The project is on the way ! - introducing team number one first :)

This is a sketch by one of our collaborator/Sound sculpter Ela Lamblin.He is a sculptural instrument inventor with a keen awareness of how the body can relates to the instrument in space- and  at the same time able to create beautiful sounds.It will be a device that is integrated with my body on which i can learn to play substantial musical compositions. Most part of our project has already moved into the Frye's Arts Commerce Center( In Seattle Washington ) and everyone is hard at work........

The second photo is of my collaborator and dancing/ music partner for the project Dohee Lee.She is a percussionist/vocalist and dancer that is deeply involved  in the style of Korean shamanistic peformances.She has been coming to our 3rd intensive rehearsals ( all the way from Bay area)and am about to come up for the 4th one!
She is extremely hard core...I was hoping she would push me for this project but ACCORDING TO DOHEE, we ended up pushing each other ,and once we have started going, we had to tear ourselves from the project, and slam the door from each other so we could get some rest at least in the evening, and not keep going insanely like a coked up feverish people, tortured by the project and the pressure we gave our selves.   For me-Coming from the Butoh tradition of drinking SAKE after some session, I have come to realize VERY QUICKLY that Dohee is not only a master of drumming, but A MASTER OF HARD CORE DRINKING as well. She have told me stories that she and her Korean master teachers would drum all night and drink and drink, and DRINK all night ( and Day? ) as well.Goodness! we have hard core fun and challenge each other!.. the rehearsals are often filled with lots of laughter and saying to each other-  towards the end -" Oh my Gahd.....!" and Dohee asking " wow... you guys eat a lot..! "

As Jherek Bischoff, our collaborating composer would say, " dAnG , gIRL! "

  

 In this Blk and white photo taken by Rex Hohlbein, here is Jherek singing the part of the composition with the chamber ensemble that has done some readings of the composition of his and Joshua Kohl's.Joshua and Jherek, Dohee has been composing for the 5 chapters of our contemporary take,  a re -imaginiing  of the Redshoes story that the Degenerate Art Ensemble will perform this spring in Seattle and New York.Along with their music/ sound team, Suzie Kozawa and Robb Kunz will be joining for the sound installation that will accompany our pieces. In the photos, there are (Dohee singing, Dylan playing the cello, Briana on the viola, Kendal on the violin, Joshua on Dohee's drum, and Paris also on the violin  )

Here is Trinidad Martinez, my  friend and the star from my last big DAE project at the Moore theatre in Seattle.She is a dancer and a director from her group Magpie Productions. She has been TIRELESSLY helping my rehearsals,the chapter's choreography, being an outside eye, and giving me an honest sharp tongue and extremely objective eye and opinions so I can keep myself on my toes. (! ) She is spanish, I am japanese, we joke about being in the U.S. and comparing everything to our own countries. ( !) I think maybe we did that with Dohee too.
A photo below is Leo Mayberry, Jason and I. Starting with Leo, He is the  bold and  brainiac video artist who creates wild and playful, great obssesive, complicated  ideas onto a screen, always working with a challenging concept of illusion of the eyes, and he has been an incredible creative partner on the video concept working with the story, the charactors, the vision, , along with me and the team. (Leo and I somehow always go late in the night NERDING INTENSELYon the project plan and it is always a strange and relentless lullaby to Joshua, who ends up snoring HEAVILY on the couch while we are still scribbling and experimenting  with paper cuts or mock-ups on our living room floor ) The Scene with the mysteriously beautiful artificial trees is the scene of the "Black riding hood". She
disguises her self as the mischievous girl in the forest but she is also the wolf. Who has made the trees?

 Above photo is Jason, he MADE THE TREES for the video realm as well for the sets. Jason Puccinelli, our new team collaborator and guest here, is biting on a SWAN's neck. Yes, there is a swan chapter that I will be dancing, inspired by the WILD SWANS, by Hans Christian Andersen. I will explain why so many fairy tales are intertwined with the actual story later, I would like to talk about Jason. He is a painter/ performance artist and and also an installation artist who has a very strong vision and a unique perception. He makes work that asks viewers to question the society we live in and immerses them in carefully constructed interactive performance installations.I enjoy very much working with him ! He is creating the sets and most of the props for the project. He and I have had intense brain-storming sessions in the beginning with the concept escpescially of the protagonist's journey through out the piece.We have been focusing greatly on the SWAN CHAPTER lately, and continuing our dialogue as it keeps evolving to an exciting place. Below is Joshua Kohl of DAE. ( Degenerate Art Ensemble) and above -mentioned people at work! Team number two will be positing next week!

