stripped Bare

このプロジェクトの準備を始めました。今回は電子音楽家のヨーコKさんとのコラボレーションです。しかし、写真の展示の中で踊るというのは難しい。。考えすぎてもいけないし、でも全く関わらないというのでもない。まあ、どちらにしても、私は私の踊りしかできないから、いきつくところまでいきつくのみです。しかし、カスパーにこの２ヶ月というもの、かかりっきりだったので、体が無くなってしまったみたいだ。感覚をどこまで取り戻せるのか。あせる。 Finally started working on the April 22nd performance. It is a collaboration with an electronic musician, Yoko K. It is really challenging to dance in the gallery where such powerful photos are exhibited. I can't think too much. But the photos are the given of the space, emitting intense energy into the space. In any case, I can only dance my dance, so I'll see where I can reach. Because of my investment in "Kaspar" for the past 2 months, I cannot feel my body so clearly. I wonder how much sensation I can gain back? Time is ticking.

RE: Kaspar (4) - desire to label

Last week I met Mr. John Spitzer, a theatre director who staged multiple works of Peter Handke through Fraudulent Production, an avant-garde theatre company active in DC for 18 years. Although the company doesn't seem to be operating anymore, he is still performing, directing, and writing. I met him as a part of the preparation for the upcoming production of "Kaspar" at my school in March 2011. While we discussed the play and Handke, one question he pointed out kept ringing in my head. This was also the question one of my students in the class 'Ensemble Theatre Lab' raised after 7 weeks of exploring "Kaspar". The question was, ' if something doesn't have a name, does it really exist?' This is an extremely curious question on many levels. We name things so that we can use these objects as references in order to communicate our ideas. So if we cannot name something, it makes us very inefficient. For instance, if we don't have a word for 'beer' and we have to describe it to somebody, how would we do that? "Can you get me that brownish slightly bitter liquid that sparks and gives you buzz? " The status 'beer' had under its name diminishes significantly. Plus there might be another 'thing' that fits this description. What makes 'beer' beer becomes quite nebulous at this point. Or what if none of these words I just used were available? Can I still talk about this thing and feel like it really exists? This phenomenon acutely points to our desire to define and be defined through labeling. What drives this desire to make things exist? Is that our fear? Last year during "Paraffin" rehearsals, one of the performers described that what's undefinable is eternal. So is it our fear of the eternal? Or is it our fear of disappearing and losing? In Kobo Abe's "The Wall", the protagonist loses his name to his own name card. His name card assumes his identity and takes over his life. The man who lost his name wanders around the city, not being able to claim his existence to anything or anyone. This story suggest the absurd nature of our identity. The only means to prove our existence comes from external definition. But if, if we didn't know that things are supposed to have names, labels, then we might not have such fear. We just exist and things just exist. The only way to get to know something is to experience it. The identity of the object is only proved by its own life.

Kaspar (3)

My friend Ryuzo Fukuhara told me what happened when he tried to make his students articulate their feedback after viewing someone's dance. "I liked this dance." "why did you like it?" "Her arms were ..." "What about the arms?" etc, etc. As he pursued the question, the student who was giving a feedback started crying. He explained that it was because something she had at the core resonated with the dance she was watching. She was just not realizing that until she was pursued to articulate her instinctive response. I was experiencing something similar to this episode. The play I'm working on now, "Kaspar" is about the possible reversal power relationship between language and thoughts. It is about the phenomenon of idiomized use of language. It is about the loss of subjective language and subjective reality. It is, really about human rights and freedom. I was starting to remember how my process of English language acquisition went in the past twenty years. In the initial stage of acquisition, I tried to speak like Americans because I wanted to reach that freedom which seemed to be there if I could only speak the language. As I acquired the language further and further, I felt more and more powerful. It was shocking how it works. All of a sudden, you rise from the inferior to the superior because you can speak the language. You become someone from noone. Pretty soon, language starts walking by itself.

