Kaiji Moriyama

Performance: The Velvet Suite
Date: april 21st april 22nd, '10 8pm
Location: Paramount Theatre / 713 Congress Avenue / Austin, TX 78701

Dancer Kaiji Moriyama of Japan is considered one of the most acclaimed contemporary dancers in Japan and this trip will be his second trip to the U.S. and the American debut of this new piece, The Velvet Suite, which was created to fit the theme of the 2007 Venice Biennale: “Body and Eros.” Moriyama’s movement and presence is magnetic in The Velvet Suite, and he will be joined on stage by violinist Koichiro Muroya. Moriyama made his U.S. solo debut in 2005 with a stunning piece, “katana” (sword), the New York Times called “a dance of amazing concentration by an amazing dancer”.

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By Dan Grunebaum
Kaiji Moriyam
Japan’s best-known contemporary dancer unveils a new piece on “body and eros” – Tadaaki Omori

Contemporary dance is a rarified world, but thanks to his starring role in NHK’s morning children’s program Karada De Asobou (“Play with the Body”), Kaiji Moriyama is beloved of parents and kids nationwide. In the program, Moriyama utilizes his lithe physique and supple, confident movements to evoke animals, objects (including a stunning impersonation of a rocking chair) and other actions that kids can relate to.
But the program isn’t simply children’s entertainment. As a role model to kids and with a young daughter of his own, Moriyama, 34, feels a sense of responsibility. “To express the joy of dancing, and to communicate that, even if you don’t become a professional dancer, you can use your body, is important,” he says in a recent interview at a Shibuya café. “Especially for Japanese who aren’t confident about their bodies. When I was small, it was difficult for me to communicate, but dancing helped. As my body became healthier, I became more open.”
Coming to dance rather late in life at 21, and without undergoing classical ballet training, Moriyama has a unique style. He combines the grace of a ballet soloist with the precise muscular control of a butoh dancer, but has a mime-like ability to evoke a range of actions, emotions and objects that far exceeds the vocabulary of either.
Launching his career with a musical theater company, he then worked with a number of leading contemporary choreographers, including Kota Yamazaki, before going solo. In January 2005, the US debut of his piece Katana (“sword”) was praised by Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times as “a dance of amazing concentration by an amazing dancer.”
Moriyama is instantly recognizable by the long tuft of dyed hair that flows from the top of his head past his shoulders. He says it’s not merely a fashion statement. “As a child, I was quite introverted. Dyeing my hair allowed me to overcome a wall within myself—even Moriyama Kaiji is a stage name [Kaiji is an original construction that means “open to the next”]. It was like flipping a switch: it brought a new me into the open.”
Now something of a poster boy for the Japanese contemporary dance world, Moriyama recognizes the irony of his hair. “Even if the exterior of our lives has become Westernized, we continue to think like Japanese,” he observes in his quiet but assured manner. “The reason for dyeing my hair wasn’t that I wanted to imitate Westerners, but that I wanted to create a character; as in kabuki, I wanted to transform myself.”
“Dance has become a worldwide language,” he continues. “Within that, there are some elements that may be specifically Japanese, and we should try to bring these out. We Japanese have taken in a lot of Western influences in all areas, and we’re now mixing them with our own experiences. Our responsibility as creators is to invent our own forms that have something to say about our present lives.”
Moriyama’s new piece, The Velvet Suite, was created to fit the theme of last year’s Venice Biennale: “Body and Eros.” “At first I planned to do Katana at the Biennale, but they insisted on the ‘Body and Eros’ theme,” he recounts. “At the time, I was staying at a German place called the Velvet Hotel. I had to come up with something, so I just chose to name it after a room there. The name set me wondering: what kind of room could it be? It gave me erotic imaginings.”
With music by Yasuhiro Kasamatsu, who is known for writing music for productions by renowned stage director Yukio Ninagawa, The Velvet Suite sees Moriyama joined onstage by violinist Koichiro Muroya on a set that features objects—a heart, a uterus and a spherical ball made with over 1,000 red flowers—made by Moriyama himself.
“Maybe 95 percent of the productions created for the Biennale involved nudity, beds—obvious sexual references,” explains Moriyama’s manager Namiko Hashizume. “The Velvet Suite makes no overt references to sexuality. He wanted to express an interior Eros.”
“There are so many ways to interpret Eros,” Moriyama expands. “What first came to mind were the bestial aspects, the idea of something that tries to propagate itself; I tried to approach Eros from the viewpoint of a beast. But I also wanted the audience to wonder what it is I’m trying to represent: there are various mythical beasts, like the unicorn, that I try to evoke. I want my audience to be filled with a sense of wonder, to feel the life force but also the violence of beasts, and to understand that the same motivations are in them.”
Moriyama agrees with the observation that Japanese contemporary dance is in a ruddy state of health these days. “There are a lot of dancers, but we need to expand the audience from art lovers to a more general audience,” he says. “In Japan, TV is the dominating influence and dictates what becomes culture. I’d like to see performances become a larger part of the cultural experience. It’s an information society, but I’d like more people to use their bodies rather than just information technology to express themselves.”

Frédérick Gravel

Performance: GravelWorks
Date: april 23rd april 24th '10 8pm
Location: The Off Center / 2211 Hidalgo Street / Austin, TX 78702

 “GravelWorks” is the latest creation of Montreal-based troupe the GravelArtGroup, led by choreographer, dancer, lighting designer, musician and researcher Frédérick Gravel. The performance showcases a variety of moods, humor, bodies, pop songs, personalities and friendly impertinence by infusing dance and live music. The two hour performance is comprised of several pieces each the length of a song, flowing together as an entire album full of intimate solos and powerful group movements.

“Frederick Gravel impressed a number of program directors and presenters, deftly handling the piece with irony-tinged finesse, a sense of aloofness and tongue-in-cheek humour.” La Presse
 

Oliver Herring

Performance: Oliver Herring
Date: April 29th, 30th & May 1st
Location: The Ballroom at Windsor World | 1702 Windsor, Austin 78703

3 Day Weekend is both a performance and material for a live video shoot. Initially commissioned by Performa and presented by Salon 94 in New York, Herring is creating a new version specifically for Austin. 3 Day Weekend unfolds as a series of interactions built over the course of three days with a group of people who were chosen through an open application process. The actions are physical, dance related, mostly unrehearsed and therefore unpredictable. Oliver Herring both “directs” the actions and film the footage.

Oliver Herring was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1964, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from the University of Oxford (Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art), Oxford, England, and an MFA from Hunter College, New York. Since 1998, Herring has created stop-motion videos and participatory performances with ‘off-the-street’ strangers. Herring has received grants from Artpace; New York Foundation for the Arts; and the Joan Mitchell Foundation. He has had one-person exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, among others.

Presented by Arthouse and testperformancetest.