       

visiting the skate board park first attempt

This last saturday Rex (the photographer) and I went to the Marginal way Skateboard park.It was a sunny sunny day, and we were ? ? where did the skaters go...? confused to why they were not gathered at under the viaduct.We were hoping to talk to a bunch of them if we could take pictures and collaborate with them while I dance in the pool with them..., a dream. There was about only  two skaters looking nervous that I was approaching them.(ofcourse I am decked out in white kabuki makeup and a costume, pretty scary)and one other skater, who was cought in the middle of all of this funny  artsy- fartsey business and felt pressured by the situation who had to dissappear in a flash of seconds, I GUESS I UNDERSTOOD IT MUST HAVE BEEN A LITTLE STRANGE.None the less, we got a kind- of- a- permission from the two boys and I thought they were nice to let us crash their prescious practice space. One of them told me that since its such a nice sunny day,everyone was at all the outdoor parks, like the one up near the zoo.......
Rex set up a tripod and I just started dancing.It was cold in an icy way, this concrete realm...The two of the skaters were cautious, I can sense them.It felt even colder...I could feel it in my shoulders, arms, and down my spine...I wished there were many of them, so I could talk to some of them, one of them, to the ones who do not mind something strange, curious, and to give us a chance,I wished at least even a strong reaction , to say " hey, get out!" to start a dialogue. but ofcourse we stepped into their territory.I  definitelywould like to come back again.SLowly, once in a long wHile,.. the skaters skated a quick passing -by, which made me excited.But  it felt lonely to me, More please...!  it was too empty.A beer-bellied guy with a beer appeared yelling something at me, something about making fun of a mime, or something.Oh, goodness, great, drunkenness again... he continiously yelled something rude to me, which I couldnt understand, and to Rex too, I kept dancing, just a little more, see what happens... but the two skaters took a BIG BREAK since he started to poke fun at us.What a delicate situation..! I felt like I learned something this day.. and more inpired to continue to come talk to them, definitely when all of their community is around! Ok, to not seem to bummed, a butoh video of the day is: Atsushi Takenouchi san. I met him briefly in NY last year.A gentle and kind man, a masterful dancer.

RaiNY dAY and test shoots with Rex

THis morning I put my white kabuki makeup on, put on the Mandy Greer's costume from the charactor Shiro from the last project Sonic Tales, and met with Rex Hohlbein to do some portrait shoots, then we went to the Skate board park under the viaduct, and then to the RedSquare of University of Washington again. Ok, I messed up on the date of the last posted blog...I have just published one that is on TODAY"S DATE but it was actually for a one few days ago... it was in fact last week.I love these photos, a study of light and shadows... and also a realm of some kind.

These are the correct photos for today, Feb 10th. The skateboard park was quite beautiful.According to Rex  the photographer, his nephew and some skaters have built the site, ( it is called Marginal Way Skate Park  ) and I have never seen such a place.It was kind of ghostly without the skaters, in a beautiful eerie way..with this almost chalky white day, but next shoot, we are going to crash in (?) to the skaters when they are chalkfull of them, and ask if I could possibly dance in their realm, with them.So today is kind of a test shoot :) I am sure it is going to be a wild crazy ride when we shoot with them.I recently went to watch another skatepark in Ballard neighborhood, and became in awe of their art.
The rain started to already drizzle, and by the time we got to the REDSQUARE, pretty later in the day.. it was umbrella time. I danced with the rain and Rex's camera for a while and then realized I was a bit afriad of slipping on the wet ground.I felt a slip there, and here, ans so began to minimize my movement to extremely slow...gravitationally slow, enjoying the dropping of the weight of the limbs...  from my slug-like internal looking out..I could see the students busily hurrying somewhere gripping their umbrellas, their eyes squinting, shielding from the rain bits.I can see that they are passing by, passing by as I get reaaly slower...They seem to be the lines of rain bits rushing by, criss crossing around me.It was definitely more of being in a tokyo street intersection.They began to feel like ants or insects or herd of cows passing by...what a different feeling from the last time I was here, the lively morning. I got more internal now. I even see poor Rex squinting his eyes, straining to take a picture. I sympasize and come out of my senses,.. then I felt the water from my hair gets into my eyes and realize its all of a sudden cold and I am actually very drenched.Then I get another second wind  from my body, opposite of my feelings and of my will, it finally starts to dance. That few moments made me happy.
I decided to put BUTOH inspiring dance of the day video by one of my favorite Butoh dancer Ko Murobushi.Please enjoy!

