Voice of Takahiro Mochizuki
Each year at Session House, he researches and analyses ways of understanding works, including by holding post-performance “email discussions” for “Dance Bridge,” “Dance Flower” and “Theater 21 Fes U25/U35.” At the same time, he has performed as a dancer in the “Dance Flower Award Winners' Performance” and “Dance Bridge: Tokyo's Okuni.” Here he speaks freely about the feelings he brings to creating works and dancing.
“Clowning and Dance”Top Star — Takahiro Mochizuki
I am sorry to start with something so personal, but I had a grandmother who was very strict about discipline. She was frightening, and pinched my cheeks many times. Looking back, my father was the eldest son, my mother had married into the family, and we lived with my grandparents, so my grandmother took sole responsibility for disciplining us siblings. As for our home, everyone gathered around the table for dinner and then relaxed together in the living room: the quintessential Showa-era family. Living that way, I could not just watch whichever television programme I wanted... And I do not remember the whole family ever laughing out loud together. Only when we watched a programme featuring Ken Shimura on Saturday nights (was it Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen TV?) would my fearsome grandmother roar with laughter, setting everyone else off too. I thought: imagine making that ogre-like grandmother laugh so hard! (Sorry, Grandma.)
Well, that was a long introduction, but it is where entertainment began for me. The starting point for this piece came when I appeared in the Session House Award Winners' Performance at the end of September, and the owner, Takashi Ito (伊藤孝), said, “I sense the spirit of the clown in Mocchi's dancing.” I thought, “I wasn't wrong about what I've valued all this time!” He also recommended “The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder,” by Henry Miller. A few months later, I was asked to write for this Voice of Session. Since things had unfolded that way, I thought I would take the opportunity to write about “clowning and dance.”
Clowning is defined as acts intended to make people laugh, acts outside the bounds of ordinary behaviour, or the people who perform them. “The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder” depicts changes in the inner feelings of its clown protagonist. To introduce it briefly, the protagonist is a man with a very special talent—the talent to make people laugh. Conscious that he must possess the powers of an exceptional being and must make people laugh, he becomes obsessed with the idea that, while remaining himself, he must become something beyond himself. As his fame grows, he becomes lonely and eventually runs away from his role as a clown. His sense of self and the character he plays have become separated. Some time later, a particular encounter brings him to a circus, where he begins helping with peripheral jobs such as putting up the tent, moving its poles and watering the horses. There he starts to feel fulfilled and enriched in spirit, and takes another look at himself. —A great deal omitted here—
Ultimately, in the process of discovering what it means to be himself, he realises that becoming a nobody, or somebody, or every kind of person, in no way prevents him from becoming himself—and that, if so, he ought to be a clown through and through. Watching projects such as the Young Dancer Support Project, in which I have been involved in recent years, I think that re-examining how we understand dance technique may be one of the important factors in the development of contemporary dance. This applies not just to dancers but to audiences too: pursuing skills beyond what are usually called the physical movement techniques of dance—for example, an appearance that rivets the audience's gaze, or a use of pauses and timing that makes the time and space entirely that person's own. It means pursuing “the golden land of expressive possibilities that exists in the spaces between physical techniques” (quoting Professor Satoshi Ishibuchi), and sharing it with the audience. If we can achieve that, I believe dance can be lifted into another dimension.
The important thing is whether, in the creative process—or while dancing—you are aware of how the audience sees you. That is the point! I have used the clown as an example, but I am not talking about creating something funny; I mean being conscious of the audience as you create and perform. Having access to all kinds of information in contemporary society is extremely beneficial and wonderful, but it is also true that it carries the danger of drawing us towards uniformity. If, by stepping away from that and looking closely at the skills needed for our own expression, we could create dance in which “that person” seeps through, I think it would be something wonderful and irreplaceable.
To finish, after moving to Tokyo I had the chance to see Ken Shimura's stage show (Shimura Kon) from the front row. Dressed as Baka Ton, he made his way down the steps from the upper part of the auditorium, and the audience burst into laughter. Then, in an instant, he stepped onto the stage and fixed the audience with a single glare: the auditorium fell silent. Needless to say, a ripple-like light seemed to radiate from him. The image produced by that sequence of movements still rises before me, undimmed. I hope the future will overflow with dance like that.
Takahiro Mochizuki
Excerpt from Voice of Session House 2024
