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| Review: "Dancing body and Japaneseness at the beginning of 21th century" |
| 10.28.05 (2:39 am) [edit] |
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"Dancing body and Japaneseness at the beginning of 21th century"
Yukihiko YOSHIDA
In February 2005, as a part of Tokyo Citizens' Art Festival at New National
Theater Tokyo, Kaoru Uchida and Saeko, who represent Japanese
contemporary dance, showed their excellent works.
Uchida showed both Japanese modern dance to contemporary "Twisted in
Blue"("Blue ni kongaragatte"). Uchida express fine women's daily life
and loneliness, as contemporary dance. "Keutzer Sonata" was a very
interesting work as modern dance. An excellent dancer with black dress
danced sharply with famous classical music. Her dance style was close
to 1930s' European modern dance such as Niddy Impekoven. That was
origin of Japanese modern dance after World War II. There are many
artists who were influenced by Impekoven in Japan. It can be said
that this work became typical and excellent Japanese modern dance
after World War II.
Saeko expressed her works by powerful and sharp movement. Her dance
style is under the influence of post modern dance after Trisha Brown.
"Veil" expresses a woman's life through the metapher of marriage. "Duo"
is an excellent duo with a male dancer, Taishi Aizawa. Saeko showed
postmodern and global body in Japan.
As Taiwanese dance researchers Ya-Ping Chen and Yatin Lin pointed out,
Japanese modern dance is important to discuss Asian dance and
post-colonialism. Japanese scholars Koichi Sakai and Naoki Sakai
discussed Japanese identity and Asia sharply . Sakai proposed a
concept,"Postcolonialisty ." At the beginning of the 21th century,
"Japaneseness"(Sakai & Iwabuchi) is changing.
In Asia Pacific, Japanese idols's dance represents Japanese popular
culture. For instance, a singer Namie Amuro is famous for this
reason. I think that Japanese should look for how Japanese culture
reflects in Asia Pacific.
Photo:
Uchida Kaoru,"Twisted in Blue" Photo: Haruhisa Yamaguchi
Saeko, "Veil" Photo: Hiroyuki Mizuuchi
URL:
Saeko http://blog.livedoor.jp/saekosoymilkjapan/" title="http://blog.livedoor.jp/saekosoymilkjapan/" target="_blank"http://blog.livedoor.jp/saeko...
Kaoru Uchida & Roussewaltz http://www.kalin-net.com/roussewaltz/" title="http://www.kalin-net.com/roussewaltz/" target="_blank"http://www.kalin-net.com/rous...
Namie Amuro: http://www.avexnet.or.jp/amuro/" title="http://www.avexnet.or.jp/amuro/" target="_blank"http://www.avexnet.or.jp/amur...
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| e-Performance and Plug-ins A Mediatised Performance Conference |
| 10.28.05 (1:56 am) [edit] |
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e-Performance and Plug-ins A Mediatised Performance Conference
http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/eperformance/" title="http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/eperformance/" target="_blank"http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au...
01 and 02 December 2005
The School of Media, Film & Theatre, University of New South Wales, Australia
Introduction
The hybrid phenomena created by new media performance-makers traverse a range of academic disciplines and approaches from philosophical enquiry into the ontology of liveness to the very technical and logistical questions of performance in a mediatised environment under diverse conditions of actualisation.
Some performance theorists have questioned the notion of liveness by asking 'How is the liveness of the performance changed when it occurs within the spaces of technology?' Others have discussed the phenomenon of Internet use as 'performance on-line' and have used terms commonly found in new media discourses, such as 'posthuman', 'virtual bodies', 'embodiment' and 'telepresence'. Yet others draw upon Lacanian film theory in their analysis.
This international symposium will address cross- and multi-disciplinary investigations of issues around media/technology-based performance. Delegates will participate from interstate as well as overseas. Paralleling the diversity and range of artistic and theoretical approaches to media-based performance, conference contributors will present multi-modally, including live video interventions by speakers outside Australia, live performances, as well as presentations of scholarly papers and practice-led research. This event presents a unique opportunity for a wide range of media arts/performance practices to be discussed within an interdisciplinary environment.
Areas of enquiry
What terminology is appropriate to the discussion of mediatised performance? Is the traditional language of performance studies, terms such as 'dramaturgy' or 'ritual', helpful in discussing media/technology-based performance? Or are information-technology terms such as 'interface' and 'interactivity' more useful?
What are the key challenges arising in collaborations between theorists from different disciplines when discussing live performance in a mediated matrix?
What issues, for both critic and practitioner, lie at the nexus of theory and practice in digital performance?
What are the epistemological differences between a virtual performance in a virtual venue (on the Internet and/or computer) and a new media 'live' performance in a theatre?
Where exactly would a history of mediatised performance begin? What would that history cover, and what would it privilege? What is the future for mediatised performance?
Invited Speakers
Philip Auslander
Philip Auslander is a Professor in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. As his publications attest, he is a key figure in the study of mediatised performance. Of particular relevance are the monograph, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatised Culture (1999) and (as editor) Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies (2003), a four-volume collection of essays. Other publications include From Acting To Performance: Essays In Modernism And Postmodernism (1997) and Presence And Resistance: Postmodernism And Cultural Politics In Contemporary American Performance (1992). His forthcoming book, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music will be available from The University of Michigan Press in early 2006.
Johannes Birringer
Johannes Birringer is an independent choreographer /media artist and artistic director of AlienNation Co., a multimedia ensemble based in Houston, Texas (www.aliennationcompany.com). He has created numerous dance-theatre works, video installations, online and site-specific performances in collaboration with artists in Europe, the Americas and China. Author of several books, including Media and Performance: Along the Border (1998), and Performance on the Edge: Transformations of Culture (2000). Founder of the Interaktionslabor Göttelborn in Germany (http://interaktionslabor.de" title="http://interaktionslabor.de" target="_blank"http://interaktionslabor.de) and Principal Research Fellow in Live Art at Nottingham Trent University. He is also a founding member of AdAPT, an online community of artists experimenting with performance and telematics.
Jane R. Goodall
Jane R. Goodall is a Professor in the College of Arts, Education, and Social Sciences, University of Western Sydney. Jane's research interests include the cultural history of the performing arts, especially in their relationship to changing paradigms in science and philosophy. Her non-fiction books include 'Artaud and the Gnostic Drama' (1994) and 'Out of the Natural Order: Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin' (2002) which explores relations between the performing arts and the natural sciences in the Victorian era. Her most recent novel is 'The Visitor', published by Hodder Headline in 2005.
Michael Rush
Michael Rush is a museum director, curator, and author/critic. He is the author of New Media in Art (2005), Video Art (2003) and New Media in Late Twentieth-century Art (1999), all publisherd by Thames and Hudson, and has been a frequent contributor to the art pages of The New York Times, Art in America, artnet, Bookforum and other publications. He was director and chief curator of the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art from 2000-2004, and for several years, an award-winning experimental theater and video artist.
Stelarc
Stelarc is an Australian performance artist who has recently been awarded a New Media Arts Fellowship from the Australia Council. He is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Contemporary Art at Edith Cowan University . Acclaimed in Europe, the USA, and Japan, Stelarc's work explores and extends the concept of the body and its relationship with technology through the human-machine interface, incorporating medical imaging, prosthetics and robotics.
Conference organisers
Executive committee: Andrew Murphie, Ed Scheer
Advisory committee: John Golder, Su Goldfish, Clare Grant, Ross Harley, Moe Meyer
Conference Coordinator: Yuji Sone
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| WDA Global Assembly:Papers, Panels and Poster Presentations |
| 10.27.05 (2:13 am) [edit] |
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WDA Global Assembly
Website http://www.yorku.ca/wda" title="http://www.yorku.ca/wda" target="_blank"http://www.yorku.ca/wda
Papers, Panels and Poster Presentations has released
Name: Title
●Modesto Amegago: African Dance at a Crossroad: Reflections on the process of Teach ing African Dance and Music in Ghanaian communities and in Canada
●Carol Anderson: State of the Artist: Senior Artists Speak
●Robin Anderson: Addressing Accessibility: Developing Strategies for building Dance Audiences
●Megan Andrews: Integrating Laban Movement Analysis into Arts Based Curricula at the Secondary and Post-Secondary Level
●Linda Ashley: Motifs in Metamorphosis: Movement, meaning and culture in dance education theory and practice
●Susan Bauer: The Modern Dance Community in Turkey, 1990-2005
●Pat Beaven: Dance Bear on the Move!