dance-offs & movement jam and UW students

As I did my last dishes in the sink I thought it was friday for some insane shcizophrentic-senior moment and panickingly tried to get Christian Swenson's number to appologize that I forgot to go meet him and improvise together.I was very upset about it, I have been looking so forward every week now. But until I realized gradually and slowly that IT WAS THURSDAY TODAY and I still had my runny Butoh makeup on, from comming back from the University of Washington RedSquare Campus an hour ago.I was loading my video artist's friend Ian Lucero's rough dvd edit of the Sonic Tales, my last big project few months ago, and taking notes, I saw that Rex Hohlbein sent me 4 pictures of what happened earlier today, thru email.These are now the right corresponding photos to the text.Rex Hohlbein has been taking these beautiful blk and white magical photos.He is an architect with a big heart and a trementdously passionate eye for the camera.I am very fortunate to have met him in these crazy outdoor training sessions last year... its definitely thrugh this redshoe experiments... I am so happy.

I have recently went to visit the MOVEMENT JAM at the Velocity dance center last week and was able to find very fun, contact improv movers and dancers to play with, and gave me more inspriations for my outdoor trainings.The inexhausitible RedSHoe is my theme, a longing to dance and interact with "the other" in the public, and like the story of Hans Christian Andersen, the redshoes is never tired.It has a will of its own, dancing through life, diffrent people, happenings,....So this is a first stage of my experiments and writing the blog...experiencing the interactions, observations, the research out there, while I train. Today, and unfortunately before Rex arrived, a couple of students were taking phone pictures and gathering around me, and one of them looked so excited he wanted to jump in, whispering to his friends," shall I join her?" and then after a while I almost forgot about him, he appeared suddenly in front of me, prancing,like a happy coyote, he started enthusiastically dancing with me, around me, and improvising, and soon there was a roar from bunch of students running towards us. " Its' a fuck'n DANCE-OFF"and soon behold, there was a crowd of students gathering and jumping up and down, taking pictures and cheering.The dancer boy-student who started to dance with me was SO FUN, I think he is some sort of a hip-hop-dancer, like from the movie I saw called "you got served" wait, was it "served"? no, maybe"who got served"??? oh it doesnt matter,...we listened to each other in the frenzy of movements and expressions and he even started breakdancing.When I started rolling on the ground,monkey-style, my high heel got stuck to my wire skirt and I almost tripped, but I started laughing with so much joy.We finally both fell backwards to the ground, in a big spread, mirror image, and there was a laughter and applause.I went up to him while I continue to dance, and said" thankyou", and soon as he left, the crowd dispersed very quickly.The redsquare is very spacious, large open area with GRAND buildings, and it helped me to project.performing with full makeup and costume is definitely very diffrent from my regular trainings daily..I get so so exhausted very quickly, and my nerves of pin-drop-awareness is a deadly challenge.I must be fully fully committed.... it is tricky for me.When Rex arrived, his presence gave me energy to continue and renew energy to go on.I forgot it was cold.These mornings and evenings have been quite chilly outside..one of these sessions, I was on the other side of the fremont canal( Nickerson street) and while I was dancing by the canal, I can see the two homeless persons siting on the brink of the canal,perched like two birds, one of them, coughed the entire time while I was dancing..that was my soundtrack.I hope he takes care of his painful painful flu.Ok, thankyou for today again, universe :)

