THINGS EVAPORATE

Unstable ground, water, and steam inform a sense of the dance. The Onsen culture of therapeutic bathing (Toji) and the traveling dances of Ippen Shonin act as traces for the contemporary ensemble performance. With site-specific video, installation, and dance, the works were developed in Beppu, Kannawa, Mount Aso, and other neighboring outdoor environments. As an art form engaged with questions of place, sickness, and health, it was first presented in Furousen Onsen’s courtyard and studio in Beppu, November 2018.

Mirroring the common Onsen experience divided into separate spaces for female and male, the performance is split into two parts on opposite sides of a wall.  The audience (divided into two groups) witness one side then switch sides.  Each segment is repeated.  In the last part of the work, the wall and sense of boundaries begin to slide away, shifting into an open territory of shared ambiguity and spacious perception.

The long-term outlook is that with the Onsen culture of Toji, new layers of an experiential process and practice for the body can be activated. Through local collaborations, we connect this to dance, as a daily life study of the fragile sense of well being and an always changing physical condition. The edge spaces of a body in sickness, injury, age, relaxation, or tension serve as some of the points of mediation and meditation.

Ongoing, an area of research and artistic re-imagination is the Buddhist practice of Seyoku, in which poor people, criminals, and the sick are invited to bathe as a way of getting rid of the sickness (or negative spirits by calming the hell) and to bring good fortune.  For the future, the work looks to develop new iterations and creative relationships.

—   dances of sickness and health

TABLEAU STATIONS

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