Dimension Chameleon: Hiroaki Umeda at Japan Society 5/14/2009

all photos are from www.hiroakiumeda.com

Adapting for Distortion

Recently we were able to see Hiroaki Umeda’s one man show at Japan Society. Well, actually, that is not quite right.. one second you are watching Mr. Umeda #1, the next second Mr. Umeda #2, then the next second you are watching Mr. Umeda #3, or was that Mr. Umeda #1, superimposed with Mr. Umeda #2, possibly that was Mr. Umeda #4?…  Mr. Umedas were everywhere, all vying for our attention.

How were we seeing an universe of alternate Umedas? Did he achieve some sort of interdimensional travel by moving faster than light?

No. He didn’t have to move much at all. He only needed a little help from his lights…

Let’s take a look at light for a moment. We see form in light. Inversely light is seen by it’s reflection on form. Light reveals form and form reveals light. This relationship between light and form creates the reality of our visual space.

Imagine a space with more than one sun. Imagine these suns moving at different speeds. Imagine that these suns have different and changing rays of light. Imagine these suns can turn on and off at various times and in various frequencies.  How does the body occupy this space? Welcome to Hiroaki Umeda’s world.

This interplay between light, form, and space is the focus for Mr. Umeda’s opening piece, “Adapting for Distortion”. Mr. Umeda enters the dark stage dressed all in white. Placing his body parallel to the stage, his outfit becomes a screen, partially eclipsing the screen of the backdrop. A projection of horizontal lines marks his body and marks the backdrop. Initially only a few lines are projected; most of his body is still covered in darkness, as is the screen behind him. These few lines on his body are slightly offset from the lines on the backdrop (Mr. Umeda is closer to the projector, the space between Mr. Umeda and the backdrop stretches the light slightly). The number of lines, however, begin to increase. As the lines increase and start filling the screen of his body, the slight offsets between the body and the backdrop are now compounded and intensified; this offset is so strong now that you begin to see Mr. Umeda’s body as a radiating striped figure floating in front of the backdrop. There is an interesting incongruity here: as the light starts to take shape on his body, you are less able to see his body. It dematerializes and becomes a graphic, a pure field of light. It only take a simple movement, however, for his body to materialize again; any simple movement to change the flatness of his body will do (flatness in relation to the angle of projection). Now the horizontal lines draw a polygonal mesh on the body’s surface, redefining the form of the body again. The body shifts from being a flat image to a rendered 3 dimensional form. With this slight movement of his body he is able to slip in and out of these differing visual dimensions of light.

Adapting for Distortion

Mr. Umeda’s basic play is to create visual drama by controlling the speed of how he shifts from the graphic image to the modeled image: the shift can either be abrupt (therefore highlighting the contrast) or a much slower gradual transition where you can see the form(s) morph from one state to another. Mr. Umeda’s movement vocabulary and his lighting compositions are defined by these basic moves.

Let’s take a look at the lighting. The lighting consists of projections from 4 different directions:
Projection #1 is from the audience to the backdrop.
Projection #2 is from stage right to stage left.
Projection #3 is from stage left to stage right
Projection #4 is from the ceiling to the floor.
Each light is simplified into grids or intervals. This allows the observer to perceive each light clearly and read the stage as consisting of 4 different light dimensions; differences are much harder to see in light sources that are not subdivided. If no one is on stage and you project 4 different patterns simultaneously, you would read 4 different patterns on each plane of the stage. Now insert Mr. Umeda onto the stage, the contours of his body are now mapped by 4 different dimensions of light, correspondingly, the body has now obstructed a certain amount of light from reaching each background plane. Mr. Umeda’s body allows for the coming together of these 4 different readings of space and form. This intersection is strange.. your eyes are accustomed to focusing on one dominant rendering of space at one time, here, bombarded with multiple strong visions simultaneously, your eyes attempt (unsuccessfully) to stay locked on to a particular reading of form in relation to a particular reading of space. However, by controlling the light (what lights are turned on/off, what patterns/grids are present, how fast the light patterns are moving, etc.) and by controlling the position of his body in relation to the light(s), Mr. Umeda controls what, how, and when you see.

Adapting for Distortion

As with light, his body movements deal with abrupt and smooth transitions. For the slower, smooth transitions, he utilizes pop locking like techniques to show this morph: one can see the chain reaction from one movement to another. He counters this movement with fast abrupt shifts in body directions. Again, his strategy is to create visual drama by controlling the speed of how he shifts. These shifts however need to be coordinated with the shifting lights in order to intensify the impact.  It is impossible for him to dance to the lights as he cannot really see the changes; it is all projected on him or behind him. Mr. Umeda’s sound design is an audio version of the lights. This allows Mr. Umeda to keep track of himself in the piece and move with the light. It is likely that the sounds, too, try to express an idea of space and dimension, using the intersections and layering to create a new impression of space. However, with all the dizzying light, I admit that I did not take notice.