There seemed to be a transition in my acquisition about the time I started exploring the body. I noticed that the accent I tried to lose so hard was revisiting me. And I was actually enjoying my accent. I was now speaking English from a Japanese person's point of view. I'm not sure if it was a survival instinct. Or perhaps it was the embodiment of my further inquiry about freedom. At the same time, I was increasingly interested in 'non-speaking body' vs. 'speaking body'.

When we lose the subjective language, we lose ourselves. We lose our subjective reality. But where does the subjective reality start? How much is our world colored by other people's thoughts? A Japanese body-worker I acquainted with said something intriguing about this. "What is thinking? Thinking is to apply yourself to someone else's thoughts." Ultimately, the question is, where are 'you'? And it has to go back to the body, the most immediate, where we hope we are, where we hope we feel our subjective reality.

CESTA (3)

The performance and two site-specific performance studies ended yesterday. Today is the reflection day. The two site-specific studies were both extremely fruitful. The power of the place was so strong entering into my mind and body, it almost didn't matter what I was 'doing'. The invisible part of the dance was definitely resonating with the place and time. The final performance inside the theatre was a hard one. Making the installation with the three magic mirrors and red elastic cord was a big challenge. The theatre was split between the new and the old part. I chose the old part to create an environment. The performance itself felt hurried and unsatisfying compared to the site-studies where I could have an unlimited time and the environment determined what I do, how I do, and when the piece is going to end. However, the context, the time, and the place for the final piece was artificially pre-determined, leaving a very narrow window to play with. Perhaps many improvisors feel this pressure of 'having to do' something without the genuine impulse. This pressure is less when the environment is so strong and helping you make decisions. When in the theatre, the environment is created beforehand and the surprises and the unexpected events have to be caused either externally or internally. In this case, the theatre space was not completely neutral. It had peculiar energy and atmosphere. But in the twirl of making the structure, completing the installation, sound, and lights, the open space started getting closed and closed, leaving very small room for unexpected happenings. The attempt of bringing in the memory of two sites into the theatre was, most of the time, perhaps not so successful. What I was finding out was what triggers these pieces of memories from distant places.

CESTA (2)

The week is going very very fast. For the first few days, I walked around CESTA, both the new and the old town of Tabor to sense/feel/experience the place. On Monday, I somewhat conceived a performance and studies based on my observation. It's still freezing here. Despite the cold weather, I decided that one of my sites will be in/on the water. I'm really curious about this current and what my body experiences there. The other site will be the gate that leads to the old town. Final performance will be in the theatre. It's such a short time I'm doing all this. It's an extreme challenge, but I'll just have to what I can do since last night in my restless sleep I was realizing that this is all for me to grow. That's the most important.

CESTA (1)

I arrived at Tabor Friday evening. I'm going to spend this coming week at this place called CESTA (Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor) for the artist residency. This town is about 3-4 hours away from Prague with the airport bus and the express train. The train was a typical European style one with small

separate compartments with six seats inside each. My three compartment mates were an older gentleman with a cane who kept staring at me, a middle-aged guy with a beer and a crossword puzzle, and a Hispanic woman who was deep asleep. About half an hour later, I noticed that the landscape started shifting. Vast field of green began to extend. It seemed that I was going into the deep countryside. The train went on. I wondered if my compartmates were commuting from the outskirts of Prague to the city to work. So maybe this is like the Marc train from Baltimore to DC...but two of them still didn't get off when I did at Tabor, which was almost two hours later. I wanted to strike a conversation, but they seemed to be all engrossed into individual activities and judging from the train station experience, I wasn't certain if I could communicate with them. A vendor with a name tag came around to sell snacks and drinks including liquor. The Hispanic woman woke up, bought a beer and started drinking it. The older gentleman bought a candy bar. It started feeling more like a trip now. I felt a bit nostalgic remembering long-distance train on the countryside, Japan. Finally, after about 19 hours since I left Baltimore, I arrived at Tabor.