●Jennifer Bolt: The Power of the Eye over the Ear: Historic Commonalities between Classical Indian and classical ballet's codification of mime and gesture
●Karen Bond and Ann Vachon: Beyond Outcomes: Valuing the Spontaneous
●Jade Boyd: Vancouver's 'Indie' dance scene: An ethnography
●Ann Kipling Brown and Donna Patterson: Re:visioning Dance: Provoking Community
●Arwyn Carpenter: My place at the barre: Is there a universal territorialism among dancers?
●Bridget Cauthery: De-Othering Trance: Negotiations of Liminality in Ballet and Contemporary Dance Performance
●Su-Ling Chou: Taiwan's Female Choreographers: The Next Generation in Southern Taiwan
●Jack Clark: Laban Textiles
●Kate Cornell: The Problems of Presenting Contemporary Dance in Canada: A Case Study regarding Funding the CanDance Network
●Paulette Coté: New Perspectives for Dance in Hong Kong: Bridging the Art and Education for Optimal Teacher Preparation
●Freda Crisp: Dance history in the Making: Seniors culture looking back and moving forward
●Henry Daniel: Rethinking Dance - Transdisciplinary Approaches
●Jan Dijkwel: Ballet Tutorial DVD
●Karen Duplisea: Transition in Dance Movement: Potential Spaces in Between
●Natalie Ebenreuter: Dance Movement: A focus on the technology
●Jennifer Fisher: The Multicultural Swan: Reassessing the effects of Anna Pavlova's intercultural Experiments
●Ilene Fox: LabanDancer - Documentation Tool for the Future
●Hazel Franco: Dance Education in Trinidad and Tobago: Are we on the right track?
●Patricia Fraser: Mind the Gap: Making the Transition from Student to Professional in the field of contemporary dance
●Ida Freire: Non-sighted and sighted Brazilian dancers' dialogue: drawing paths to propose a Dance Pedagogy Course
●Sharon Garber: Teaching Dance Technique: Creating a one-semester undergraduate teaching course that bridges genres
●Bruce Gilbert: Dance and Candomblé in Brazil
●Kristin Harris: Challenges in Integrating Newfoundland Vernacular Dance and Music: Teaching the Beginning Dancer
●Andrea Hashim: The Evolution of the Royal Academy of Dance's Vocational Graded Examination Syllabus from 1920 to the Present
●Maxine Heppner: Analysis and Pure Experience are not at Odds
●Catherine Horta-Hayden: Cuban Dance: Enhancing the Cultural Fabric of Baltimore
●Naomi Jackson: From Spectator to Mover: Helping Human Rights Watch and other NGOs Recognize Dance
●Rosemary James: Unmasking the Mystery of the Rehearsal Director in Dance
●Sherry Jerome: Bridging Communities through Interdisciplinary Ballet Presentation
●Kelly Jones: Teaching of Ballet: The Application of Multiple Intelligence Theory in Ballet Training
●Silvia Kaehler: The use of elements of Argentine folklore in Contemporary Dance
●Allen Kaeja: Kaeja d'Dance's EXPRESS DANCE In the Schools: Bridging Cultures and Abilities Through Dance
●Adrienne Kaeppler: Ballet, Hula and "Cats": Dance as a Discourse on Globalization
●Yauri Sabrinthia Kelly: Dance as a Medium for Cultural Education in Three Educational Settings: K-12 Education Higher Education Community Based Programs
●Marliese Kimmerle: Getting your Dance Research Published: Pitfalls and tribulations across cultures
●Keiko Kitano: The Characteristics of Arm Movements in Traditional Japanese Dance
●Cathy Kmita: Bridging Chinese and Mongolian Cultures: The Inner Mongolian Dance Andai
●Christine Knoblauch-O'Neal: The Impact/Influence of World Dance Classes on the Ballet Major Curriculum in American and Canadian University Dance Programs
●Sunil Kothari: Building Bridges of Communication between Cultures: The contribution of Indian Diaspora in Canada and elsewhere through Indian Classical Dance forms
●Anita Kumar: Disciplining the Body: Bharatanatyam and Embodied Performativity of Race, Nation, and Gender
●Janet Lansdale: Developing International Research Communities
●William Lau: Dances of the Chinese Diaspora - A Canadian Perspective
●Yatin Lin: Towards Constructing a Nation? Taiwanese Folk Ritual on International Stages
●Allana Lindgren: Miriam Adams' Sonovovitch (1975): Critiquing the Baryshnikov Brouhaha
●Shannon Litzenberger: Mentorship in Dance: A Conceptual Framework for the Creation and Implementation of a Formal Mentorship Program
●Jonathan Marion: Beyond the Ballroom: Translocality in Competitive Ballroom Dancing
●Natalie Marrone: Translation and Transmutation: "The" Salentine Pizzica in Postmodernist Choreography
●Juliet McMains: Rumba Encounters
●Ida Mehtafi: A Review of Two Major Dance Companies in Pre-Revolutionary Iran
●Valarie Mockabee: Connecting Moments in Time: Issues in Documenting Anna Sokolow's Steps of Silence (1968)
●Nina Muller-Schwarze: Research and Documentation: The Cultural Context of Preserving the Coclé Cucua Dance
●Urmimala Sarkar Munsi: Push and Pull: Lineage vs. New Choreography in the World of Contemporary Dance
●Sal Murgiyanto: Bridging the Gap: Recent Dance Making in Java
●Anuradha Naimpally: Hand Signs/ Hasta Mudras: A Bridge from Sound to Silence
●Jennifer Nikolai: Dance Dialogue and Camera in the Creation of Choreography
●Mohd Anis Nor: Convergence of Diverse Cultural Background as Discourse of Contemporary Dance
●Seonagh Odhiambo: Dancing Brown and Pale: The uses of dance in anti-oppression education
●Lata Pada: Bharatanatyam in the Canadian Context
●Shashikala Ravi: Nritta (Pure Dance) and Abhinaya (Expressions) - integral aspects of Indian Classical Dance
●Susan Roberts: That which cannot be measured/Lo que no se puede medir
●Dina Roginsky: One or Two Nations? North American Jewishness and Israeliness - Israeli folk dancing in New York
●Nancy Ruyter: From Traditional Context to Modern Stages
●Rhonda Ryman: Conserving Choreography: DanceForms Animation of Repertoire
●Paul Scolieri: Dance and the History of the Americas
●Elizabeth Seyler: Building Community through Argentine Tango: Adult Volunteers' Experiences of Creating a Fundraising Event for K-12 Dance Education
●Karen Smith: From the Village to the Theater: shaping traditional dance for the concert
●Alan Stark: The Dance in Nueva Espana
●Lys Stevens: Urban Youth Street Dances go to the Movies and become Breakdancing
●Grant Strate: The Canadian Dance Scene: its Roots and Branches
●Menaka Thakkar: Three Faces of Indian Dance
●Ann Vachon: Choreography as a Means to Reconcile Cultural Conflicts
●Basilio Esteban Villaruz: Appropriating Ethnicities: Dance Discourses Within a Country--The
Philippines
●Yun-Yu Wang: Taiwan's Female Choreographers: The Next Generation in Transition Past and Present
●Janet Wason: Belé and Quadrille: African and European Dimensions in the Traditional Dances of Dominica, West Indies
●Eleanor Weisman: Creating a Community in Higher Education Through Dance and Movement
●Claire Wootten: A Glimpse at Canadian Dance Training and Education: Diversity as the Mother of Invention?
