Set in a Japanese style hostel that could be straight out of Hisaya Morishige\u2019s comedy film \u201cEkimae Ryokan\u201d (1958) or some kind of typical Japanese television suspense drama, with everything from character setting to parties, scuffles and love affairs being mere groundwork, \u201cHaikiko (Vent)\u201d by Idevian Crew, from beginning to end, develops somewhere between theater and dance.<\/p>\n
The hostel\u2019s interior is very effectively presented in the form of a skeletonized set (by Masako Ito) that resembles the medieval \u201cFukinuki Yatai\u201d picture scroll. Pillars, lintels and door sills function as a grid to show a linear perspective, articulating layers of depth with a drawing room in the front, a corridor behind it, and a space in the back, and creating frames juxtaposed horizontally. This grid pattern derived from Japanese traditional architecture structurally supports the mesmerizingly complicated choreography, while at the same time certainly boosting the depth and clarity of the viewer\u2019s spatial perception.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/_sys2024\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/d736baf0b1691d789937c2e0b5443a58-1024x683.jpg\")
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photo: Marie Nosaka <\/small><\/p>\n
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The main ingredients of Shigehiro Ide\u2019s choreography are countless tiny scraps of \u201cquotes\u201d that his pieces are studded with. They are taken from rather nondescript movie scenes, phrases and rhythm patterns borrowed from jazz dance, ballet or traditional Japanese dance, or conventional motions found in manga and anime. What clearly sets this style apart from postmodernist choreography is that these elements are used for appealing to the viewer\u2019s vague memories, rather than for making references to specific source. Whenever we encounter things that \u201csomehow seem familiar,\u201d we unconsciously project our memory onto them to fully grasp as particular images. Ide picks up details from the bits and pieces of such materials, and connects them with other details. This is how he draws from a giant database of things that \u201csomehow seem familiar,\u201d to build dense movements and sequences that unfold moment by moment in unpredictable ways, which is again exactly what makes his choreography so complicated and at once downright catchy.<\/span><\/p>\n Let me give you an example. While the cooks prepare a dish for a party, the waitresses repeat 8-count steps behind their backs. The way they straighten themselves up and strike poses when stepping forward, and shiver and shake when stepping back again, is quite funny and leaves a lasting impression, whereas there\u2019s an air of \u201cprickly turning away\u201d in the former, and a sense of \u201ctrembling with excitement\u201d in the latter, both of which are stylized gestures often found in manga or anime. Once the waitresses have left, for some reason one of the cooks throws himself onto the tatami mat and violently shakes his body in spasms. Like \u201ca tuna just landed,\u201d which carries a stereotypical connotation of \u201cvery fresh meal\u201d for Japanese. Witnessing this, the viewer would faintly remember those waitresses\u2019 movements. In retrospect, they did look like fish taken out of the water, and now it\u2019s the cook\u2019s turn somehow\u2026 As a matter of course, one can hardly be aware of this when seeing it. It\u2019s more the operations of images in detail that come across so vividly as the viewer receives them unconsciously.<\/p>\n In \u201cHaikiko,\u201d such kinds of sequences unfurl in a multiple-linear fashion, brilliantly responding to the dense sonic tapestry of EDM tunes. There are unlike events taking place simultaneously, such as line dance performed in unison and childish fray for example, in timelines that run parallel at first, but then continue to branch out and change. Something new has begun before we knew it, and while being preoccupied with that, what we have just seen before has already turned into something different. It is through repeated viewing that one gradually understands just how carefully Ide\u2019s choreographies are designed to sneak through the viewer\u2019s consciousness, which also makes each piece more enjoyable when seeing it again.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen this piece twice this time, but I still feel eager for more. I really hope that restaging masterpieces will become an established practice in the realm of contemporary dance!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Translated by Daisuke Muto and Andreas Stuhlmann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Never would I have thought that I\u2019d be able to see this masterpiece again\u00a0ten years later! Set in a Japanese s […]","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":1815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[82],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1801"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1897,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions\/1897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}