Kaspar (2)

The more we get into the material, the more we realize how deep this issue digs in and how wide it extends. We started getting into the physical/vocal work. They can get hot easily, but can they get others hot without getting hot themselves?

Kaspar (1)

The Ensemble Theatre Lab class to explore Peter Handke's "Kaspar" started on Thursday. Fourteen young courageous student actors started this process with me. This is an extremely challenging material to deal with. However, despite my concerns, the students responded to the materials with deep, honest thoughts and feelings. I can't wait to see how this journey with them will proceed from here.

Post-Paraffin

When I decided to do "Paraffin" at Baltimore Theatre Project again this year, I wasn't entirely certain why we should do it except for my gut feeling that it was not over for me yet. As a whole, I'm glad we did it. The work was exposed to a wider range of the audience. With the new cast, we matured over three performance experiences at different venues. And it made sense to complete it in the space we started.

My own process of creating, recreating, erasing, adding, subtracting, cutting, reshaping, was very intriguing in itself. The question 'why' and 'how' kept coming back to me. (The lighting designer Kel Millionie mentioned that my work is about 'why' and 'how' and not 'what'.) Also, another big question, 'which choice is more truthful?' - truthful to the piece, truthful to myself. Within the limit of keeping the structure, I think we were able to honor time and space and depth more this time.

The show did feel very different performing it and listening to the responses. Design pretty much stayed the same - lighting, costumes, and music. The cast was half new (for this venue). What felt very different was the connection with the audience - tighter, closer, deeper, and more intimate. I tried to think why this was the case. First of all, we had some people who saw the show last year. So in viewing the show, they had more 'readiness'. So on most nights, there was a mixture of the second timer and the first timer, which created a certain dynamics. Secondly, it seemed that there were people from more diverse groups (age, occupation, cultural background). Two nights of Q & A were filled with inspiring and exciting questions which last 45 minutes to 1 hour. The audience' responses had more of a range this time. People found different stories, themes, actions, verbs, images, spirits, etc, etc. Of course, some people felt the need for more narrative (according to the audience' questionnaire), but most of them were just in it, yes, they were in it with us - that was how it felt. A simultaneous exploration of what was going on in every moment between the performers and the audience. Ten days later, I talked to some audience members and they seemed to be still resonating with what happened.

I'd like to thank those who came to witness this work, those who helped restore the show, those who helped present it, and those who performed it.

Although we got no review from the press, I'd like to share some of the audience responses here.

"Between life and death is Paraffin."

"Other worldly- unbelievable beauty."

"Evocative-fascinating-mysterious-primitive-unique-sensual-challenging."

"True beauty even when 'savage'."

"Beautiful, imaginative, terrifying, reaching for the heavens."

"Samuel Becket meets Artaud on the road - theatrical tour-de-force"

"Questioning the what-ifs about the human life cycle - how could it have been different? Dance is a challenging medium to ask questions like that - very thought provoking."

"A medictation on death - how death affects one's feelings on life"

"Timelsss..."

"People started on the floor and ended up in the air..."

"Evoked extreme feelings of loss and desire"

"Continuous search for light or love or acceptance - the show will definitely inspire conversation among its audiences."

"The most brilliant portrayals of the current state of imbalance in humanity I have ever seen."

Post-concert review of Dance Place

Thank you so much for coming to see the performance at Dance Place! The responses have been very positive and I'm learning a lot from them. It was a fantastic experience to collaborate with a choreographer Sharon Mansur whom I have known for almost 10 years and have wanted to collaborate. I look forward to further collaboration with her in the future. Sharon Mansur and Naoko Maeshiba perform at Dance Place

Monday, April 5, 2010; 6:00 PM

Sharon Mansur and Naoko Maeshiba are a natural fit to co-headline a performance: Each operates in an abstract realm where meaning is revealed by slow drip rather than steady stream. Both have movement styles that seem more rooted in individual impulse than in anything they learned from a technique class.

