Dancing Lights in Yokohama

The recent Japanse exhibition “Scenes around the Dance“ provided insight into the current trend towards mutual nourishment in dance and art as a potential source of new expression. The installations featured included some with live performances and experimental film work including that of choreographers such as Saburo Teshigawara. Among the works presented at the spacious Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery, those working with the effects of light left a lasting impression.

For example, “100% polyester objet dansant à definir no 34,“ an installation co-created by Christian Rizzo, poetically examined a new dance phase through the movements of dresses swaying in the wind, danced by performers. The cyclical turns and swings of the one-piece dresses becomes a metaphor for dance itself, which visualises the movements of dancers in the viewers‘ imagination. Some were reminded by this of Andrew Wyeth‘s delicate picture, perfectly capturing the sensation of wind from the sea, while others connected it with the dance images of Roy Fuller. Of the works on display by Saburo Teshigawara, an installation titled “Light behind Light,“ part of a stage set extracted from his recent masterpiece, ...