Accumulated Layout

Accumulated Layout

This interplay between light, form, and space, again plays a role in Mr. Umeda’s closing piece, “Accumulated Layout”. This time, however, light does not take on the dominating role, this time the element of sound begins to dictate.
Mr. Umeda appears in black, standing again facing the audience, he is lighted this time from stage left by a dramatic swatch of light, his other side is in contrasting shadow. A minimal sound is emitted from stage left, his left hand begins to move and gesture in time with the sound. Only his hand is moving, the rest of his arms, body, and legs are rigidly locked. The light and sound now abruptly shift from stage left to stage right, Mr. Umeda’s movements also shift, it is now only his right hand that moves while everything else is rigid. After this, a more complex and layered sound begins, this time his whole left arm including his hand is now engaged in time with the sound. This add-on continues as Mr. Umeda links body parts and movements to various layers of directional sounds and directional lighting. The lighting and sounds are linked at the beginning, however, as soon as this relationship is established, he begins to pull it apart. The sounds and lights begin to come from separate directions on stage and with separate timing. His body now shifts from syncing with the sound, to syncing with the light, to syncing with both, and to not syncing with either. Again Mr. Umeda is working with a similar idea as “Adapting for Distortion”, this time however, instead of shifting from graphic image to modeled image, he is shifting from a perception of movement through sound to a perception of movement through light. Again, Mr. Umeda controls the speed of the shift to create drama. Again, the same body movement techniques from “Adapting for Distortion” are applied to “Accumulated Layout”.

There is an impression that Mr. Umeda’s body is trapped and controlled by the impressive light and sound environments of his own making. Yes, in “Adapting for Distortion” one can see clearly his movements directly impact the light environment.  Yes, Mr. Umeda is a powerful and dynamic mover, however, his movement is still not dynamic enough to engage with the light equally. It’s possible that I got this impression because his range of movement was usually narrow, and he mainly occupied a small area on center stage. Possibly, it would have helped, if he were to include a larger range of movement and used more of the space on the stage.  In “Accumulated Layout” Mr. Umeda is jerked and pulled around by both light and sound.  Here again I feel like the body is not engaging equally with the environment. I wished he would have tried some different possibilities to change this dynamic.  Mr. Umeda could have generate sounds with his movement, he could have utilized his voice, or utilized instruments.

It would seem that by articulating his light and sound environments with such clear consistency, he has undermined his ability to assert a strong independent reading of his body, his movements, and his dance. The pieces are not so much about his movement but more about the environments.  That being said, his light and sound environments do reveal some interesting ideas regarding the perception of space and the body.

Trisha Brown at BAM: countering the CounterCritic and Alastair Macaulay

We were blown away by Trisha Brown’s performance a couple of weeks ago. She presented works from 1968, 1979, 2004, and a world premier. The work was incredibly diverse; each piece revealing an unique way to see and hear the dance and score. The world premier and finale, L’Amour au theatre, was an incredibly joyous piece, harmonizing fantastically creative and intricate partnering with the intricately layered music of Rameau. I am sure that the whole house must have been smiling while watching and hearing that piece. Incredible!

Not everyone was smiling though.. I stumbled upon the CounterCritic’s and Alaster Macaulay’s reviews of the same show; they found her work to be without “toughness or rigor of mind or technique” and lacking “seriousness”.  This seemed, to me, to be a grossly unfair comment regarding Trisha Brown’s work..  this bothered me enough for me to respond and share my thoughts about this show.

The following are the links to their reviews:

CounterCritic: Intervention (aka, Save me Trisha Brown)

NYT Alastair Macaulay

These are my comments on the CounterCritic site:

You definitely need an intervention! I do hope you can see your way out of this funk; I find your view and Alastair Macaulay’s view of dance to be very short sighted. Dance, like music, can be beautiful whether its content is “consistent”, “inconsistent”, “disturbing”, or “undisturbing”; both life wrenching blues and minimalist music can be beautiful and moving.

Speaking of music, I find it amazing that neither you nor Mr. Macaulay, talked about music and score in TB’s work; it was a major element in the show.

