Session House Annual Report 2018
Mademoiselle Cinema Steps onto New Ground in the Forest
In 2018, Mademoiselle Cinema marked twenty-five years since its formation in 1993, presenting commemorative performances including “The Theater of Life,” while also joining the “Power of the Forest” project in Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, in November.
In a natural setting of forest and sea near the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes, they had the new experience of conducting workshops with elementary schoolchildren and visual artists, then presenting the results as a video work. Here we introduce reports from Setsuko Inoue of the nonprofit Wakayama Arts Support Association, which organized the project, and Moe Sugawa, who handled the video.
After “Power of the Forest X—Toward the Forest of the Future”
“Power of the Forest,” which began in Chikatsuyu, Nakahechi, in 2008, reached its tenth edition this time. We have continued this project with the aim of inviting artists into Kumano’s rich forests, which have nurtured history and culture, discovering their appeal from new perspectives through artist residencies, and communicating new attractions of Kumano’s forests through exchanges between participants and local residents. We named it “Power of the Forest” in the hope that, through the artists’ “power” and their works, people would experience messages from the forest: seeing familiar, casually observed scenery differently, sensing a presence they had not noticed. Above all, the truth is that I myself, as the organizer, continue to be captivated by the forests of my home, Kumano, through repeated encounters with them.
Visual artist Rika Oya (大矢利香), releasing the work she had created three years earlier while listening to the surf in a forest at the southernmost tip of Honshu and taking on a new creation, wove time as though connecting new life in that same forest, which had suffered typhoon damage. The work changes its appearance with the passage of time and the movement of the sun. I experienced a breathtaking scene: a quiet collaboration between Mademoiselle Cinema and the work, tinged with the setting sun, in a forest resonating with the surf and birdsong. The visual artist, who had said she was uncomfortable with performance, gazed intently at the dance, inspired by her work and based on the memories and hopes contained within the dancers’ bodies. I cannot forget her innocent expression, cheeks flushed, as she said excitedly, “Amazing! My uneasiness about it has vanished,” watching a scene that seemed to exchange life through a fusion with the artwork—the sculptural form—in nature. This time the theme was “Toward the Forest of the Future.” From the project’s conception, I could not get the image of children playing in the forest out of my head. The workshops with the children were astonishing too. Naoko Ito’s gentle guidance, as though softly pressing the air, and the dancers’ assured expressive abilities naturally blended with children they were meeting for the first time. Children’s intuition is keen. Once something interests them as “fun,” their sparkling curiosity takes off. The children dancing expressively in the forest overlapped with that image I had been unable to forget. The title of the story the children devised at the end of the workshop, “The Wolf God and Little Red Riding Hood”—a great power born from the forest—made me keenly realize that it was sensibilities resonating with one another, not reasoning. Three years earlier, two artists had created work here while thinking of people who had crossed the sea, connecting forest, people, and town. When I thought about the future of those people and memories, Mademoiselle Cinema’s concept connected with “Power of the Forest.” And I decided on a collaboration with the two visual artists from three years before. My intuition that their respective sensibilities resonating together would create an opportunity to vividly experience messages from the forest was not mistaken.
I met Noriaki Hayashi (林憲昭) and his wife in 2008.
It began with their participation as invited artists in “Power of the Forest 1.” This project led them to move from Tokyo and live as a family here in Kushimoto, at the southernmost tip of Honshu. The two spent four years restoring Tanami Theater and are working hard to make it a place for community exchange. They are also dependable supporters of this project on the ground, with sensibilities shared by artists. Looking at the sea, you can hear distant memories of this place; turn around, and the forest is right there. Each artist experienced this rare sense of distance, the depth of Kumano’s forests, and the feeling of life circulating without stopping, and created splendid work.
In the creative setting where each artist respected and stimulated the others, every day was passionate and enjoyable. The blissful time spent engaging with such an opportunity seems likely to lead to a new conception of “Power of the Forest.”
Setsuko Inoue, nonprofit Wakayama Arts and Culture Support Association
Excerpt from Session House Annual Report 2018
Top photograph: in front of the boat created by Rika Oya (大矢利香)
Bottom photograph: taken in front of Tanami Theater