Improvisation and training in the pArK

I have not kept up with the blog. I HAVE kept up with the training,on the rainy mornings I walked to the park on the 44th in Fremont and trained under the roof over the restrooms.I missed about 4days when it was raining SO HARD outside and I was under the weather.Improvisation with Joshua has been every other day,even though it has been every day for sometime... sometimes if we are tired, we only do it for even 5 minutes (! ) just to keep it going.....and now with an additional new improvising friend every week( once a week starting last week) with an artist named Christian Swenson, my joy has expanded to more possibilities to learn! He calls himself the HUMAN JAZZ and he is like an - ipod from space-rythm- man. ( did I spell rythm correct?I have a wrong feeling...) He is tall and like a tree and I am small like a beansprout so it must be entertaining to watch us go at it.We improvised until out of breath and laughing, last friday at where he teaches, the fine arts building of Seattle University. We also took turns with short solos and so we could observe each other, and eventually jump in. He teaches movement to actors and working with him and talking with him, he must be a warm and attentive, fun teacher. I also wanted to teach, teach and teach well, but had a complex for a long time until last two years..I have been teaching here and there over the last 5-6 years, but I realized a lot of things with sharing my learnings from my wonderful mentors recently.I always felt awkward, that I perform vocals, Butoh, physical theater and improvisation also, and could not come to terms with how to teach all of this in one workshop. But that eventually and organically took shape through my Butoh trainings and from my own explorations and also burrowing from other teachings.But more importantly, I learned things like, how to fascilitate the best I could to the learner/absorber /receiver to having them experience and discover on their own thru their 5 senses and observation, and by giving them space and enough time, to have them experiment with themselves and watch eachother.These are from my mentors like Shinichi-Iova -Koga and Minako Seki.Sometimes I found a lot of times my habits or difficulties more clearly by watching my students go through the excersizes I do my own, and re-discover where to work on.Or, sometimes the student is more experienced then I and give me a more perspective to how it could be more interesting, efficient or much easier communication for the tools to get there.Anyway, I have recently danced in the evenings ad had an interesting experience.In the evening, by the canal where all the Adobe business buildings are lit up inside, I could see everthing from below( where I was, the office building was surrounding on both sides , kind of like an ampu-theater), and also the quiet gliding boats on the water in front of me, and the shadowy dark figures of people constantly rushing by to get home for dinner.It feels like a veil, invisible and internal.It was kind of nice feeling.

Redshoes WANTS TO DANCE from park to park to park.

This morning I went to the Occidental park.There were many people trafficking today because I came a little later than usual.I worked immediately with water-body- bag image with Jelly fishes floating around under my skin. I am following my jelly fishes, playing and busy in my condition including the face.Yes, its the weirdest excersize. They are tiny, these jelly fishes, moving agianst the walls of my skin, in the membraines of my face, of my chest... they can travel through down to my toes, through my knees, it pushes against my skin, and some times floats. The jelly fish is the only reason I am moving.This is one of the tool for Butoh, my friends Yuko Kaseki & Shinichi Koga taught long time ago in their workshop.The movements ends up quite small, and to keep it soft, is challenging. But also its not just about the body awareness, I also must use the space, the travelling..to be constantly seeing the surroundings. I can choose to be still...or constantly moving..diffrent speeds playing with my imagnation of diffrent sizes and quantity, the quality of the Jelly fishes movements... or I can stay to choose in one thing for a long time.. or I can surprize my self by adding more element of images on top. I also practiced the projection in space with all this.. This subtle and very concentrated movements always made me so cold that i had to go into the image -play of "Someone abruptly pulls my arm or grabs my hip and twists it un expectedly" game.It looks like you are a ragdoll being yanked around quite violently and uncontrollablly spasdic from the outside.One of the people who was watching me dance for a while started to speak.There was first one guy who started asking normal questions : " What are you doing? What IS THAT??" to, " Is that some form of MARTIAL ARTS?" and eventually introducing himself. This is, again while I am dancing.. so I POLITELY answered the questions, while still trying to maintain some what of a Jelly fish dance. Suddenly, there were two men, as I turned around, and he started to ask exact same questions (!) and then the other guy asks:" Do you know KARATE?" I answered, " no." and then he said " I DO." I said, " wow thats great." he said " I KNOW EVERYTHING". I opened my mouth that just hung open "......................" For a second or two, I suspected that there was a BAR across from where I was dancing.. oh yes, drinking...wow goodness this early...

he said " Hey CAN I HAVE YOUR NUMBER?" and then the other guy who looked like a side kick who generally said similar rantings made me snap and I said," I'M VERY SORRY BUT I ONLY HAVE 45MINUTES MORE I GET TO USE THIS SPACE, SO I NEED TO DANCE PLEASE"and continued on... where was I.. YES, then I worked with water splashing images which is from Noguchi Gymnastics.The Butoh artists I worked with, they always incorporated heavily on Michizo Noguchi's work. His tools was working with images to help our body to understand Gravity not in the left brain knowlege way only, but very unusually in the sensory and observing and physics and natural phenomenon such as how the water flows, or the fabric in the wind, or the way the body releases to the floor like a sensation of an elevatordropping to go to another floor, incorporating all of this in our body, working and listening to how we organize the muscles, the bones, etc.And all of that without using excess or unnessessary muscles- in other words, to be very efficient and also research what the body can move so beautifully. I worked on the images like this over and over until I got delerious.I also started on the contacts of diffrent parts of the feet.This gets you moving constantly and imediately warm.

