Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition" / "Body as Interimage"

Date/Time:
2009-05-24(Sun)-2009-08-31(Mon)10:00-19:00
2009-04-25(Sat)-2009-08-31(Mon)10:00-20:00
Closed:
Tuesdays (the next days if it falls on holiday)
Venue:
Studio B / Foyer / Gallery 2F /
Admission:
Free
The exhibition period for "Body as Interimage" has been extended.
The new exhibition period is; 4.25 Sat. - 8.31 Mon. (The last day has been extended from 8.10 to 8.31.)

OUTLINE

Steve Paxton
"Phantom Exhibition"




Phantom Exhibition, Steve Paxton with Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse). Photo: Contredanse (Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien)


Introducing Paxton's body philosophy reinterpreting the frameworks of various physical sensation and action in a fusion of contemporary dance and art.


A leading figure in American post-modern dance, dancer/choreographer Steve Paxton is visiting Japan for the first time in 34 years. At YCAM, Steve Paxton presents a new video installation, centered around which a variety of events including demonstrations by the artist himself, and lectures with invited experts, take place as a comprehensive introduction to Paxton's body philosophy.
Through the experience of a video installation and other events explaining Paxton's methods and original artistic work, which keep influencing the current dance scene, this exhibition introduces Paxton's work from the contexts of social and historical circumstances in the 1960s, and looks at the present form of the new physical and spatial qualities discovered through media-based artistic expression.



"Body as InterImage"

Media based art drafting the future of the human body.


At the occasion of the Steve Paxton exhibition, YCAM hosts a special exhibition introducing the works of three up-and-coming artists as a further step in the Center's exploration of "art, media and physical expression."
The "own body" and the "image of the body" have been rediscovered and exhaustively featured in media-based works of art. While focusing on the double quality of the body - the "Body as Interimage" - the event explores the possibilities and relationships between media technology and the human body today.

□Works in the exhibition
newClear + Alessio Silvestrin "skinslides"
Shinichi Takashima "Pascal pass scale"

□Screening
Saburo Teshigawara "Friction of Time - perspective Study vol.2"


Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition"
Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Co-organizer: DANCE DOCUMENTS JAPAN COMMITTEE (DDJC)
Co-sponsor: Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Asian Cultural Council, The Saison Foundation
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Technical support: YCAM InterLab
Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)
Design direction: Shun Kawakami (artless)


*This event is part of the "Touch, Contact, Bones Steve Paxton + Lisa Nelson Dance Project 2009.4.26 - 8.31" series co-hosted by art-related organizations and facilities across Japan.
Organizer: DANCE DOCUMENTS JAPAN COMMITTEE (DDJC)
Co-organizer: Hot Summer in KYOTO, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts, Wacoal Art Center, The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Global COE Programme, Dance Research Course, Waseda University, Kinki University International Center for Human Science, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Cooperation: Aomori Public College, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre AIR Committee (tentative), Contredanse, Videoda
Sponsor: Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Asian Cultural Council, The Saison Foundation
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DOCUMENT

DOCUMENTS

NOTE
Steve Paxton's installation exhibited this time is of great value in the context that it embodies a physical idea - philosophy of the body that Paxton has been pursuing. Generally, dance is realized when it is presented as a physical object, and the stage director sees it as the subject of choreography and control while the audience look on it as the visible thing they appreciate. It is "the body seen" by others correlatively composed in the stage space that forms the basis and history of dance. Paxton, however, creates a new phase of dance by deconstructing such a formation structure of dance. To Paxton, the body is not a thing to control, but a phenomenal world to make discoveries. He stares in wonder how his physical sensations and actions are connected and reactions are experienced. Only through this filter of relativity, various conditions such as the aspects of the outside world and gravity are revealed physically.

In Paxton's epoch-making presentation, space and time are not chosen according to the existing system of theaters and art museums as space for expression. He insists on discovering space and time as an extension of his body's discovered logic and interface, and through Contact Improvisation, the physical plurality is further expanded as the self body becomes pluralized and exchangeable. It may safely be said that these discoveries and practices are exactly the results of uniqueness of Paxton's experience of viewing steadily and thoroughly American postmodern dance and Oriental body techniques. This media installation, through a new method of expression by synchronizing five big scale screens, provides viewers with an opportunity to ascertain the methodology and idea of "Material for the Spine" of the past twenty years in a more concrete and substantial manner.

A minor project exhibition titled "Body as Interimage" goes side by side with Paxton's "Phantom Exhibition." "Body + Media" is a contemporary vivid theme, and it has two aspects; "body-ing media" and "media-ing body." What is important is that the feedback between the two aspects accelerates the discovery of a new expression or approach. When images and the ways they exist or are latent are differentiated (in interimages) and appear as interfaces that reconstruct new relations between algorithm design and representation, a new self-organized space and time dimension, different from hitherto-believed perceptional senses and sensations, cognitive ability and editorial capability of consciousness, will emerge new physical senses. In this exhibition, an original dance video in which two groups of exciting next-generation artists, newClear + Alessio Silvestrin and Shinichi Takashima, as well as internationally esteemed Saburo Teshigawara make the most use of a high-speed camera, is open to the public. (work-in-residence, YCAM, 2007)

The time when Paxton originated postmodern dance form was when Chance Operation and Intermedia movements were coming to the fore as social practices destroying the barriers of the existing system. Today, inheriting our pioneers' spirit and regression, we are living in the system of information media society while uncertain about its future.
I believe that the physical substance in considering the "body" in post-postmodern paradigm, made relative through the platform of ever-updating media, suggests the area where the most attractive and risky adventure is possible and expression could reach its peak level.


K.ABE / YCAM

PRESS

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