IREHEARSE DANCE FOR WINDOWS MOVIE
IREHEARSE DANCE FOR WINDOWS TV

That is what Takuzo talks about, about being present. It’s an unusually permanent work from someone who mostly thrives on the ephemeral: “It is ironic to capture something on film that is all about being in the moment. This way I can bring these great artists with me.” So this was a chance for me to bring this very underground world to a wider audience. Her ethos is all about being naturally naked, like trees or grass. She basically walks forward outside naked. She’s a great performance artist whose work is called Zenshin-Hoko, meaning naked walking forward. And I knew I wanted Namiko Kawamura, the lady who walks naked. All I knew was I wanted to film them at this house on an island that belongs to my grandmother. “I wasn’t sure he would even be in the film. “Mika is a very good friend of mine and Takuzo is her boyfriend,” says Yokoshi.

IREHEARSE DANCE FOR WINDOWS MOVIE

Part-documentary and part-multidimensional-performance art, Yokoshi's movie triptych features the dance artist Mika Kurosawa, 72-year-old performer Namiko Kawamura and Hangman Takuzo, a performance artist who hangs himself from a tree at his suburban Tokyo home for a small audience everyday. Hangman Takuzo, is yet another accident, she says. “I was the only Japanese student on campus and because my English was so bad, my adviser suggested I take physical education. “It was a very dramatic show.”) She trained to black belt level in Kendo, but had long forgotten about her early pirouettes by the time she decamped to the US with the intention of training as a bilingual secretary. (“All the girls my age did ballet,” she laughs.

IREHEARSE DANCE FOR WINDOWS TV

Once in a Life Time– Yasuko Yokoshi views her career as a succession of fortunate accidents.īorn in Hiroshima, she attended ballet classes as a child but only because of a wildly popular TV programme. One of the dance world's most decorated servants – recent awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two 'Bessies' for her choreography and the Japanese Ogai Mori literary award for her autobiography, The shifting and changing is the beauty of it. The dominant trend in contemporary dance is to think beyond the body. When I work with other dancers I will give them ideas, but my ideas are not as interesting as accidents and unknowns that happen when I stand back. “Somehow when it’s right, you know,” she says. I wonder how the rules work after she rips up the rule book. It’s not about the learning, she says, it’s the un-learning that’s the trickier part of her craft. My training is about getting back to zero and into neutral.” And that’s how I’ve lived as a dancer for years and years. With each work you reset the hardware and build new software. I had to completely decode everything I had learned from Graham, from ballet, from walking around.

Dance in New York at the time was very improvisational and free. Then I changed schools and Trisha Brown became a big influence. “When I first came to New York from Japan I was trained in Graham technique, which was a revelation because we danced barefoot, like in folk dance, and that got me interested. “It’s ironic, but my American training is what helped me to access traditional Japanese forms and movement,” she says. The works are typical of Yokoshi's ongoing physical discourse between Western and Asian cultures. Hangman Takuzo, a new experimental dance film. As a headlining guest at Dublin Dance Festival's 2011 programme, she is here to presentīell, her interpretation of the Kabuki theatre classic This is the celebrated choreographer's first visit to these shores. The more I erase myself, the more the dance becomes the dance.” Whether it’s something interpretive, or traditional and very set, my ego has no importance. “Spiritually, dance is something where I don’t have to use my intellectual brain,” she says. The empty, echoing studio is eminently suitable for her methodology. SHE ARRIVED IN Ireland less than 24 hours ago, but performance artist, dancer, choreographer, academic and author Yasuko Yokoshi is already hard at work in Dance House’s rehearsal space. TARA BRADYmeets Yasuko Yokoshi, dancer, choreographer and academic, and one of the headline guests at the Dublin Dance Festival

Irehearse dance for windows