●Max Wyman: Imagination and Education in the New World Order
●Si-Hyun Yoo: Issues Underlying the Application of Labanotation for Recording Traditional Korean Dance
●Sashar Zarif: Searching for dance in present day Iran
●Tia Zhang: Celebrating Peace and Diversity through Dance
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| FAQ:Postcoloniality, Transculture, and Dance Performance in Asia Pacific |
| 10.26.05 (3:40 am) [edit] |
FAQ:Postcoloniality, Transculture, and Dance Performance in Asia Pacific
The link list on dance in AP has been released.
This list is written and managed by contributors. If you add research
material, such as URL, name of document, etc, you will be added to
the contributor list.
URL:http://www.dance-streaming.jp/postcolonial.html" title="http://www.dance-streaming.jp/postcolonial.html" target="_blank"http://www.dance-streaming.jp...
Contributors: Ya-Ping Chen (TNUA,Taiwan),Yatin Lin(TNUA,Taiwan),Hsin-Chu n Tuan(PhD. UCLA,USA)Yukihiko YOSHIDA (PhD. Candidate,Graduate School of Media and Governance,Keio Univ, Japan),Yuji Sone(Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Media, Film and Theatre The University of New South Wales, Australia-Japan),Mariana Verdaasdonk(66b/cell, Australia-Japan),Julie Dyson(Ausdance National, Australia), Teresa Pee(researcher/educator, Singapore)Urmimala Sarkar Munsi(WDA Bengal,India)
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| Cultural Identities/Artistic Identities, from Bombay to Tokyo |
| 10.24.05 (4:07 am) [edit] |
Cultural Identities/Artistic Identities, from Bombay to Tokyo
International Symposium
Thursday 12th to Sunday 15th January 2006
Centre national de la danse
1, rue Victor-Hugo
93507 Pantin cedex
Information and reservation
T +33 / (0) 1 41 83 98 98
reservation@c...
The term identity presupposes the same and the different; it marshals ideas
and individuals and isolates categories and origins. How does one establish
permanence through and despite change, in a complex whole of techniques,
knowledge, beliefs and customs?
From Bombay to Tokyo, the different regions of Asia contain societies
founded on multiple cultures, religions, laws and languages and on
structures with heterogeneous politico-religious configurations. These
societies have often inherited archaisms, partly from totalitarian or
authoritarian regimes mainly born out of decolonization. The preconceived
notion widely circulating in the West is that these cultures engendered by
the above-mentioned phenomenon are deeply bound to tradition and resistant
to change. However, innumerable reappropriations, codifications and
transformations have occurred in the so-called traditional dances and in
modern dances: phenomena born in response, or conversely, in resistance, to
the upheavals prompted by colonialism and the invasion of a Western
rationality that claimed to be universal. How did the endeavour of the
dancers contribute to the (re) construction of a national identity? What
influence did orientalism have in the East on the aesthetics of certain
dances?
The modus operandi of some contemporary artistes of Asian descent seems to
be anchored in the desire to reunite the East and the West, tradition and
creation, the specific and the universal. What can one retain from
traditions without giving in to the myth of Authenticity? How are certain
dance forms fashioned by the Diaspora? Artistes, plural minorities claim
their kinship to social classes, races, a gender or a sexuality - with the
state of being dominated common to all work with identities towards goals
that are both aesthetic and political. Through the body and through bodily
practices, they seek to convey other discourses. What are the problematics
encountered by dancers and choreographers and how are their works perceived
and analysed?
Asian historians, theorists and artistes mainly those from China, Japan,
India, Vietnam and from the Diaspora will strive to answer these questions
in an attempt to make another voice heard.
Claire Rousier
Director, d・artement du d・eloppement de la culture chor・raphique
Contents
> Thursday, january 12th
6:00 pm
Communist Tulles: Chinese modern ballet during the Cultural Revolution
Ting-Ting Chang (Taiwan)
8:30 pm
Red Detachment of Women film
Yin Cheng (China)
> Friday, january 13th
9:00 am-10:00 am
Identities: cultural/aesthetic
Sadanand Menon (India)
10:00 am-11:00 am
Indian dance and theatre traditions in France today and prospects for
contemporary creation Martine Chemana (France)
11:30 am-12:30 am
Chinoiserie
Ong Keng Sen (Singapore)
2:30 pm-3:30 pm
Historical background and new directions in Indian dance: the contribution
of Uday Shankar (1900-1977)
Sunil Kothari (India)
3:30 pm-4:30 pm
New Dance in Indonesia: rebuilding an identity in a local and global context
Sal Murgiyanto (Indonesia)
5:00 pm-6:00 pm
Disruptions, Failures: two nationalisticmoments and Japans dance culture
Tadashi Uchino (Japan)
> Saturday, january 14th
9:00 am-10:00 am
Dance, identity and religion in the Pakistani context
Sheema Kermani (Pakistan)
10:00 am-11:00 am
Embodying National Difference in the Age of Globalization
Hyunjung Kim (Korea)
11:30 am-12:30 am
Modernity, cultural identity, and the development of contemporary dance in
Taiwan in the early 20th century
Chi-Fang Chao (Taiwan)
2:30 pm-3:30 pm
Seasons of Migration: creating dance across borders in the aftermath of the
Cambodian Diaspora
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro (Cambodia)
3:30 pm-4:30 pm
Memory within the folds of Time
Ea Sola (Vietnam/France)
5 pm-6 pm
Choreographing a Flexible Taiwan: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Taiwans
Changing Identity
Yatin Lin (Taiwan)
> Sunday, january 15th
9:00 am-10:00 am
Interculturalism, Temple Stage, and Modernism in Bharatanatyam
Avanthi Meduri (India)
10:00 am-11:00 am
Seeking Creative Unity
Lubna Marium (Bangladesh)
11:30 am-12:30 am
Choreographing the City: Chineseness in Diaspora
SanSan Kwan
2:30 pm-4:00 pm
Yenyue
Liu Feng-Shueh (China)
4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Conclusion by Martine Chemana and Sadanand Menon
Thursday, january 12th
6:00 pm
Communist Tulles: Chinese modern ballet during the Cultural Revolution
Ting-Ting Chang
The evolution of contemporary dance in China can be understood by
considering the way in which Chinas dance artists have adopted ballet
training into their dance practices and productions. In this respect, the
Red Detachment of Women(1970), one of the eight Chinese Modern Ballet
productions (Yang-Ban Ballet) from the Cultural Revolution Period, offers
an interesting field of study. How is dance used to represent Chinese
communist ideology, and how does it create an idealistic national image for
the New China? What are the reasons for the Communist partys choice to use
Western ballet, rather than Chinese folk dance, to present Chinese heroic
stories? Was ballet a privileged corporeal language to be learned? If that
was the case, in terms of technique and space, could these Chinese ballets
speak for the peasants or for Chinese women? In what way does the
Communistsuse of ballet draw upon and differ from Western ballet?
Ting-Ting Chang
Ting-Ting Chang is a choreographer, performer, and Ph.D. student in the
Dance History and Theory program at the University of California,
Riverside. Her research focuses on contemporary dance development in China,
Taiwan and Hong Kong, and explores issues of Asian Diaspora. She has worked
with numerous choreographers, including Victoria Marks, Donald McKayle and
Cheng-Chieh Yu. She has danced for Taipei Folk Dance Theatre, APPEX
Project: Ah-Q, American Dance Festival and LA Now Festival. Her
choreography explores the aesthetics, visual images, and spiritual
strengths of her Chinese ancestry and movement disciplines in a creative
process that is both tradition and postmodern. In 2003, she founded
DreamDances Performing Artists to promote intercultural communication, and
produced When East Meets West. She has received Outstanding Choreography
Awared from China National Dance Competition, Gluck Fellowships,
Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year 2002 from National Dance
Association, and Arts Week Award. She holds an MFA in Dance from UC Irvine
and a BA from UCLA.
