Presenting his work at the ” Performing Arts Selection 2023 “.Talk Series with Artists.
In this issue, we present a trilogy talk by Yasutake SHIMACHI, ROY KAN, and Eri KARATSU.

 

Eri Karatsu (under Karatsu): Thank you very much for your time today. I would like to talk to you about “Ai no te” which is currently under creation. First of all, your previous work ” Arika ” (2016), in which the two of you collaborated, was in a sense like a struggle between different genres. I think we saw a story like how to overcome the confrontation that occurs when two completely different things come face to face. Also, you used the entire space of the theater for the performance, and the audience watched the performance from both sides. On the other hand, this time, as a “Performing Arts Selection” piece, the relationship between the two performers in the space will change dramatically when the audience is in front of them. In “Arika,” you were often facing each other, but in this work, both of you are looking at the audience and both of you are present with each other, and I felt that you were a little confused at first. Can you tell us what you had in mind when creating the new work from the first “Arika”?

Yasutake Shimaji (Shimaji): This time, when we were on the proscenium stage, it felt somewhat strange that both of us were facing the audience. In “Arika,” I always had Tamaki in front of me, and I always felt the arrow of the other person, but the arrows were both pointing in the same direction, and my first problem was what to do about it. So when I said that the two of us would talk to the audience, I began to think that maybe a contrast or a comic form would be better. But maybe before that, I had the idea of using some kind of play. How about you, Tamaki?

ROY TAN (T AN): I think I had a little bit of a desire to make a contraption. When I was put on the board of different forms, I wondered what was the simplest thing I could do with the abilities I already had, and I thought “conte” was the closest thing I could come up with. But to be honest, the sense in which I do it is a mystery. In the previous piece, “Arika,” the dynamic nature that rap and dance have is straightforward, but compared to that, I think the nature of this piece is quite static. If you frame it as a dancer and a rapper, you may not understand why they do this, but if you ask why they do this to the personalities of Yasutake Shimaji and ROY Kan, you should be able to say, “I see.

 

Karatsu:I understand that very well. This time, although we each had our own reasons, the direction we were aiming for was shared from the very beginning. I think everything was fresh for you when you worked on “Arika,” but were there any new challenges you wanted to take on in light of your past experience as you worked together again this time?

Shimaji：I guess this is the “play” I mentioned earlier: the idea of two people acting together. So I asked the dramaturg for this project, Mr. Nagashima, to introduce some plays to me, and we finally ended up with Hoffman’s “The Window in the Corner” (1822). I thought “The Window in the Corner” was good because of the situation in which two people look at the same landscape and talk, and the fact that the main character of the story is not a person but a landscape. Then, when we thought about replacing the subject matter of the scenery that the two viewers look at with the present day, Mr. Nagashima introduced us to a film called “Koyaanisqatsi” (1982). The two of us watched and commented on the footage separately, and the recordings were transcribed and made into text. I found this process of watching the footage and creating the dialogue from what each of us had said interesting this time.

Karatsu: It is not that the dialogues were inspired by the content of the video, but that each of us uttered the words that came to mind while watching the same movie. What were you thinking about when you were saying the words? For example, when a playwright writes a play as text, the message to be put on the words would be stronger, but since you spoke impromptu, did many of the words come out unconsciously?

Tamaki: It was like the words came directly from my daily thoughts. Then I edited the text quite a bit.

Karatsu: Tamaki, you write what you are thinking in your poems even when you write rap songs. If so, does that mean what you are doing this time is not much different? Also, what is different this time from when you usually do rap?

Tamaki: I don’t think it will change much. If I had to point out one thing that differs from the usual, it would be that there are lines. I think that words in music are more enslaved to the form of the music, so the process of how the words are used is shared between the creator and the recipient. For this reason, I feel that I have to be more careful with words in dialogue.

Karatsu: The same can be said of the theatrical form. Is the text you two are talking about this time fiction or non-fiction? Is it non-fiction?

Shimaji: What we are talking about is not non-fiction. It is not a story. We are talking about what we usually think in the fictional setting of a stage performance. We are not just talking, but we are wondering where we are talking, whether we are in the same place, and we hope to express a distortion of time and space. I am talking about what I am usually thinking, but I think it will have an interesting and mysterious charm that is not a lecture performance.

Karatsu: What you have said so far gives me a strong impression that it is a form of comedy or a theatrical performance with dialogue, but I would like to ask you about movement as well. When Tamaki-san is rapping, there is a groove that the dance has, and it looks like he is dancing, and in the case of Shimaji-san, I think he often says words in his performance. In this context, can you tell us what, if any, differences there are in the way movement and words relate to each other compared to what is usually called rapping or dancing?

Shimaji: It’s like more restrictive. After learning the lines and being able to say the lines no matter what kind of movement I am doing, I want to make it more restrictive or more difficult. When we rehearsed the other day, I tried saying the lines while moving and lifting the other person, and it was still difficult for me to say them. It is a habit of mine to deliberately impose such difficulties on myself, but by keeping myself busy and overloading myself, I am waiting for the unexpected to happen. This is true both for the other person and for myself. In this work, there was no physical involvement like dancing, but I wanted to see more of it because Tamaki’s movements are interesting, so I changed my idea in the past few days. I think that incorporating physical involvement has changed the way we see the relationship between the two of them, and has created more reality.

Karatsu: You are seeing more movement.

Tamaki: I feel that the dynamic range in the physical expression has been improved, with a deeper contrast between dynamic and static moments.

 

Karatsu: What specifically do you want people to see when you present it as a performance this time?

Shimachi: This is interesting, isn’t it?

Ring: Yes, it is. Overall, I can say with confidence that this is interesting.

Shimaji：What I find interesting is that although there are lights and a little art, there is almost nothing at all, but there is a lot of blank space where you can imagine various things. Rather than having us as the main actors, I would like the audience to imagine the space where the two of them are talking and moving. It is definitely interesting, so I hope you will come and see it.

Karatsu: Thank you very much for your time today.

 

*”Ai no te” will be performed in Aichi and Tokyo.

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Performing Arts Selection 2023

Aichi
9/16 (Sat) 14:00/18:30 and 17 (Sun) 14:00
Aichi Arts Theatre, Small Hall

Takasaki
9/21(Thu) 18:30
Takasaki Arts Theatre, Studio Theatre

Takatsuki
9/30 (Sat.) 17:00
Takatsuki Castle Park Performing Arts Center, Large Studio

Tokyo
10/21 (Sat) 14:00/18:00 and 22 (Sun) 14:00
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, Theater East

Tour Details
https://dancebase.yokohama/main2/event_post/pas2023-tour
Please note that the productions differ depending on the venue.

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