14/15 June, 10.00 p.m. - Tese delle Vergini, Arsenale
Spontaneous Core world premiere
by Fuyuki Yamakawa, Atsuhiro Ito, DoraVideo, MASH
voice, heartbeat, guitar Fuyuki Yamakawa
optron Atsuhiro Ito
percussion DoraVideo (Yoshimitsu Ichiraku)
strip dance MASH
costume designer Atsuhiro Ito
video Fuyuki Yamakawa, Yoshimitsu Ichiraku
lighting designer Satoru Takano
technical director So Ozaki
organization Fumiko Toda
production precog Co., Ltd. (Yasuo Ozawa), Takashi Azumaya, La Biennale di Venezia
in collaboration with Japan Foundation, Tama Art University Media and Art Course
supported by The Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts Japan Program
The dancers of Batik, invited by La Biennale to make their first appearance in Italy, are followed by another Japanese company headed by Fuyuki Yamakawa, an artist who made his name at last year’s Festival, where he electrified audiences with D.D.D., a high octane/guncotton performance in which he was lead dancer alongside Takao Kawaguchi.
This time Yamakawa is performing with what he defines as a ‘hardcore punk band of the 23rd century’, a group that brings together exponents from Tokyo’s underground scene. These are avant-garde artists of experimental happenings that involve their viewers in a total aesthetic experience: DoraVideo, alias Yoshimitsu Ichiraku, Atsuhiro Ito, Mash. Spontaneous Core, a piece created at the behest of La Biennale for its dance festival Body & Eros, plays on the physical and emotional levels of sound and images in ‘a spontaneous, frenetic and erotic work’ (Yamakawa).
Guitar, vocals, heartbeat: Yamakawa’s instruments are an extension of his body and are utilised in totally new ways. He does not ‘play’ the guitar but vibrates it, rubbing it against his abdomen. Instead it is the voice that ‘resounds’ dividing itself in a stupefying simultaneous emission of two sounds, a singing technique that was created in the heart of shamanic Asia; whilst the heartbeat is amplified by an electronic stethoscope that activates a myriad of light bulbs, making them oscillate until they burst.
Yamakawa’s performance is accompanied by another ‘fantastic’ instrument that fuses light and sound, the optron, created and ‘played’ by Atsuhiro Ito: it is a luminous tube that, once activated, produces sounds amplified by numerous small microphones inside it and, connected to the percussion, creates a simultaneously explosive and stroboscopic sound.
Alongside these performers is Yoshimitsu Ichiraku, a champion of digital art who earned a special mention at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, utilising a system of percussion, computer and sensors that allow him to control video images. And last but not least is the legendary artist, trumpet player and stripper Mash, queen of the techno pop performances in Tokyo clubs and one of the icons of the famous masters of female nudes, Akira.