Their show at Dance Place on Saturday night opened with Mansur's "semblance," a work intended to be a reflection on women's identity issues. From one dancer's seizure-like collapse to the floor and another's repeated episodes of hyperventilation, it was clear the work's three main characters were struggling to cope with something. The supporting ensemble, sporting schoolgirl-like skirts and red canvas sneakers, represented conformity at its most stifling. However, those threads never came together to make a cohesive statement.

Mansur later performed an improvisational solo called "here/there . . . (for one)" that was a fine showcase for her light, delicate dancing but had an unsatisfying vagueness to it.

Maeshiba's works were more successful, existing in dreamscapes that managed to be strikingly beautiful yet somewhat disturbing. In "Paraffin," a dancer was surrounded by technicians in lab coats, and through a lighting trick involving an overhead projector, it appeared that her body was being covered in scribbles and graffiti. This and other scenes left a powerful emotional imprint by exposing the consequences of forgetting or disregarding someone's humanity.

"Face of Another" shows how smart and thorough a choreographer Maeshiba is, as it has no linear narrative and yet somehow builds to a riveting climax. Through a collage of fluid gesture and intentionally unsteady hobbling, Maeshiba takes a journey to make sense of herself and her place in the world. It's the kind of work that is so well-paced and so carefully crafted that the audience can comfortably get lost in it, completely entranced by the strange world she has created.

-- Sarah Halzack

Proof of existence

I participated in Dance Hakushu Festival last summer in Hakushu, Japan. As I was reading some of the e-mail exchanges amongst the staff members, I ran into one of this year's participants' blog. He was someone I had known from almost 19 years ago in Japan. At that time, he and dance seemed inseparable. I firmly believed that he was going to dance until the end of his life. I myself was just starting to make a serious commitment to the 'act of dance' and 'performance' without thinking too much about motivation or meaning. I clearly remember the time he faced me and asked me this question in a serious manner: "why do you have to dance?" He told me how 'he could not live without dancing". Dance was a proof of his existence. I didn't understand what he had meant at that time. Now I'm slowly starting to understand it. When asked, "what do you dance for?" after one of his performances at PS 1 in November 2007, Min Tanaka answered, "first for myself, then for others, but I'm always in need of others's eyes." When I cast that same question onto myself, do I have an answer now? I dance to explore. What is possible? Where is the boundary? Limit? How does inside and outside co-exist? How does past, present, and future co-exist in my body, through my body? How can I disappear and exist at the same time? How can I transcend this body? What is self? How do you reach ego-less body? Can I go there or am I staying here?

Dance is a quest to find the answers to myself. Answers to my existence. My existence in relation to the universe. The existence of the universe. It is a way to investigate what it means to exist. For me, it is a way to examine what this whole thing means, not to prove it.

In the blog, this dancer mentioned that he hadn't danced for quite a while since his ways of proving his existence has been shifted to his other business. After calling this opportunity his 'last time to dance', he casts a question, 'I wonder what might happen if I dance now. Would this really become the last time or not?" I wonder if this occasion is going to become a trigger to shake and move his existence and if that's the case, I wonder if the reason for him to dance might now be to find himself, not to prove himself.

Visible/Invisible

Recently, I attended one of my friend's mother's memorial service. The service was conducted in a church she used to attend. While I sat on a pew and listened to the pastor's talk, one phrase caught my ears. "What's visible is temporary. What's invisible is eternal." It was a quote from II Corinthians and it does have a highly biblical meaning. However, for me who has been thinking visible/invisible, this phrase came as a revelation. Isn't it true that what's visible, what is on the surface, what is showing outside doesn't last long and what's invisible, what is in deep inside, what is unseen and unsaid lasts much longer? I wonder what happens to things we thought of saying but don't say? Where do they go? I often think of visible/invisible in dance. What is visible is very minimalistic, but what is invisible is vast, deep, and huge. The viewers 'sense' what is invisible, what is undefined, and what is hidden. Minimal action evokes indefinite, undefined, deep response inside of the viewers. This, to me, is a much richer experience and therefore, the phrase 'What's visible is temporary. What's invisible is eternal' resonated with me so strongly.

