Voice of Session House 2020 — Tamami Takenoshita

Tamami Takenoshita: “The Dancing Light Never Sleeps”

Last year, as various events and performances were canceled or postponed, Mademoiselle Cinema was fortunately able to hold its planned performances, albeit online.
That said, we first had to resume rehearsals after the state of emergency was lifted in May and prepare for July’s “Stopover” performance with a little over a month of practice. During the period of staying home, however much we trained at home and took online lessons, there were limits to what we could do. We needed to sharpen again the sensations in the soles of our feet, which had grown less distinct, and restore the strength in our legs, which had declined somewhat. Mademoiselle dancers, who rehearse at night while working, normally spend about three months rehearsing two or three times a week for a single production, but this time we concentrated on practicing five days a week. We used two performance formats: on the first day, a performance with a limited audience, and on the second, a live-streamed performance without an audience. Since this was our first streamed performance, we explored both how to dance for the audience in the seats and how to reach people watching beyond the camera. The major growth that streaming brought was that, through this experience, the dancers became conscious of the camera frame, checked their dance objectively, and each developed a directorial awareness of “what we want to convey.” We also became aware of the advantage of streaming: people unable to visit a theater because of distance, physical reasons, or other circumstances can also see a performance.

 

For the performances that followed, as the season was heading toward winter, October’s “Red Flowers, White Flowers” and December’s “Dance Bridge performance” were streamed only. While I was grateful to have opportunities to deliver our works even through streaming, something was still missing. We had always given three performances, so a stream that ends after a single performance does not allow us to grow through building one performance on another.

 

Then came February this year. To mark Session House’s 30th anniversary, we performed with Condors in front of an audience for the first time in a while, taking care with infection prevention. The audience’s gaze, breathing, laughter, handclaps, and applause for an encore. I felt anew that the stage is a living thing, created through a conversation between our bodies and the people there. How could something so ordinary make us this happy! The final performance had both an audience and a live stream: a format that could be watched in person or online. In future, combining performances with an audience and live streaming will probably become the new normal, because it can reach more people and reach far away. Turning the present crisis into an opportunity, a new era is beginning to move.

 

Tamami Takenoshita, Mademoiselle Cinema dancer
Excerpt from Voice of Session House 2020