A pioneering collaboration innovating the realm of performing arts "Reality" revisited in a body-space hybrid
Performers Tsuyoshi Shirai and Takao Kawaguchi, as well as other top creators from such varied fields as sound, device development and costume design teamed up under the direction of Takayuki Fujimoto. The collaboration between this group of creators and three public cultural facilities including YCAM resulted in a performance piece with no real precedent in Japan in terms of production style. Themed around the relationship between the "brain" and "reality", the work places emphasis on interactive elements.
The piece incorporates the use of sensors to create interactive connections between the performers' bodies and various choreographic stage elements such as imagery, lighting and sound, making the stage space function as an extension of the human body. The instant transformations of the stage setting in concert with the performers' body movements captured moments in which gaps between "reality" and "perception", and ultimately "reality" itself, are being generated.
"Architectures of reality" illustrated through interactions of light, sound and the human body
Performance piece featuring two performers who explore the relationship between the "brain" and "reality".
A table and a large construction scaffolding are arranged on the stage, while a circle of LED lights is installed on the ceiling. Accompanied by sound that embraces the entire space, and visual projections onto a screen in the back of the stage, these elements are elaborately interlocked with the performers' movements by way of sensors, resulting in a spatial setting that appears as an extension of the performers' bodies. In addition to the performers' movements, the audience perceives through the instantly changing stage at large the differences and gaps between "phenomena" as we see them, and "cognition" based on our reading of social environments and everyday stories.
Sensors
For this piece, original small-sized sensor devices were developed using "myoelectric sensors" to detect minute electric potential differences radiated by muscles. Attached to the two performers' bodies, these devices convert all sorts of movements into data, and thus interlock the performers with elements of sound and stage setting.
Table
Looking quite ordinary from the outside, the table contains next to a projector and other devices also a built-in variability mechanism, and functions in a way as the work's central system. A globe, a glass, and other objects randomly placed on the table are fitted with various mechanisms as well that trigger interaction with the performers.
LED Lighting
Originally developed mainly by Fujimoto himself, the lighting device consisting of LED lights arranged in a circle of 8 meters in diameter is controlled via a computer to instantaneously flash in arbitrary colors from arbitrary points on the circle.
Construction scaffolding
A huge vibrator is mounted to a construction scaffolding, and vibrates in tune with the lights and sounds. The noise this vibration produces charges the stage space as a whole with a sense of mass and physicality.
Tour Information
March 18 - 21, 2011
Venue: AI HALL（兵庫）
February 3 - 5, 2011Mois Multi 2011
Venue: Salle Multi et studio d'Essai (Canada)
January 27 - 29, 2011
Venue: Usine C (Canada)
September 8 - 9, 2010TransART
Venue: EX-Alumix (Italy)
June 18 - 20, 2010
Venue: Hong Kong Cultural Centre - Studio Theatre (Hong Kong)
June 5, 2010
Venue: Macao Cultural Centre - Small Auditorium (Macau)
November 18 - 19, 2009
Venue: Teatro Paulo Autran at SESC Pinheiros (Brazil)
November 11 - 12, 2009Festival Panorama de Dança 2009
Venue: Teatro Tom Jobim (Brazil)
October 15 - 17, 2009
Venue: Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris (France)
October 9 - 10, 2009
Venue: Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Germany)
October 3 - 4, 2009
Venue: Tanzhaus NRW Dusseldorf (German)
September 29, 2009
Venue: Parktheater Eindhoven（Netherlands）
September 25 - 26, 2009
Venue: Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam (Netherlands)
August 4 - 9, 2009
Venue: Theatre Tram (Tokyo)
November 13 - 15, 2008
Venue: Japan Society (USA)
July 24 - 26, 2008
Venue: Esplanade Theatre Studio (Singapore)
December 14 - 16, 2007
Venue: Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse (Kanagawa)
December 8 - 9, 2007
Venue: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Ishikawa)
Participants in this "backstage tour" introducing the creation process of a new original piece witnessed the work of the YCAM staff and artists involved, while at once learning about the theatre's mechanisms, and the system employed for this particular production.