To me, the selected pieces show Trisha Brown’s development of the relationship between dance movement and dance score.  It seems to me that TB, in her early work, worked with visual/graphic rhythms to free her movements from the tyranny of music. In her new works, music is brought back, not as a tyrant, but as a collaborator. The pieces selected shows how her work with the score has greatly expanded her expression of movement. Her body of work is not without “toughness or rigor of mind or technique”.  If both you and Mr. Macaulay look carefully at her work, I would think that you would see that she continues to challenge herself and evolve.

The following are some of my observations regarding the relationship between the score and the movement for each piece:

Planes, photo from http://www.trishabrowncompany.org

Planes (1968):

Here the active score is Jud Yalkut’s film collage of various elements relating to scale and gravity (the changing scale of the view of the earth as seen from a rocket launch, views of the expanding universe, views of the human figure as seen from toe level through a fish eye lense, microscopic views of sperm heading towards an egg, macroscopic views of the stars of the universe).

Climbing on a wall, the dancers need to find a foothold so that they can advance and suspend themselves against gravity; their physical movement is very limited. Visually, however, their movements appear to be quite expansive; the video, by changing scale and moving dynamically,  constantly shift and morph their bodies and shadows. I find this relationship of physically restricted movement and visually expansive movement especially poetic for a piece from that particular time period (advances in science, space exploration, etc.). The dancer’s insecurities/indecisions of the movement, in trying to obtain a secure hold, also speaks to that time.

There is an atmospheric sound piece by Simone Forti that behave much as the dancers. The range of sound is very limited and narrow, however the form and relationship of the sound shifts depending on the video image that is being shown.

O zlozony/O composite, photo from http://www.bam.org

O zlozony/O composite (2004):

Here the score is provided by Laurie Anderson. The score can be broken down into three basic elements:  a woman’s vocal, one base beat/rhythm, and another base beat/rhythm.  Here, there is a correlation between the dancer and the music: one woman, two men and one female vocal, two base/rhythms. The music and dancers, however, are not interlinked; when the woman is dancing with the two men, it does not necessarily mean there will be accompanying music consisting of the woman’s vocal and the two base beats.  The dancers’ move at times synchronously with the music and at times independently. There is in reality two pas de trois occurring at the same time; sometimes the pas de trois decides to sync, sometimes they counter and overlap each other. This independent coexistence of dance movement and music can also be seen at the smaller scale of the individual dancer to the music.

Here the Vija Celmins’ starry backdrop is the 3rd element in the overall pas de trois; the backdrop is a large singular, spacious figure that interacts with the music and the dancers. I did not notice, but if there where three major constellations within this the backdrop, I would not be surprised.

How Alastair Macaulay can compare this piece to Frederick Ashton’s Monotones is beyond me. The comparison is purely superficial and irrelevant.  If we look at both dances as dance pieces (and not as individual dance movements), how can one judge “O zlozony/O composite” to be “on the waffly side” in comparison to “Monotones”?

Glacial Decoy, photo from http://www.bam.org

Glacial Decoy (1979):

Rauschenberg score: slides as visual time marker, keeping very regular time. The photos are of objects and things. Maybe these object and things evoke feelings and memories; definitely, these objects and things have a composition (textures, density of lines, openness of space, areas of really dark and areas of really light, etc). This moving visual composition is the score that the dancers dance in front of.

The slides are repeated in the background, however, they shift. The dancers’ movement repeat and mimic each other from one side of the stage to another.  In the photos and in the dancers, there is this shifting of the copies.. of duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate. The costumes are translucent overlays on the form of the body; it slides, shifting, following the dancers. The costumes render much like the  ghostly photo transfer collage work of Rauschenberg.

Is there a relationship between the choreography of the dance and Rauschenberg’s ghostly photo transfer collage art work?

L'Amour au theatre, photo by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

L’Amour au theatre (2009):

Here excerpts from Rameau’s “Hippolyte et Aricie” are used as the score. Here, the music is a central figure continuously present (unlike O zlozony/O composite). Musically it is also much more layered and intricate; additionally, there is a layer of story (a hunt on horse back, there are nautical themes).

TB pulls off a very intricate and subtle relationship between the dance movement and music. The variety of movements rivals that of the layered variety of sounds, here however, the syncing/unsyncing of the movement and the music is much finer. This close and true collaboration of the score and movement begin to allow you to see the richly layered space between the beats and rhythms of the music and hear the music flowing within the dance movements.

I felt compelled to respond to both you and Mr. Macaulay as I felt TB’s work was being really short-changed by both your reviews; I felt these attacks on her rigor and seriousness was undeserving. I hope my comments are convincing enough to persuade you to revisit your thoughts on Trisha Brown and her work.  Hopefully it will; I would love to hear what you think. I do appreciate that you are posting and keeping this forum open for the exchange of ideas. Much thanks!