8.30 pm
Red Detachment of Womenfilm
Yin Cheng
The filmmaker Yin Cheng sets his film in a China devastated by civil war,
in the early 1930s. A young servant, Wu Qionghua, tries to escape Nan the
Tyrant, a local despot who has killed her father. Caught by Nans henchmen,
she is left for dead in a clearing. Hong Changqing, a communist delegate,
finds her and shows her the way to the Red region, where Mao Tse Tungs army
is located. Wu decides to go there to join a battalion composed entirely of
women. Through several scenes of communist guerilla warfare, this ballet
relates Wus ideological evolution, one in which she overcomes her thirst
for personal vengeance and awakens her consciousness to the revolutionary
cause.
The Red Detachment of Women (ballet version), by Yin Cheng, 1970, 110 min.,
produced by the Peoples Republique of China. Original version, sub-titles
in French.
Friday 13th january
9:00 am-10:00 am
Identities: cultural/esthetic
Sadanand Menon
There are some infuriatingly stereotyped identity markers for the Eastand
the Westnow, which translate into glib categories like traditionand
modernitywhen we discuss the zone from Mumbai to Tokyo vis a vis Europe or
the US. In Western descriptions of India one encounters again and again the
fictionality of what goes by the name of India as a place invested with
some deep spiritual and cultural certainty. Identity can however be seen as
a constant process of loss and recovery, which simultaneously accommodates
erasure of normative differences and boundaries, even while reasserting it.
Thanks to the body-text which is dance, it is possible to analyse the ways
in which social identities are signaled, formed and negotiated through
physical movement. In this capacity, movement serves as a marker for the
production of gender, racial, ethnic, class and national identity or even
as a flagging of sexual identity, age or illness. Through dance, attitudes
towards the body constituted socially and historically appear to be deeply
embedded in the complex system of codes the same body represents.
Sadanand Menon
Sadanand Menon is a journalist and photographer, specializing in political
and cultural issues. A former Arts Editor with India's leading financial
daily The Economic Times, he has practiced and taught critical alternatives
in the media, and is currently guest professor of the Asian College of
Journalism, Chennai. Deeply involved in the contemporary Indian dance
movement, Sadanand Menon has designed the lighting for the contemporary
Indian choreographer, Chandralekhas productions for the past twenty years.
He accompanies the choreographers tours in India and abroad as lighting and
technical director. He has participated in over 400 symposiums on subjects
ranging from art, literature, cinema, photography, theatre, dance, design,
crafts and aesthetics to human rights, ecology, media, cultural politics,
gender issues and pedagogy.
10:00 am-11:00 am
Indian dance and theatre traditions in France today and prospects for
contemporary creation
Martine Chemana
Since the end of the 1960s, a great number of artists presenting
traditional Indian dances and theatre forms are coming to France for
performances, workshops and creative contributions. This meeting of forms
has generated a new vision and sensibility in Western performers and
audiences. In turn it has developed a search for a new language in the
Indian artistic creativity. Major concepts of tradition, authenticity,
fusionhave been refined in both Western and Eastern thought and thus have
slowly evolved towards a deeper merging into roots, meaning and relevance
of these aesthetic values in todays global context. This paper tries to
analyse why and how artistic identities grounded in living traditions,
though supported by values pertaining to cultural identities and thereby
subject to ideologies, remain a driving force in creativity in the changing
world. They cannot be considered as past values to be replaced by
modernconcepts as they harmonise with times and contexts through the
continuous transmission of masters.
Martine Chemana
Martine Chemana is a graduate of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
(Sorbonne), where she received a Ph.D. Her research work has focused on the
dramatic traditions and various art forms and literature of the Kerala
region. From 1976 to 1997, she trained in India and in France with the
great masters of the dance-drama Kathakali, Carnatic and Sopana vocal music
and Odissi. She is a professor at several universities in Paris and in
France, teaching subjects related to Indian performing arts (theory and
practice), ethnoscenology and Indian studies. Martine Chemana is also the
author of several books and articles on the arts, as well as the language
and literature of Kerala, and on history and anthropology of classical and
contemporary Indian culture. She is also a playwright and theatre director,
and presently founder and director of Association SK (Sarva Kala). The SK
alternative cultural centre organises and participates in artistic and
cultural events on all arts and human sciences of India.
11:30 am-12:30 am
Chinoiserie
Ong Keng Sen
In Ong Keng Sens Chinoiserie, four European women play out the story of the
Makioka sisters, a nostalgic yet contemporary recreation of the sumptuous,
intricate upper-class life of Japan immediately before World War II.
Resplendent in fantastical chambers like a freak circus, like exhibited
pavilions of the World Expo (where new fantasies continue to be
constructed), these women perform the story of the extinction of a great
family through its pride and over-refinement. This play creates an open
space for imagination, for fantasy, for projection. This is much like how
Europe viewed chinoiserie in the nineteenth century. Chinoiserie was an
empty screen on which to project its imagination and fantasy of Asia. Ong
Keng Sen preferred the term Chinoiserie to that of Japonaiserie for the
title of this play as the former seemed to contain the global dialogue
between European and Asian artistes collaborating against a backdrop of
shared history and shared economics (then as well as now). The conception
and direction of this performance is analyzed in the light of chinoiseriein
the European art world, paying attention to the first Worlds Fair in Vienna
in 1873 which launched Japanese aesthetics to the European middle class.
Ong Keng Sen
Ong Keng Sen, artistic director of TheatreWorks in Singapore, is a
well-known performance director and has actively contributed to the
evolution of an Asian identity, and the Asian aesthetic in contemporary
arts. Many of his works have been presented and acclaimed throughout the
world. The Flying Circus Project, created a decade ago, is Keng Sens most
important work. This experimental project brings together traditional and
contemporary Asian artists from the fields of visual arts, video,
documentary, performing arts, as well as philosophers, literary
specialists, and artists of new media and new rituals. He has continued to
develop this work with Dasarts, Amsterdam as well as with the Summer
Institute at The Kitchen, in New York City. Keng Sen is the founder and
director of In Transit, an annual interdisciplinary arts festival in Berlin
(June 2002 & 2003). He also curated the Insomnia season for the Institute
of Contemporary Arts in London (March 05), and the Politics of Fun
exhibition at the House of World Cultures, Berlin in September 05.
2:30 pm-3:30 pm
Historical background and new directions in Indian dance: the contribution
of Uday Shankar (1900-1977)
Sunil Kothari
It was during Uday Shankars studies at the Royal College of Art that he met
Anna Pavlova, who invited him to partner her as Krishna in a choreograhic
work, Krishna and Radha. At the time, he had never studied dance, but took
to it with extraordinary talent. After parting company with Anna Pavlova he
travelled throughout India to study sculpture and observe traditional,
classical, folk, and tribal dance forms. He formed a dance company
comprised of his brothers and cousins and returned to Paris where he opened
a season at the Theatre des Champs Elysees in 1931. As a choreographer, he
spent a residency in Dartington, where he met, among others, Michel
Chekhov, Kurt Jooss, and Rudolf Laban. Using Dartington Hall as a model, he
opened a Cultural Centre for Dance and Music in the Himalayas, at Simtola
near Almora. He specialized in training dancers in all aspects of the
performing arts. A decisive figure in Indian dance, Uday Shankar is
considered one of the founders of its new directions.
Sunil Kothari
Sunil Kothari is a leading Indian dance historian and critic, a scholar and
author with twelve major books on Indian classical dance forms to his
credit. He earned his Ph.D. in Dance from Maharaja Sayajirao University of
Baroda (1977) and a Doctorate of Letters in Dance from Rabindra Bharati
University. A professor of dance, Sunil Kothari was the first Uday Shankar
Professor at Rabindra Bharati University. He has curated many exhibitions
devoted to the life and art of Uday Shankar, and published a photo
biography of this great artist in 1987. He has been a guest professor for
dance at The New York University from 1993 to 1994. In addition, he has
been a dance critic for The Times of India newspaper group for the past
thirty-five years. He has received Padma Shri from the President of India
and awards from Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, and Gujarat State Sangeet
Natak Akademi. His most recent book is entitled, New Directions In Indian
Dance (2004). He is currently writing a book on the Sattriya dances of
Assam.
