website

This the video of premiere of A.Void. performance at Wakayama Modern Art Museum.

This video was taken in Yokohama Dance Collection EX in February 2011

This time my stage fright was not as big as the first time when we had workshop at Yokohama Ouyou High School. The school looked quite similar to the one in Ouyou. Interesting is why I expected the schools to look different.

Anyway the structure of workshop was actually the same, we just adjusted with Ryuzo few things to the fact that this is a theatre class rather then dance class.

The workshop turned up ok and functional for the needs of the girls, teacher and school. Both workshops sparkled ideas to develop and widen such collaboration. To me came the idea that actually we could develop similar thing in high schools with the project Ecollectiv. We could give workshops in couples in different schools the whole season through. This of course requires quite an organization and lobbying. Nonetheless it is an idea.

Major difference between Ouyou and Tsurumi high school workshop is that at Ouyou girls do this as extra curriculum and girls at Tsurumi do this course as obligatory curriculum. The atmosphere is accordingly different in that girls at Tsurumi were waiting for us to impress them and then they would be willing to collaborate more actively.

The surprise that was waiting for us was that a (female) ambassador of Slovenia her excellency Helena Drnovšek Zorko payed a visit to the high school to meet girls and us at the workshop. She expressed an admiration that a Japanese artist (ok to be correct an artist with Japanese citizenship) living in Slovenia and  Slovenian artist have a workshop at Japanese High School. This is quite a peculiar thing and sure I will meet with to find out more about Embassy's interest into such Slovenian endeavour.

Slowly a wish is growing in me to know the language. Ryuzo does excellent job in translating, but there are situations that require a personal approach. So I bought myself a book to learn some Japanese. Of course not for now to learn Japanese fluently, but for the next time since there will be next time for Japan.

Everything counts. That would be yesterdays sum-up for me. I enjoy the fluid and playful communication we have with Ryuzo. That is an important corner stone of the work we do, ie A.Void. To say the least, I feel weird in this project. We did it three times (Wakayama once, Yokohama twice). Describe weird, Gregor. I enjoy performing it and I enjoy performing it with Ryuzo. I reckon tasks we have given to ourselves. And I do go into practice mode.

Why should one write about what happened? Especially of the event that roots in practice? And it takes performance as a one way to practice dance. So better write about practice. Practice of what? Practice of dance. Practice is not an opposite of theorizing. In includes theorizing. This way it enables one to practice also theory, their supposed complimentation and opposition.

Improvisation is exploration came to me in the workshop we had in Yokohama Ouyou High School and you can read about it more here.

I find term improvisation more and more important to work on since its amazing aura. More you are involved into what is improvisation, less you want to use the term. I find that extremely good way to keep improvisation or any term alive. To have in its usage already a paradoxical, controversial elements. It always propels me to define it for me in the moment, it shoots me right into the heart of the improvisation which is still unfathomable, and best articulated by doing.

I had quite stage fright while preparing the workshop for Yokohama Ouyou High School with Ryuzo yesterday. And as I entered the room, it was gone. I was present. And off we went.

There were 12 girls aged 16 to 18 part of theatre and dance club that mostly work on their own in style of hip-hop.

So we are in Yokohama. I just learned a new thing about blogging: not to write text online. I just deleted the whole thing. I am sure it is still somewhere in the comp, but alas I have no approach to it.

The fervour of previous writing is gone, so here I go anew.