Akira Kasai (笠井叡): Continuing to Question the Meaning of Reality — Voice of the Kasai Family
Akira Kasai (笠井叡)
Since the worldwide COVID pandemic began around January 2020—or, it is said, even earlier—I think I began living in a way that constantly split me in two directions. To put it differently, perhaps the meaning of the word "reality" had split within me. Since the pandemic began, I think I have been continually exposed to statistical figures and public opinion delivered by every kind of media; to specialised scientific knowledge handed to me unilaterally, which cannot acquire reality within me; and to various events described by the weighty words "collapse of medical care," whose actual circumstances can acquire reality within me only through my imagination. So if I wanted to escape that world, and if that were truly the way I wanted to live, giving up every part of my present life, going as a volunteer into the various places affected by the pandemic, and desperately searching for what I could do in today’s medical settings might be my only
option. And I can readily imagine that this would surely have a great meaning for me, transforming who I had been until then. What a social catastrophe on a worldwide scale like this confronts me with, then, is the "powerlessness" of the single being I call "myself."
This powerlessness is the same for myself situated within the historical catastrophe of the "war in Ukraine." Before the clear facts of "a meaningless world war with neither beginning nor end" and "Homo sapiens utterly unable to overcome its violence," I am completely powerless. What on earth is this!
Of course, this does not mean that for me the COVID pandemic is a statistical problem without reality. In fact, it has utterly transformed my own life. For me as a dancer, "standing on stage" together with an audience is certainly the most important part of my activity. And I was forced to abandon two important stage appearances. Like so many other dancers, I too had no choice but to interrupt or give up everything I had spent months and years doing to create works for the stage. And this may indeed be what I can call the greatest "reality" the pandemic brought me, in both a positive and a negative sense. Being unable to realise what you have prepared toward creation is an event so great that it can turn your life upside down. To be specific, "DUO no Kai," danced by Takao Kawaguchi (川口隆夫) and Mitsutake Kasai in spring 2020, was cancelled midway through its run. Then, in autumn 2022, I was forced to withdraw from both its revival, "DUO no Kai," and the new production that followed it, "Beneath the Cherry Trees—Dancing Carmina Burana," because I tested positive for COVID. The categories for the performances we had prepared for a year were different for the dancers who appeared on stage, but within me personally they were not realised.
But let me be honest. Not being able to stand on stage with everyone was the deepest regret, yet at the same time I truly felt, "This is the reality of doing a performance." I’m not putting on a brave face or anything of the sort; I feel that I participated in those two performances even more than if I had actually taken part. And that feeling continues to have power as a form of "energy for living." I am not trying to say that sharing with everyone the various categories, preparations, rehearsals and discussions leading up to the performances was more important than the performances themselves. I don’t fully understand it myself, but what is clearly happening within me even now is that I have been made to stand at the most primordial point, asking, "What on earth is the root of dancing?" That question coincides exactly with the question, "What on earth is the reality of living?" The farther those performances recede, the stronger this question becomes. And perhaps this state of mind would not have arisen if I had actually performed on stage.
There is one thing this has allowed me to accept. The most important meaning of performing lies in "the motivation itself." Now, the "pure motivation" toward those two performances, which were not realised on the actual stage, feels like the "heart" of dancing. And as long as this "heart" called "motivation" continues to beat within the body, the reality of dance will not disappear.
(Written January 23, 2023)