"Scent of Sky" review

I recently received two very different reviews on a piece I created with a sound artist, Alberto Gaitan. The first one is flat, descriptive, and doesn't enlighten the readers. The second one is much more articulate, poetic, and well thought. They feel like two completely different performances. It made me wonder what the role of a critic should be. How much subjective/objective view should he incorporate in the writing? How much information should be there? 1) DC City Paper

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/07/02/source-festival-mashes-art/

2) DC theatre source

http://dctheatrescene.com/2009/07/07/source-mash-ups-group-d/

Scent of Sky

"Scent of Sky" was performed at Source Theatre on June 30th and July 2nd as a part of 'mash-up' series. We have one more performance left on July 5th, Sunday @ 2pm. This series 'mash-up' is an interdisciplinary project where artists previously unfamiliar with each other meet and create work together, finding a new and innovative (?) expression. Photo courtesy: C. Stanley Production (One thing I noticed and appreciate much about Colin Hovde's photos was that they capture a feeling of both old and new. )

My partner Alberto Gaitan is a sound and multi-media artist. He works with small-size sculptural medium such as sound bug and LED lights. I had an opportunity to 'wear' these devices on my body. Although the idea of 'wearing' certain devices is not new, how I was able to play with this new environment and how my body was affected was a new experience for me.

The citypaper review (see the link below) made me think of what is 'innovative' now and does it really matter? Dancewise, we have already gone through the era of classical, modern, and post-modern. Now everything is called 'contemporary', reflecting what is happening in today's world.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/07/02/source-festival-mashes-art/

Speaking of what kind of combination could generate more innovative mash-up, I recall the performance called "Chat-dangerously easy liaison" I saw in Prague in summer 2007. From the description of the piece, I was expecting some 'already done, pedantic story-telling'. However, the performance was completely different from what I had expected. The way they told the story was so refreshing.

This performance was the result of Archa Theatre's collaboration series. This particular combination was: (2) beatbox performers, (1) jazz singer/actress, (1) graphic designer, and (1) puppeteer/actor. What they came up with was something i had never seen in the visual/physical/auditory/sculptural sense. It was both presentational/representational. It was both high tech (with live video projection) and low tech (using human voice). It was digital and analog at the same time. They played with the distance from the audience. The technology distancing the audience was combined with casual and intimate audience interaction. The language they used was mostly Czek combined with some sparse English, which also off-balanced the feeling of the piece and created a jarring tempo. Of course, Czech has a long history of optical illusions, but this piece really combined the exploding youth energy in the beat box with internet and computer age and still maintained the old feeling and the weight of history resided in the performer. The collaborators worked and created the piece together for 6 months in the performance space, so what came out was very organic piece blossoming with imagination and creativity. It was one of the series Archa Theatre (http://www.archatheatre.cz/en/menu/archa_lab/themes-and-projects/projects/159.html) fully supported the creation of.

One difference I noticed was that these performers were all multi-talented. The beatbox performers could have been easily stand-up comedians and actors. The jazz singer was a dancer and an actress. Even the graphic designer guy was a singer and the actor. The puppeteer was an excellent actor and a gymnast (later I saw his one man show and was blown away by his physical ability - use of trampolin, metal structure, and puppet). They seem to cross train the performers there - or is the boundary just much more blurry?

Scent of Sky

I'm preparing for a new solo piece, "Scent of Sky" to be presented at Source Theatre Festival's 'mash-up' series. This process has been very intriguing. I'm collaborating with a sound-media artist, Alberto Gaitan. The performance will be on: June 30 (Tu) @ 8pm

July 2 (Th) @ 8pm

July 5 (Sun) @ 2pm

I'll be playing with Alberto's sound and light interacting with my body. Please come to see it!!

naoko

For more info: http://www.sourcedc.org/sourcefestival/html/mashups.html