How is it that live dance performance reinvents and contributes to our understanding of works gone by?
This is one of the underlying questions that drives the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio`s Dance Archive Project at BankART 1929. Drawing on a collected repertoire spanning multiple generations and focusing on the works of the contemporary dance pioneers Kazuo Ohno and his fellow contemporaries, Ishii Baku & Eguchi Takaya, the Dance Archive Project will build upon the archival materials that Kazuo Ohno accumulated in the waning years of his life. The project will explore the spontaneity of dance performance and its role in re-assembling the archival dance pieces through new eyes, while exploring the roots of contemporary dance in Japan.
In addition to the reconstructions of the archival material, over the course of the week, BankART will feature free video screenings of Baku Ishii’s choreography Grotesque (1926), Kazuo Ohno’s solo performance Admiring La Argentina (1977), and materials related to Takaya Eguchi’s Operation Theatre. The programme also includes screenings of exclusive interview footage with the Buyo dancer Kahoru Ishii, the Butoh dancer Mitsuyo Uesugi as well as the stage manager Tomomasa Akagi.