3:30 pm-4:30 pm
New Dance in Indonesia: rebuilding an identity in a local and global context
Sal Murgiyanto
The New Dance of Indonesia has changed considerably since the late 1960s,
when the Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Center was established in Jakarta. The
works of Indonesian choreographers can be classified into two periods:
first, the generation of pioneering choreographers such as Sardono W.
Kusumo, Retno Maruti, I. Wayan Dibia, and the late Gusmiati Suid; second,
the works of younger choreographers, such as Boi Sakti, Martinus Miroto,
Mugiyono Kasido, Besur Suryono, Jecko Siompo, and Kadek Suardana.
Indonesian dance has also evolved according to local culture, differing
from one island to the next. Many of the first-generation choreographers
were trained in their local communities and are therefore strongly rooted
in, and quite loyal to, their respective traditions and cultures. Most of
the second-generation choreographers are graduates from formal dance
academies and schools established by the Indonesian government in different
parts of the country. As such they are not only more open to Western
values, but also more familiar with global issues.
Sal Murgiyanto
Sal Murgiyanto was trained in classical Javanese dance and performed with
the Sendratari Ramayana Prambanan (1962-72) and Sardono Dance Theatre
(1969-74). Presently associate professor at the Jakarta Institute of the
Arts, this Indonesian academician also teaches in the Graduate Dance
Program of Taipei National University of the Arts in Taipei and in the
Graduate Program of the Indonesian College of the Arts in Solo (STSI), on
the island of Java. He holds a B.A. from the National Dance Academy of
Indonesia (ASTI) in Yogyakarta, a Masters in Dance from the University of
Colorado and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University. He is
founder and director of the Indonesian Dance Festival and president of the
Society for the Indonesian Performing Arts (MSPI). In addition, he is
advisor to the World Dance Alliance (WDA) and panel member of the Arts
Network Asia in Kuala Lumpur. He is the author of, among others works,
Dance Criticism: Basic Knowledege and Skills (2002), and Tradition and
Innovation in Indonesian Dance (2004).
5:00 pm-6:00 pm
Disruptions, Failures: two nationalisticmoments and Japans dance culture
Tadashi Uchino
In a geopolitical phantasmagoric entity called Japan,where the notion of
high artkeeps collapsing, dance culture becomes a site for
articulation/mis-articula tion of lived experience.Might some of the
ruptures implied in its linear history lead us to see how they reflect,
refract and/or conceal the contextual textualitiesof performance practices?
In this presentation as an attempt to answer this question, Tadashi Uchino
will use some video materials to analyse two distinctive decades, 1960 and
1990, in which Japanesedance genres are said to have emerged: Butoh and
Japanese contemporary dance. The 1960s can be seen as a post-colonial
moment, during which a renewed sense of national identity was explored
within various dancing bodies, and the myth of authenticity associated with
the notion of traditionwas strategically validated and used, or mis-used.
During the 1990s, the main feature of Japans dance culture was the
super-flat thinbodies. This decade marked a fissure between modern and
postmodern Japan, when global bio-political power relations became an
unconscious physical reality of Japans dance practices, and utopian
trans-national ethos was already, and always, being erased.
Tadashi Uchino
Tadashi Uchino is Associate Professor at the Department of
Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
University of Tokyo. He has an M.A. in American Literature from the
Department of English Literature, Graduate School of Humanities (1984), and
a Ph.D. in Performance Studies (2002) from the Department of
Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, both at the University of Tokyo. Twice
a Fulbright scholar, in 1986 and 1997, he has studied at the Department of
Performance Studies at New York University. His current research concerns
contemporary Japanese and American theatre and performance. His
publications include, The Melodramatic Revenge: Theatre of the Private in
the 1980s (1996) and, From Melodrama to Performance: The Twentieth Century
American Theatre (2001). He is a contributing editor of the international
journal, TDR, and was a founding editor of the Tokyo published journal,
Theatre Arts (1994-1998). He also writes performance reviews and
theoretical essays for Performing Arts, Book Review Press, and others.
Saturday 14th january
9:00 am-10:00 am
Dance, identity and religion in the Pakistani context
Sheema Kermani
In its search for a cultural identity as distinct from the cultural
identity of India, the Pakistani state has looked upon dance with
suspicion. Official authorities claim that dance is not part of Pakistani
culture; they consider dance to be essentially Indian and therefore Hindu.
They define Pakistani culture as essentially Islamic. It is difficult to
understand how dance and music can be defined according to religious
criteria: what is Hindu dance and what is Islamic dance? No text in the
Koran explicitly condemns or endorses dancing, but Islamic religious
authorities have always been against it. Could it be that the Muslim male
fears the power of the female body? The need for patriarchal order being to
keep womens bodies and sexuality under control!
For many years, Sheema Kermani has been concerned with seeking a
characteristic choreographic style, which Pakistan can call its own.
Sheema Kermani
A dancer and a dance teacher, Sheema Kermani is also an activist for womens
rights and peace. She began dance training when she was fifteen, and
travelled to India to further her studies and refine her technical skills.
In 1981, she formed Tehrik-e-Niswan, an organisation devoted to working for
womens causes, raising awareness through cultural activities. Since 1984,
Sheema has been teaching and performing. She was the first Pakistani to be
invited by the American Dance Festival, in 1989, to participate in the
International Choreographers Workshop at Duke University. Sheema Kermani
has performed for prestigious conferences and festivals both within
Pakistan and abroad. In 1997, she was invited to perform at the 14th
Internationales Sommertheater Festival in Hamburg. She is presently the
artistic director of the National Performing Arts Group, Karachi.
10:00 am-11:00 am
Embodying National Difference in the Age of Globalization
Hyunjung Kim
How do contemporary Korean dancers create a new sense of what it means to
be Koreanin the age of globalization? Since the late nineteenth century,
nationalist discourses on Korean identity in relation to Korean tradition
have been reinvented at different times, in different forms, and with
varying degrees of intensity in South Korea. Contemporary Korean dance can
be located as a site of the history of Korean national identity in the
twentieth century. Following the lead of other recent dance studies
scholars who have explored how dancing bodies generate agency, contemporary
Korean dance is approached as an embodied social cultural practice and
investigates its ideological underpinnings. Contemporary Korean dance
emerges as a site through which different notions of Korean nationalism are
generated and propelled, by and large, by the bodies of women. Dance
participates in the consolidation of Korean identity.
Hyunjung Kim
Hyunjung Kim is a lecturer at the Department of Dance at Sungkyunkwan
University and the Korean National University of the Arts in Seoul. She
holds a Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory at the University of California,
Riverside, and a B.A. and M.A. in Dance at Ewha Women's University. She
received a Phi Beta Kappa International Scholarship, a UCR Humanities
Graduate Student Research Grant, two Gluck Fellowships, and a Dance
Department Research Grant. She has presented her works at various
conferences: Congress on Research in Dance (CORD), Womens Worlds:
International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, and UC Dance Theory
Conference. Her fields of specialization include contemporary Korean dance,
colonial and postcolonial discourse, nationalism, gender, cultural studies,
and globalization.
11:30 am-12:30 m
Modernity, cultural identity, and the development of contemporary dance in
Taiwan in the early 20th century
Chi-Fang Chao
The development of contemporary dance in Taiwan in the first half of the
twentieth century is indebted to individual artists such as Ishii Baku,
who, reacting to the stimulus of Western contemporary dance, gave it an
Asian expression. The ideas and practices of Shinbuy・(New Dance) as a
symbol of modernity came about in East Asia in the special social and
political context of Japanese colonization. Their analysis renders evident
the factors of acceptanceand resistanceof contemporary dance practices in
Taiwan, as compared to other cultural implantations such as architecture
and music. This case study shows that ideologies and practices centered on
the cultural bodyare capable of revealing subtle variations of local
identities in Taiwan, a world once believed and claimed to be unified.
