Dancers and artists are engaging actively in stage work while exploring how to participate in society and other questions. From this issue onward, we have decided to center the Annual Report on their voices.
Taiju Matsumoto’s “Children’s Theater for Grown-ups Too.” How to Receive the Results. I planned the project “CHILDBOOK—Let’s Open Books for Children,” which combines dance with readers’ theater, out of a wish that audiences would find themselves enjoying and experiencing contemporary dance without bracing themselves too much beforehand. Much contemporary dance is abstract, with neither story nor explicit meaning. It is performed while leaving a great deal to the sensitivities and experience of the audience...
Ryohei Kondo’s “KONDO Theater with Commentary.” What I Tried to Do… In 2018, as one way of removing the barriers between us and the audience, I tried commenting on each work on the spot. And because I asked people from fields that do not normally comment directly on dance to be the commentators, I felt that many perspectives different from ours emerged. Given the nature of contemporary dance, encouraging newcomers to come probably requires a certain strategy and...
Overall direction by Yo Nakamura: “A Fascinating Dance Gathering—with a Guide!” —The Anger Behind Hospitality— A challenge arrived from Session House: “RETHINK HOW DANCE IS DELIVERED AND MAKE THIS A GROUNDBREAKING PERFORMANCE.” And so began our struggle with Dance Bridge’s “Fascinating Dance Gathering.” I mainly considered two things. ①Expand and contract the physical and emotional distance between the audience and the dance. ②Add commentary that lets the work be enjoyed more richly—like salt on watermelon—not by “just talking,” but in a way suited to the work. For ①...
Overall direction by Mitsutake Kasai: “Taiwan (Women and Men) × Japan (Men) × Japan (Women).” What We Found Through Exchanges Between Works… Mademoiselle Cinema performed a work called “Crossing the Sea.” We carried out an exchange in which Kasai and Okuyama joined Mademoiselle Cinema’s work, and dancers from Mademoiselle Cinema joined ours. Participating in one another’s works in this way is common, but adding a bridge section to two completed works and connecting the two works...
“The Art of the Interval (間術).” Baraba Okuyama. Having begun to find pleasure in dancing as a solo, as a single point, I presented an independent solo work at Session House last year, carrying with it a desire that has welled up in recent years: simply to dance, wholeheartedly. And through exchanges with various dancers and choreographers, my desire to explore new possibilities in this body of mine, which has until now practiced the bodily expression called butoh, has deepened. In doing so, the body I have had up to now...
What L.A.B. Aims For… Ryu Suzuki. To nurture young dancers, L.A.B. provides young people aspiring to bodily expression with workshops led by instructors active at the forefront of the field and opportunities to present their own works. Mobilizing all the knowledge, connections, and other resources I possess, I aim to help the younger generation accumulate not merely more stage appearances but higher-quality experience, and to build an unshakable artistic core on the foundation of a body that can move with assurance. For this, L....
Session House Award 2018: Challenge Award Goes to Mako Egami’s (江上真子) “Juliet”! In 2018 again, ten groups selected from the Theater 21 Fes series and other programs as “dances we want to see once more” appeared in the Dance Flower Award. This year’s ten works were all worthy of a Performance Award. Their attitude toward dancing moved us, and we felt that in recent years the level of dancers’ technique, the individuality of works, and other aspects has risen. Diverse values...
Ryohei Kondo’s “Ringo Project—Kagurazaka Tosaka Project” again followed the previous year in featuring music performed from ideas by Kondo, pianist Asami Hirosawa (廣澤麻美), and Satoshi Ishibuchi on guitar and other instruments, together with five young women dancers. Kondo himself created numerous scenes while adding narration and subtitled video, presenting the pleasures of dance through this approach. About “Tosaka Project—THE ORIGIN 2.” “Tosaka Project Origin 2,” choreographed and directed by Ryohei Kondo, featured young dancers. This work...
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. The project organizer, Setsuko Inoue of the nonprofit Wakayama Arts Support Association, and Moe Sugawa, who handled the video...
Crossing the Sea—Back Then, I Was a Child— From November 7 to 11, 2018, Mademoiselle Cinema participated in “Power of the Forest X—Toward the Forest of the Future,” organized by the Wakayama Arts and Culture Support Association (WACSS). In Kumano’s rich forests, which have nurtured history and culture, they conducted dance workshops and created a video work while interacting with all eighteen students across the grades at Izumo Elementary School in Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, and with local residents. This project, through the efforts of WACSS chair Setsuko Inoue...
What It Means to Choreograph in Germany. I am writing this after finishing the performance of my new work in Düsseldorf yesterday. I received my education as a dancer and choreographer in Germany. I went to study in Germany because I felt that dance in Japan lacked a tradition, whether ballet or contemporary dance, and because I thought that if the meaning of being a choreographer was to put something forward to contemporary society and influence it, I should leave Japan and see the world...
What Drives Me. Maria Kong, to which I have belonged for four years, was a young company founded in 2008 by four former Batsheva dancers, and it placed great emphasis on creation. We rehearsed five days a week from noon to 7 p.m., and gave performances and toured. With six members from Israel, Russia, Brazil, France, and Japan, it was a richly international company. Not confined to theaters, we performed outdoors, rented entire club halls...
A Record of the 2018 Dance Program. January 7: Theater 21 Fes vol.112, Winter Edition (1 performance). January 20 and 21: Magnum Madam / New Year Special Performance 2018, “Never give up!” (3 performances). Choreography and direction: Natsue Yamaguchi; guest: Michihiko Kamakura (鎌倉道彦); performers: 15, including Haru Inamura (稲村はる), Shiiko Utagawa (歌川椎子), Takahiro Mochizuki. January 27 and 28: Junior Company L.A.B., 1st performance, “LAKE” (3 performances). Direction and choreography...
Sorrow Spreads at the News of Toshinori Takagi’s Passing. Toshinori Takagi (高木俊徳), who had taught our ballet classes since Session House opened in 1991, passed away on December 6, 2018, after battling illness for more than a year. He was seventy-seven. We understand that Mr. Takagi began ballet in his first year of high school. Initially drawn to the stage and aspiring to theater, he took ballet as one form of training, and it determined the direction of his life. After graduating from university, Tchaikovs...
In 2018, Session House 2F Garden again served as a venue for diverse activities: our own projects and jointly organized or collaborative projects, as well as exhibitions by rental users, theater performances, talks, life-drawing sessions, and more. A Record of Our Own, Jointly Organized, and Collaborative Projects. March 7–14: Sanki Exhibition commemorating the 90th anniversary of Tokyo Metropolitan Third Commercial High School (Norio Toyoda [豊田紀雄], Asako Kitajima [北島朝子], Kenji Mizukami [水上健二]). March 16–25: Yuki Goto (後藤悠樹) Photography Exhibition, “Do Not Forget Sakhalin.” April 4–7: Naoko Sakamoto (さかもと直子), flower exhibiti...
