Voice of Moe Sugawa

Moe Sugawa reports on her experiment, which involved four experimental performances exploring the physiological responses of dancers and audiences.

What Boiling Mind Aimed to Do　Keio University Graduate School of Media Design　Moe Sugawa

The BoilingMind project began with research by Moe Sugawa (me), who divides her time between Keio University Graduate School of Media Design and Mademoiselle Cinema. BoilingMind is a performing art in which the physical responses of audiences / dancers are visualized onstage and in the auditorium, and audiences, dancers, and the work co-create. Technology loosens the boundary in the usual relationship of watching audiences / watched dancers, connecting dancers and audiences. Audiences then help create the stage as though they, too, were part of the stage design. Our aim is to create this new kind of viewing experience. From 2019 to 2020, we prototyped and researched a system that analyzes real-time emotional data from heart-rate sensors, perspiration sensors, and eye tracking worn by audience members, composes it into images, music, and lighting onstage, and makes it into stage design. We presented performances at Session House. Through the project, I became convinced of new possibilities for relationships onstage. At the same time, I graduated still regretting that stage expression combining art and technology could be deepened further. With an Arts Council grant, co-creation between different dancers and KMD researchers resumed for a total of four performances, and Boiling Mind3.0 began.

The first installment was Mademoiselle Cinema. We devised ways for “dancers to dance with the audience's emotions,” such as projecting emotional data from audience members wearing heart-rate sensors onto dolls onstage that the dancers could touch directly. For the dancers, these approaches made the audience's hearts feel close and evoked a sense of dancing together with the audience.

 

In the second installment, with Bushman, we tried conveying the dancers' bodily sensations as touch through vibrating devices worn by the audience. Rei from KMD worked to translate choreographer Kurosu's (黒須) bodily sensations closely into tactile sensations, down to every movement of hands and feet, and played an active role as a new kind of stage staff member, a “tactile DJ,” transmitting them to the audience in real time. For the audience, this provided a chance to experience bodily sensations they do not usually consciously notice and to watch dance more deeply. At the same time, the dancers made a new discovery: “Movements and dynamics of the body reach the audience as touch. We can communicate things that normally do not get across.”　

 

In the third installment, Mitsutake Kasai and Three Duos, the dance, music, and stage design were all improvised! Using soft balls that flashed red with the heartbeats of audiences and dancers as playthings, many ideas arose in every performance: sometimes it became comedy, sometimes it evoked life's permanence, and sometimes it looked like the souls of animals keeping one another company in their solitude. The way uncertain, tangled improvisations connected toward the end was also a moment when an answer came into view—a scene of “dissolving the boundary between audiences and dancers,” the project's aim.　

 

The fourth installment was “The Beginning of the Festival,” a joint performance by Mademoiselle Cinema, Bushman, and Mitsutake Kasai. All audience members and dancers wore “e-lamp.,” which visualizes the heartbeat, sharing emotions throughout the entire stage space. The flashing light of “e-lamp.” was filmed in real time and projected as beautiful images in keeping with the theme of each dance scene. The audience's hearts were reflected in the space, and audience members became part of the stage along with the dancers. This became the culmination of the project.　

Technology can bring about communication with others, and sometimes it can also bring division. We are moved by technological capabilities that surpass human understanding, and sometimes we despair. Bringing technology into the art of watching dance may bring division or despair. Even so, I hope that technology can become a communication tool of the future that gives dancers and audiences a sense of peace and hope. I am here, you are here, we meet, and we feel happiness just as our hearts lead us. Hoping that somewhere in the world, BoilingMind's DNA will connect again ....

Moe Sugawa

Excerpt from Voice of Session House 2023