Chi-Fang Chao
Chi-Fang Chao holds an M.A. in Anthropology from the National Taiwan
University (1994). She obtained a Ph.D. in Dance Studies from the
University of Surrey in 2001. Her thesis was entitled, Dancing and
Ritualization: An ethnographic study of the social performances in southern
Okinawa, Japan. Her research centers specifically on ethnographic studies
of Okinawan and Taiwanese indigenous dances. She is currently an assistant
professor at the Department of Culture of Indigenous People, National
Dong-Hwa University, Taiwan.
2:30 pm-3:30 pm
Seasons of Migration: creating dance across borders in the aftermath of the
Cambodian Diaspora
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro
In 2004, Sophiline Cheam Shapiro choreographed Seasons of Migration, a
piece that explores through the vocabulary of Cambodian classical dance,
also known as court dance or royal ballet the transformation of the
immigrants identity. Seasons of Migration is notable because it was
imagined not in Phnom Penhs royal palace, but in Long Beach, California
(where a large population of Cambodian immigrants now live) and was set on
an ensemble of Cambodias best dancers. Seasons is an example of how
immigrants rewrite their mythology and folklore to find relevance in their
contemporary context. It is also a manifestation of the ever-changing
dynamic of exchange and influence between Cambodia and its diasporic
communities. Thus the process of democratization, and the reactions to that
process at different levels of Cambodias artistic and cultural community,
is examined through a form that has been both the possession and the tool
of those in power for more than a thousand years.
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro was a member of the first gen鐃・ration to graduate
from Phnom Penhs Royal University of Fine Arts after the fall of Pol Pots
Khmer Rouge and was a member of its classical dance faculty and touring
ensemble until 1991. After immigrating to the USA, she studied dance
ethnology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among numerous
other awards, she has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Irvine
Fellowship in Dance. Her groundbreaking choreography has been performed on
three continents, and she was recently commissioned by Peter Sellars to
adapt The Magic Flute as a classical dance for New Crowned Hope, a 2006
Viennese festival celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozarts birth. She
is co-founder and artistic director of the Khmer Arts Academy in Long
Beach, California.
3:30 pm-4:30 pm
Memory within the folds of Time
Ea Sola
Of French-Vietnamese descent, Ea Sola grew up in the war, and the war had
made her travel. Leaving and coming back, going home and to leave again, Ea
Sola moves between two countries, searching incessantly her luggage; and
obsessed by her early days of tumult and the many folds within the world.
Still, she perceives the bodies of others that she could not forget. She
explores Vietnam. She finds the place and she dances the memory of the
brother whom she has been waiting for. A piece of ceramic that she
discovered made her realized that time is crucial for her search. Thus,
from the dance to the music traditions, she discovered the signs of a
desire for a modernity without development, driving the individual person
and his identity away from the mystery which had made him seen the
beautiful gesture. She took her time. She embarked on a working process:
from tradition to modernity, from collective memory to individual memory.
Accompanied by musicians and dancers, she waged war against orientalism.
Together with them, she had hoped to take her work towards a legitimate
Vietnamese contemporality.
Ea Sola
Ea Sola left her native soil in southern Vietnam in 1974 and arrived in
Paris in 1978. From 1978 to 1984, far from her country, she created
underground happeningsperformances outside of cultural institutions. She
studied French classical theatre from 1980 to 1990, and participated in
research workshops of the Grotowskis dance theatre group. She worked with
Japanese dancer and choreographer, Min Tanaka and created her own group to
explore the memory of the body. She was dancer (Sacre du Printemps, Min
Tanaka), dancer-choreographer (Ubu Roi, Roland Topor), as well as
choreographer. In 1989, Ea Sola disbanded her group and returned to
Vietnam. The Leonardo da Vinci scholarship allowed her to undertake
research on traditional Vietnamese dance and music from 1991 to 1996.
Winner of the Villa Medecis hors les murs award, she continued her research
on the music Tai Tu in the southern delta of Vietnam. In 2005, she created
Secheresse et pluie Vol. 2 with the Opera Ballet of Vietnam, Hanoi at the
Theatre de la Ville in Paris.
5:00 pm-6:00 pm
Choreographing a Flexible Taiwan: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Taiwans
Changing Identity
Yatin Lin
The repertoire of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan and its
founder/artistic director Lin Hwai-min reflects the changing status of
Taiwan over the past three decades. Tale of the White Serpent (1975)
embodied the two sources of influence: Martha Grahams modern dance
technique and Peking Opera movements. In 1978, due to the emergence of a
Taiwanese consciousness, Lin created Legacy an epic dance piece depicting
the history of Taiwans early immigrants from China. By the 1980s, Cloud
Gates choreographies contemplated upon the rapid urbanization of Taipei.
The Rite of Spring, Taipei, 1984 constitutes a commentary both on the
original version of this piece by Vaslav Nijinsky, as well as that by Pina
Bausch. Recently, Cloud Gates dances have been influenced by the study of
taichi and other Chinese martial arts. Starting with Moon Water (1998) and
followed by the Chinese calligraphy inspired Cursive trilogy (2001, 2003,
2005), Lin Hwai-min reexamines the aesthetics of modern dance. Amid the
continuing quest for identity, where there is a constant struggle between
global and local, or modern and traditional, Lin and Cloud Gates dancers
continues to marvel us with the theoretical power of the moving body.
Yatin Lin
Yatin Lin is assistant professor at the College of Dance, Taipei National
University of the Arts (TNUA), Taiwan. The thesis for her Ph.D. in Dance
History and Theory from the University of California, Riverside (UCR),
focused on the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Lin was awarded the Pacific Rim
Research Grant from the University of California to conduct her doctoral
research while touring with Cloud Gate, and was selected a member of UCRs
Center for Idea and Society research group. She obtained an M.F.A. degree
in Dance from York University in Canada and was dance editor for the
Performing Arts Review, published by the National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural
Centre in Taipei. Lins writings has been published in the Dance
Appreciation (1995), the International Dictionary of Modern Dance (1998),
Dance Studies and Taiwan: the Prospect of a New Generation (2001), Cloud
Gate and Me (2002), and Chinese Language Dance Encyclopedia (2005). As a
dancer, she has performed with, among others, the ChinArts Dance Ensemble
in Toronto, and the Taipei Youth Goodwill Mission.
Sunday, january15th
9:00 am-10:00 am
Interculturalism, Temple Stage, and Modernism in Bharatanatyam
Avanthi Meduri
Rukmini Devi, a pioneer in the transnational revival of Bharatanatyam,
envisioned a modern intercultural, and spiritual aesthetic for the dance
that could be described from within the double history of Indian temple
dancing and Euro-American spiritualism, simultaneously. Rukmini Devi
developed her new aesthetic by designing a new temple stage setting for
Bharatanatyam, made of symbols and images from antiquity. Avanthi Meduri
will examine Rukmini Devis spiritualism and stage setting from within the
comparative perspective of global modernity and interculturalism; and
explain what it meant for women like Rukmini Devi to work locally and think
globally in the fifty-year period of the Indian national dance revival
between 1930-1980. In the process, Rukmini Devi created a trans-national
creative ethos and vision for Bharatanatyam that prevails to this day in
the local and global practices of the dance.
Avanthi Meduri
Avanthi Meduri is a Reader in the Dance Programmes, University of
Roehampton, London, and head of the new interdisciplinary Masters Programme
in South Asian Dance studies. Recipient of several national and
international awards, she received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from
New York University (1996). Recently, she curated Rukmini Devis photo
archive and presented it in New Delhi, Kolkatta, Kuala Lumpur, Penang,
Singapore, Colombo, Kandy, London, Tokyo, and Melbourne. Her articles have
appeared in various international journals including Asian Theatre Journal,
Women and Performance, TDR, and the Dance Research Journal. Her edited
volume on Rukmini Devi, was released recently by the President of India.
Her forthcoming book entitled Transcultural Modernities is scheduled to be
published by Wesleyan University Press. A professional dancer with an
international reputation, Avanthi Meduris recent theatrical productions
explore key issues in dance history and womens biographies, albeit from a
gender perspective.
