Voice of Session House 2020 — Yo Nakamura

Yo Nakamura: “2020, Dance, and Me”

I am sure I will never forget what happened outside and inside my body this past year.
I would like to use this space to record it as it unfolded over time.

 

○ April
I had planned a self-produced performance of “Giselle” to mark the tenth anniversary of my work, but it was canceled. I considered streaming video from the theater, but the declaration of a state of emergency closed the theater itself, leaving me without a place. I called a friend, wanting her to listen to my frustration, and learned that her grandmother’s house would be demolished in May. That gave me an idea: “Giselle danced in an old traditional house—that would be interesting.” After repeated discussions with the staff, we reorganized the team and went ahead with a streamed performance, “Giselle: Special 30-Minute Version,” with the smallest possible number of people. With everyone who had been involved in “Giselle” watching over us, I delivered the dance being born right then. Dance is in my life whether I like it or not. I decided to try living a life tossed about by dance, rejoicing and despairing with it.

 

○ May
I was filled with surprise, joy, and respect at the incredible speed with which Session House assembled equipment and launched its “Online Theater.” The university class in physical expression that I was to take charge of from this academic year began using zoom. My impression was that people danced more freely in their own spaces on the other side of the screen.

 

○ June
Until then, I had almost never danced improvisationally. I moved my body only after considering a concept, choreography, and structure. But as the time I spent “facing my own body” increased, my body could no longer wait for a concept and began dancing on its own. Immediately after waking up, in the changing room at the bodywork clinic, at deserted Tokyo Station at night… I wanted to dance everywhere. I noticed the “voice of the body.” Only now? How many years have I been dancing, anyway? I was a little exasperated, but happy.

 

○ First half of July
I danced in front of an audience for the first time in a while. The Main Hall of Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. Applause, after such a long time. Emotion, encouragement, bewilderment—all conveyed in just a few seconds. Overwhelmed anew by how much information applause contains, I lost my sense of myself. “What was asked of me; what was accepted; what was rejected; what I wanted to do.” Then what is my dance?

 

○ Second half of July
Someone from the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, who had seen April’s “Giselle: Special 30-Minute Version,” suggested, “Would you like to share dance with the world?” Borrowing Session House’s facilities, I gave a streamed performance. It was an omnibus of works I had premiered at Session House. Its name: “HIT!PARADE”! Instead of vaguely imagining an audience in the venue, I directed my concentration toward the viewers who definitely existed beyond the camera, discovering a new bodily sensation.

 

○ August–September
The feeling of “losing my sense of myself” from the first half of July returned, and I became anxious. Even as stages and on-site work came back, we could never let our guard down: it was like “stepping on the accelerator and the brake at the same time.” I worried whether I could really dance with 200% of myself as I had before.

 

○ October
I created a work with Mariko Kakizaki (柿崎麻莉子), a dancer my own age and a professional at listening to the “voice of the body.” It was a luxurious, happy time in which I could observe her magical dancing at close quarters.

 

○ November
I was given the opportunity to dance Ko Murobushi’s (室伏鴻) work “An Enthusiastic Dance Danced in a Graveyard.” A group piece originally danced by five people, performed solo. In the latter half of this year, when I had faced my body and made discoveries, but had also lost confidence to the point of seeing rock bottom and become anxious, encountering Murobushi’s choreography, notes, and words again came at the perfect moment. The anxiety that had continued since July was dispelled.

 

○ December–the present, February 2021
I have become accustomed to a rhythm of continuing to present works while taking measures against infection. I danced “The Course of Reason Vol. 6” (理の行方Vol.6) and “Giselle 2020” (streamed in Session House’s “Dance Bridge””). Sometimes I ask myself whether, creating in this situation, I am making the best directorial decisions and choices for the work, but everything is an opportunity. I take it on as a chance to acquire new ways of thinking. During this period, I was also able to carry out several school outreach activities. Watching children absorbed in dancing, concentrating wholeheartedly on their own bodies, I myself recovered “the me who loves dancing.”
“I have a body” was my most important discovery of 2020: the most basic and, at the same time, the greatest thing that matters. With a body, at least I can exist onstage. I can also confirm your presence. Even when thought comes to a halt, the body may already know the answer. For example, if someone asks, “What is wind like?” it is quite difficult to answer in words. But if I close my eyes, I can immediately recall the sensation on my skin of feeling the wind on a sunny day. When I dance, I want to take not just my heart but my body along, wherever we go. If I am lucky, I would like my body to start running on its own and encounter a heart I do not yet know. In 2021, together with the thoughts and the body I patiently built up last year, I want to find answers, one by one, that have warmth.

 

 

Yo Nakamura

Excerpt from Voice of Session House 2020