Is anyone else seeing this connection?
© David Noonan/Photographer: Unknown.
May 14, 2012
Irreversible Materiality | Rethink
Pure Extraction is an experimental multimedia piece from my Rethink project. You can read about the projects gestation on the project blog.
You can also view reference images here.
February 19, 2012
Interview | Eikoh Hosoe
Related articles
- Japanese Avant-Garde | Tatsumi Hijikata (traceyfahy.wordpress.com)
February 19, 2012
Kamaitachi | Eikoh Hosoe
All images © Eikoh Hosoe
Eikoh Hosoe’s long association with the revolutionary performance movement butoh came about through his encounter in 1959 with one of its founders, Tatsumi Hijikata. Hosoe collaborated with Hijikata on several series including Kamaitachi, which is acknowledged as the finest illustration of Hosoe’s hybrid photographic style, combining performance and documentary with a dramatic, virile aesthetic that embodies the founding principles of Hijikata’s ankoku butoh or ‘dance of darkness’. The dramatic and intense energy that Hijikata generated with his dance not only captured Hosoe’s imagination but also opened up new ways for the young photographer to approach themes such as sexuality, gender and the human body.
Driven by the desire to re-enact his childhood memories when he was evacuated from Tokyo during World War Two, Hosoe had Hijikata perform kamaitachi, the legendary weasel-like demon that haunted the rice paddies in the extremely sparse, rural landscape of the Tohoku region from where they both came. Fusing reality (Hijikata interacting with the landscape and village people) and performance, Hosoe’s ‘subjective documentary’ series opened new ground in Japanese post-war photography.
Related articles
- Japanese Avant-Garde | Tatsumi Hijikata (traceyfahy.wordpress.com)
- In celebration of the yin of butoh (search.japantimes.co.jp)
- Eikoh Hosoe (hustlemagazine.wordpress.com)
February 9, 2012
Beach Birds for Camera | Merce Cunningham
Beach Birds For Camera, 1992 (a 35-mm film directed by Elliot Caplan)
First Performed: New York, December 1991
Music: John Cage
Design: Marsha Skinner
Dancers: Merce Cunningham Dance Company
February 5, 2012
Japanese Avant-Garde | Tatsumi Hijikata
The inspiration for my Rethink & Vietnam projects includes the Butoh dance of Tatsumi Hijikata & Kazuo Ohno and the political times of 60s/70s Japan as captured by the Provoke group of photographers.
In November 1968, Takuma Nakahira and Koji Taki published the first volume of a magazine-style photobook call Provoke (intended for a restricted market with a common subset of interests, as opposed to general readers). Provoke is the magazine most often associated with the generation of photographers working in the 60s & 70s Japan – even those that did not actually publish in the magazine. It is an example of a small, short-lived, but legendary publications, whose influence is still felt. Early editions had print runs of just 1,000. Investigating the relation between photography and text, the magazine was an artistic and philosophical manifesto, responding to the upheavals of the late sixties; inspired by free writing, Butoh dance of Tatsumi Hijikata, the experimental theatre of Shuji Terayama and underground cinema particularly the new wave films of Nagisa Oshima.
Participating photographers including Domon Ken, Eikoh Hosoe, Masahisa Fukase, and Daido Moriyama searched for a radical photographic language all hugely inspired by the raw, visceral style of William Klein’s New York (1956). The aim of the magazine was to abolish the idea that photography is a document – ‘separating the photography from its socially prescribed function as a record”. In doing so these photographers eliminated information, record especially narrative from their work to create ‘pure’ images’ (Kaneko & Vartanian 2009). The images were often grainy and blurred (referred to as are-bure-boke; shortened to bure-boke) an aesthetic that implies a willingness to discard information. ‘This drew attention to the photographic nature of a photograph, thereby liberating the image from illusion that it presented a reality beyond the physicality of the photograph’ (Kaneko & Vartanian 2009) thus challenging the commonly accepted idea of photography and to ‘provoke thought’. ‘Photography here is not a source of information but rather a font of questions in pursuit of truth’ (Kaneko & Vartanian 2009).
Yesterday I was lucky enough to see Tatsumi Hijikata (1967); and the first UK screening of Tatsumi Hijikata Summer Storm (2010) at the Pump House Gallery as part of Art, Performance & Activism in Contemporary Japan. This YouTube clip gives a sense of period I refer to.
January 26, 2012
Drop it like it’s GC!
This work forms the beginnings of a documentary project exploring the potential impact of dance among people in their Third Age. Breaking away from traditional dance projects with the elderly; challenging stereotypes of older peoples capabilities and creating a more optimistic view of ageing in our society.
HIP HOP PERFORMANCE BY SENIOR DANCERS (60+) @ GREEN CANDLE DANCE COMPANY
www.greencandledance.com
January 6, 2012
BanglaHop
I PREDICT THIS COULD GO HUGE IN 2012!
BanglaHop Youth Dance Company, Mulberry School for Girls, Oxford House, Bethnal Green, London.
Green Candle Dance Company Production, 2011.