10:00 am-11:00 am
Seeking Creative Unity
Lubna Marium
Our mind has faculties which are universal, but its habits are insular:
thus in 1922 wrote Rabindranath Tagore, who is responsible for spreading
knowledge of Robindro Nritto, a mixture of different choreographique
styles. Can such a concept of the universality of human community stand the
test of present-day post-modern thinking? Retrograde historicism tends to
define cultural identityon the basis of a people's status as "historical
'objects' of a nationalist pedagogy". This is opposed by our New Age
critical theory that recognizes a peoples ability to themselves perform as
"'subjects' of a process of signification that must erase any prior or
original [national] presence". Theorists today conceive of identity as a
processual valuebeing performed and contested in the interrogatory spaces
created within interstices of differences between the "totalizing powers of
the socialas a homogenous, consensual community", and the contesting forces
of disparate interests and identities. Surprisingly, from within the
fragmented narratives of both the included and the excluded Othera
newinternationalism is created, and moves slowly, increasing from the
specific to the general. For Tagore, the Othernever loomed as a threat to
his identity but was always a resource for the enrichment of his own
artistic endeavours. A rereading of his works can certainly be of benefit
in this era of connectivity and exposure.
Lubna Marium
Though a renowned dancer, Lubna Mariums artistic endeavors have taken a
path beyond the rituals of artistic expression and entered the realms of a
search for Creative Unity. After her early training in avant-garde dance,
and later in Bharatanatyam and Manipuri styles, she ultimately devoted
herself to Robindro Nritto. Lubna Marium has received many awards for her
work and she has represented Bangladesh as part of several cultural
delegations abroad. Through her organization ・Shadhona 捨 she has also
worked tirelessly to promote the classical music and dance of this
sub-continent. Lubna Marium writes in the local media on socio-political
and cultural issues, as well as free-lance writing for Ain-O-Shalishi
Kendro (ASK), a human rights and legal aid organization in Dhaka,
Bangladesh. Her book Children Cry Aloneon the sexual abuse of children, has
been published by ASK. For the last few years, Lubna Marium has undertaken
a study of Indian Aesthetics under the aegis of the Indian Council for
Cultural Relations.
11:30 am-12:30 am
Choreographing the City: Chineseness in Diaspora
SanSan Kwan
The global Chinese cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, New York and Los
Angeles reveal both the persistence and the mobility of the idea of
Chinesenessas it is performed in diaspora. Contested in different local
contexts, Chineseness continues to be sustained as a collective
identification globally. The moving body, then, becomes a productive site
through which to study Chineseness in flux. That is, the experience of
movement in each of these Chinese cities can be understood through a
kinesthetic methodology. By reading urban motion through ones own moving
body, we can account for the ways in which being Chineseacquires meaning
both locally and in trans-national transit. Kinesthetic intelligence is
presented here as a kind of ethnographic tool for investigating political,
social, and cultural meaning: Chineseness(es)as legible choreography.
Ultimately, kinesthesia can be used to evaluate the emerging forms of
community made possible through a trans-national imaginary.
SanSan Kwan
SanSan Kwan is an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and
Dance at California State University, Los Angeles. She has a Doctorate in
Performance Studies from New York University, as well as professional
experience in modern dance. Her areas of interest include dance studies,
Asian American studies, cultural geography, and diaspora studies. Her
articles have appeared in numerous journals, such as Performance Research
and Journal of Asian American Studies. She is also co-editor of an
anthology on mixed race titled, Mixing It Up: Multiracial Subjects. As a
Fulbright scholar to Taiwan in 2000-2001, she conducted research for her
dissertation, Choreographing Chineseness: Global Cities and the Performance
of Ethnicity. She is currently working on a book version of her
dissertation work.
2:30 pm-4:00 pm
Yenyue
Liu Feng-Shueh
Yenyue (banquet music and dance) was a form of performance presented at the
Tang court during solemn national ceremonies, formal banquets or occasions
of entertainment. It originated in the third century and developed into a
treasure of art after incorporating, over four centuries, Buddhist,
Islamic, and Middle Asian cultures, as well as Chinese Taoist and Confucius
thought. Investigating the historical and cultural backgrounds of Yenyue
allows us to understand the policies and systems of banquet music and dance
in the Tang Dynasty (618-917 AD). The object of this research is, among
other things, to revive the Tang Yenyue for performance, appreciation, and
further study, and to preserve the surviving notations and recordings for
future reference and study. By focusing essentially on the Grand (Large)
Pieces, a category of Tang Yenyue, this repertory study takes on a
methodology of historical documentation, musicology and semiology, while at
the same time using field research, Labanotation and in effect, ancient
poetry.
Liu Feng-Shueh
Liu Feng-Shueh graduated with a degree in dance and music from National
Chanbai TeachersCollege (China). She studied modern dance and choreography
at Tokyo University of Education in Japan, while at the same time
researching the Tang dynasty court performances. In 1970, Liu went to
Germany to study choreography and Labanotation at the Folkwang Hochschule.
Later, she went to England to study for a Doctorate at London Universitys
Laban Center for Movement and Dance, Goldsmiths College. Liu wrote her
dissertation under the direction of L. E. R. Picken, at Cambridge
University and earned a Ph.D. in 1987. Liu Feng-Shueh has served
successively as dance professor at the National Taiwan Normal University,
Director of the Dance Department of National Taiwan Arts College and
Director of the National Theatre and Concert Hall. In addition, she has
choreographed 121 works. In 2004, Liu Feng-Shueh received the first prize
at the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD). She is also the author of,
among other works, Dance with Nature, The Taiwan Aboriginal Dance (2000),
and Vast Desert, Solitary Smoke Rises Straight, op 115, vol1-4 (2003).
On this occasion, Ms. Liu Feng-Shueh has proposed to stage a revival of
Banquet Music and Dance pieces which will feature dancers from her troupe,
the Neo-Classic Dance Company.
The Pieces :
The Emperor Destroys the Formations(Grand Piece Op.99)
The Singing of Spring Orioles (Grand Piece Op. 61)
Pa Tou (Small Piece Op.59)
Liquidambar (Grand Piece Op. 118)
Whirl Around (Grand Piece Op. 120)
The Neo-Classic Dance Company : Ms. Liu Feng-Shueh, Ms. Lin, Wei-Hua, Ms.
Lin, Wei-Ling, Ms. Lin, Wei-Fen, M. Lu, Yi-Chuan, Ms. Lee, Ying-Pien, Ms.
Chang, Hui-Chuen, Ms. Tien, Pei-Jen, Ms. Huang, Ting-Ting, Ms. Lee,
Meng-Fan, Ms. Chou, Chien-Ling, and
M. Lee, Chun-Yu (lighting designer), Ms. Tsui, Chih-Hsiu (administrator).
4:00 pm-5:00pm
Conclusion by Martine Chemana and Sadanand Menon
Shows during the symposium
From Monday 9th to Wednesday 11th January, at 7 pm
Thursday 12th January, 2:30 pm
Studio 3
Mugiyono Kasido
Mencari Mata Candi
The Indonesian choreographer and dancer Mugiyono Kasido allows us to
experience a true moment of wonder. Capable of going through a pallet of
subtle and contrasting movements and rhythms in the same chorographical
phase, he brings a rich history of gestures to life: traditional Javanese
dancing, agile and flowing, contemporary dancing, from which he has kept
the fluidity, or even break dancing, angular and jerking.
These last influences, taken on board and personalised, are expressed
through small touches, astonishing surprises, respecting the profound sense
of what makes a dancer tick: the bas-reliefs of the Prambanan Temple, one
of the most beautiful books sculpted from Hindu artwork dedicated to Shiva.
Mencari Mata Candi literally means looking for the eyes of the temple.
With the group of musicians that accompany him on stage, he converses with
the traditions. In this way, from the sacred gesture springs forth a new
danced language.
