Very generally speaking, the exemplary dance platform for a digital media society that is constantly connected to a social networking communication environment would be TikTok. Interestingly, this platform, which endlessly plays short videos of 15 to 60 seconds in response to a swipe of the app screen, does not have the ability to display the date and time the video was posted. In other words, the very concept of objective time flowing from the past to the future, let alone history, is lost.
　This space of non-temporal consumption has led to the endless proliferation of “#I tried dancing” meme videos that mimic the same choreography of the same song in search of “likes,” replacing the body, which was supposed to be the basis of the subject, with a transient phenomenon (simulacrum) of “looking good” that is created in anticipation of the expectations of the anonymous viewer. The body, which was supposed to be the basis of the subject, is replaced by a transient phenomenon (simulacrum) that “looks good” created in anticipation of the expectations of anonymous viewers.
　In other words, it is no longer possible to give coherent meaning or drama to the self/body in a contemporary media environment obsessed with the rhythms of immediate pleasure and consumption provided by global platform companies like TikTok. Time has shattered into pieces, and amnesia born of the distraction of over-connectedness has become the dominant mode conditioning our society. In a hyperactive “attention deficit society” where it is painful to even sit in a theater chair for two hours without a smartphone, what can we expect from a dull theater and a flesh-and-blood body?
　I raise this question because, among other things, the “Genealogy of Dance,” which was performed again at KAAT, forms a base for recovering historical bodily knowledge without sinking into resignation or against the overwhelming speed of consumption and forgetting of digital capitalism that operates a TikTok-like dance platform because it appears to be another platform.
　First of all, this project, “Inheritance and Reconstruction of Dance,” will focus on three choreographers: Mikhail Fokin, who was one of the pioneers of 20th century ballet; Ily Kylian, who was at the intersection of modern dance and abstract ballet; and William Forsythe, who took steps toward deconstructing ballet technique and creating a methodology of self-organized improvisation. By focusing on the choreographies of these three choreographers, the exhibition will provide the audience with a historical perspective on the history of Western modernist dance in the 20th century.
　The triple bill format, in which Hana Sakai will perform “The Dying Swan,” Benei Nakamura will perform “BLACKBIRD,” and Yoko Ando will perform “The Lost Commission,” is a unique attempt to clarify the process of interaction between history and “I,” and to embody a genealogical approach. This is a unique attempt to embody a genealogical approach by revealing the process of interaction between history and “I”. Rather than following the hegemonic narratives of dance history constructed from a Western or male-centered perspective, the Triple Bill critically rereads the knowledge of choreography embodied in the “I” from the perspective of the dancer, the “I” who is identified as a woman.
　The playwright Toshiki Okada of chelfitsch participated in the recreation of the same work, titled “The Dying Swan: The Truth of Its Death” by Hana Sakai. Okada’s lazy style of narration, which characterizes one aspect of his writing style, gives a comical impression to the tragic death of the swan and “ruins” – in Okada’s words – the artistic value of the aesthetically refined “ballet. In particular, the scene in which the swan, which is said to have died after swallowing many colorful round objects that had fallen by the lakeside, vomits violently like a street drunk, is so far removed from the ideal aesthetics of classical ballet that it is even grotesquely obscene. However, the gesture of vomiting, therefore, makes us aware of “our” aesthetic value judgments imprinted by the hierarchy of authoritative discourses of “the West” and “art,” and highlights the political and cultural positionality of the Japanese place through the sense of its fallibility. Moreover, the episode, which evokes the case of a seabird that accidentally swallows plastic waste, serves as a critical commentary on the anthropocentric deception that represents swans as beautiful.
　Benefit Nakamura adds a new page of memory to “BLACKBIRD,” which evokes emotions and memories emerging from the dark depths of the unconscious and mourning for history through the gestures of the “blackbird. BLACKROOM,” created by Nakamura for this project, uses minimalistic and lyrical music by Haubrich, who has provided dance music for many Kylian works, and is interspersed with a female voice calling out, “Is anyone here? and a woman’s voice calling out, “Is anyone here? Nakamura, wearing a black costume that seems to blend in with the darkness, reacts sensitively to the “voice” in the room, but eventually her body tenses strongly as if being consumed by the “voice. Here, the call of others becomes one with the anguish that wells up from within, and develops into a gesture of vacillating lamentation in search of someone else. This heartrending sense of hopeless loneliness is at the bottom of the loneliness of the corona disaster that surrounds us today. By connecting the gestures of the “blackbird” flapping its wings in “BLACKBIRD,” Nakamura offers a historical lament for the emotions swirling around the corona disaster.
　Yoko Ando created “MOVING SHADOW” in collaboration with dancers Nozomi Kinouchi and Taiyu Yamaguchi, both around 20 years old, selected by audition. From the opening sequence, which evokes drifting in weightless space, to the call to the audience, to the flag signals, to the stage lights that change on cue, to the solos for show, to the movements reminiscent of mechanical dolls and the second hand of a clock, the work is full of playful changes in stage situations from moment to moment. On the other hand, near the end of the piece, Ando’s face, illuminated by the backlight, emerges as a pitch-black shadow, reminding us of the presence of an eerie shadow that clings to the back of the playful dance. This ambivalent danger is carried over into the solo version of the “Lost Commission” excerpt, which creates an undulating dance groove from the intricately intertwined lines of force of the movement. Through dance, Ando throws herself into a place of unstable relationships, and the process of continually becoming an unforeseen “I” is a life that is open to the future.
　The “Inheritance and Reconstruction of Dance” initiative illuminates history through choreography embodied by dancers and envisions alternative ways of being of life and body. Genealogy of Dance,” which revitalizes the theater as a medium of living memory, is now once again taking a bold step forward in reconstructing the historical body knowledge of dance.

astringent and leathery argument