Mencari Mata Candis inspiration for me stems from three experiences:
reading, observing and communicating. This assimilation process was
surprisingly unique: it set out to create and recreate a new idiom of dance
in the nest of my own body. An idiom that was sufficiently flexible to
integrate the present and the past, an idiom that would make it possible to
satisfy the demands of a contemporary audience, concerned with the desire
to build constant ties between yesterday and today.
Mugiyono Kasido
Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th January, at 8:30 pm
Grand studio
Arco Renz / KobaltWorks
heroine
If the artist is like a researcher or a scientist, then the young German
choreographer Arco Renz would most certainly be an anthropologist. A
graduate from PARTS, Anne Teresa de Keersmaekers school, Arco Renz has also
assisted the American director Robert Wilson on several of his projects and
danced in some of his productions. He has often visited the Asian continent
to learn more about the principles of traditional dances, such as Balinese
dancing. Examining the emotional potential of abstraction, his shows are a
perfect interaction between movement, light, video and music.
Designed for the Taiwanese Su Wen-Chi, heroine is a solo that captures, in
a highly sensual way, perception and appearance, immobility and movement. A
spending but anonymous body, faceless, even when her features slowly begin
to light up in the shadows. A prisoner in a body and space set in
boundaries, the movement begins little by little until building up to a
vast scale.
We follow an unreal woman in time and space: the aesthetic universe of a
virtual heroine faced with the secular simplicity of physical meditation.
Tuesday 10th January, at 7 pm
Wednesday 11th January, at 8:30 pm
From Friday 13th to Sunday 15th January, at 6:30 pm
Studio 8
Ong Keng Sen and Beno輦 Lachambre
Like the cat sitting
on the edge of an ocean of milk,
hoping to lap it all upCo-production
There is no-one in India who does not know the story of the Ramayana,
irrespective of age, origin, education or social status. The two main
characters in the saga, Rama and Sita, are worshiped by all. A thrilling
tale mixing battles, kidnappings and courtly intrigue, which was passed on
to various nations throughout South East Asia, notably Thailand, Cambodia
and Indonesia.
The collaboration between the Canadian choreographer Beno輦 Lachambre and
the Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen will be founded on the Ramayana.
Beno輦 Lachambre, drawing on in-depth work on facial expressions to
interpret all the characters, will draw in the audience, who like himself
are unfamiliar with the legend, in a timeless and dreamlike world, full of
magnificent creatures and intense emotions.
Ong Keng Sen, whose productions are played in Asia, Europe and the United
States (Lear, Search: Hamlet, Beyond the killing fields, The global soul
the Buddha project, Chinoiserie, etc.), runs TheatreWorks in Singapore, his
place for research and creation, and has been invited on several occasions
to be a judge for the Berlin and London festivals.
Friday 13th and Saturday 14th January, at 8:30 pm
Sunday 15th January, at 5:30 pm
Studio 3
Dick Wong
B.O.B* @ Paris
In B.O.B* (Body O Body!), Dick Wong and two accomplices, an Asian and a
European, work with distorting mirrors.
One moves, the other describes, the third, without looking at the original,
gives his interpretation of what the second one is describing. They all
take their turn in the role of creator, passer and interpreter. The aim of
the game is to double up laughing, but also to provoke thought on how we
see the culture of others, what we imagine the other is imagining, etc.
From uncertainties to comical misunderstandings emerges a common gestual
culture, the intelligence of the body.
Dick Wong started studying dancing in the mid-80s and presented his own
creations at the beginning of the 90s. He has worked with Zuni Icosahedron,
Edward Lam Dance Theatre, Three Colors and People Mountain People Sea. From
1994 to 1995, he travelled in Europe and took part in numerous workshops.
These experiences have helped him to develop an unclassifiable body
language, even so far as defying any attempt to categorise him, following
only his internal logic. His creations are mainly solos and collaborations
with other artists, such as I Only Want You To Love Me, Anthony Wong Sings
People Mountain People Sea, Boombastic Verses, Body / Language (Version
2.0) as well as 12748 A BodY Odyssey.
Friday 13th and Saturday 14th January, at 9:30 pm
Sunday 15th January, at 8:30 pm
Studio 3
J・麑e Bel and
Pichet Klunchun / R.B.
Made in Thailand
J・麑e Bel: what is you name?
Pichet Klunchun: Pichet Klunchun.
J. B.: How old are you?
P. K.: 32.
J. B.: Where do you live?
P. K.: In Bangkok.
J. B.: Are you married?
P. K.: Not yet.
J. B.: What do you do?
P. K.: Im a dancer.
J. B.: Why did you become a dancer?
P. K.: Because dancing seems very easy to me. I dont know why, certain gods
must have chosen for me. I was born in a region away from Bangkok. My
parents had three daughters before me. In this region, there is a
magnificent and very well-known temple, called Soton Temple. A statue and
throne, a Buddha. We believe that he loves dancers. When you want
something, you ask for it from him. If your wish comes true, you thank him
by offering a dance. My mother wanted a boy, asked the statue for one and I
was born. It is perhaps for this reason that I became a dancer.
J. B.: Do you believe in God, in Buddha?
P. K.: Yes.
Extract from the show
Meeting between two accomplished artists, dialogue on their practices,
their respective sources of inspiration. Astonishment faced with the
differences that sometimes lead, not without humour, to misunderstandings.
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| "Japanese Dance Competition to Asia." |
| 10.21.05 (9:55 pm) [edit] |
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"Japanese Dance Competition to Asia."
Yukihiko YOSHIDA
There was a competition called Yokohama Solo X Duo Compe'tion + R at
the end of January. This competition has a relation with a French
famous competition called "Recontres Choreographique Internationales
de Seine-Saint-Dennis."
Last year, a Korean dancer, Jung Young-doo won prize. From this year on,
the competition itself is open to Asian choreographers and dancers.
In this competiton, there are many multimedia Performance and
performance with robotics. The winner of this competition this year,
Mariko Okamoto, used interesting robotics in her piece. A young
Japanese girl sits down on a small refrigerator and moves little by
little. Small robotics move beside her on the stage. Yoko Higashino
performed energetic multimedia performance. A female dancer with
dancers danced squalidly, and video dance spread widely.
Japanese contemporary dance after 90's denies Japanese modern dance
such as Japanese post modern dance,"Butoh." Thus, some of artists do
not have enough technics. They are introduced to Western countries as
"Contemporary Dance." On the other hand, young dancers from Japanese
modern dance are ignored unjustly.
As Ko'ichi Iwabuchi and Naoki Sakai pointed out, "Japaneseness"
(Iwabuchi, Sakai) has started to change in the beginning of this
century. On the other hand, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are in
the state of "Transcutlre" as Benedict Anderson figured out. Japanese
dance world must find the way to introduce its own artist to Asia.
Photo: Yo'ichi Tsukada
Title:Mariko Okamoto(Japan) "sputonik*gilu"
Title:Yoko Higashino(Japan) "Zero Hour"
French Embassy Prize for Young Choreographers
Mariko Okamoto(Japan) "sputonik*gilu"
Young Prize for Brilliant Future
Yoko Higashino(Japan) "Zero Hour"
Les Rencontres Choreographique Internationales de Seine-Saint-Dennis
National Consultative Committee Proze
Yumiko Hamatani(Japan) "Spin"
Choi Soo-jin(Korea) "Mind Game"
Hiroyuki Miura(Japan) "The man who is angry at the third planet/TABIO/
A short story of love"
Contact:
Yokohama Dance Collection R
Yokohama Solo x Duo <Competition>+ will be held in Jan, 2006
Applications for 2006 will open after May 2005.
Please check on the web site, or contact Yokohama Arts Foundation.
Yokohama Arts Foundation
6F Yokohama Minatomirai Hall
2-3-6 Minatomirai Nishi-ku Yokohama 220-0012 Japan
Tel:+81-45-682-2015 Fax:+81-45-682-2045
yaf@city.yokohama.jp
http://www.yokohama-dance-collection -r.jp" title="http://www.yokohama-dance-collection -r.jp" target="_blank"http://www.yokohama-dance-col...
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