There was a new musician setting up for the free live music open mic in the public square, and I took a break to listen. It was ........ X-MAS smoothie jazz music cocktail.. as I tried to leave, a bartender from across the square came out with apron on, and asked me if I was hungry, and wanted HOT SOUP. I said " sure! thankyou so much"and looked up at him with NIAGARA FALL watering red nose and frozen hands. I followed him in the bar and he and his friend was nice, they said they went bar hopping the night before and was not feeling very well this morning. After few converstaions about dance and where I dance etc., he wrote his number and contact down and yells at me, " CALL ME, ok? " " ???????? " I said " why?" and I left the bar and tossed the number in the garbage can. I must say, the Occidental park has many adventures, some like this one, but they dp see you, pay attention to you in different ways..even the tourists.. where in the suburb parks, I noticed that some would try VERY HARD to not to notice you.I noticed that. After this session, I changed location and went to train at the Fremont Canal park, directly under the Aurora bridge.I Worked on isolation points.I kept moving my location to where the sun light would hit.I noticed there was a person high above on the mast of the yacht far away on the water.I also saw some people watching me train from some kind of tower building close by, through the blinds, I can see their sillouette.Some friendly joggers smiled while I was training.Many not. Many mother with baby stroller walked by, I can see peripherally. hmm.. this training movements in particular are such subtle and tedious and long that Rex would definitely get bored trying to photograph this! I thought this, and then I took a break.I hope I dont run out of his photos to blog soon! yaay I made it through today, thankyou.

December 23rd until now which is the 28th

I just came back from the training in Fremont Canal park.The sun is so warm and soft but my hands got numb and stiff.Goodness, to keep up with a blog is very challenging.One of my hero and neurologist Kenichiro Mogi does this every morning the minute he wakes up in the morning,he plugs the chord from his personal computer and start writing his "Qualia Journal"right at his bedside!He writes about his things from previous day in the next morning.He writes down the things he had experienced, the people he met, and many ideas that crossed his mind from the day before.He claims that while you are asleep, the brain processes unconsciously and organizes it that by the time you wakeup in the morning, your experiences feel much more ripened when you woke up in the morning. (!) I like the fact that he writes his blog as a "experience" output as putting preserving purpose and clear "meaning "to what he had done, a tangible data. Today, I worked with pREcariOUs bALaNce, and stretching the body parts as far out as possible.precaious balance very very difficult. It is quite irritating and interesting to see how the body wants to protect so instantly to not freely fall to the edge.Over and over, the body will try to organize immediately a pattern or habit for the easier, safer way... I remember practicing in a riverwater back in August, and it was the practice of upper body being the edge of balance and the lower body is stabilized walking in the water up till the hip.it felt impossible becuase as soon as I fall, the lower body has no weight , grasp or stabilization becuase of the moving water, and when I fell, I REALLY FELL, my legs up in the air,splashing and swallowing tons of water, over and over again. In that way, I felt that was more sincere to the body's experience of being Off- balance..
The STRETCHING THE BODY in torture style- to the maximum limit ( it ended up that way...its hard to breathe, maintaining the balance, and the face starts grimacing unless you start smiling insanely, and then the endorphins KICK In!! and you can go much much more further.. and even beyond.. its a fight with the lazy and easy-going mind that wants to give in and say " nice! ok, thats enough " I wanted to go beyond this person, Haruko with ego....judging or whining or doubting or getting bored in the head!
OK! going back in time the 23rd I went to the Occidental park again to dance.The theme for me that training was "hanging body " and the "haramu" body, the body that can pregnate images, again from the tanden.This time something airy, smoky, or fog, soft movements utilizing the connections from the earth and loosening of the imaginary strings on the head and the limbs.It felt the time slow down so much that I noticed the details of the environment.Sometimes I must be aware that so I do not slipp into the inner sensation too only that it becomes the "oogi-yummi- man" which becomes completely unaware of the surroundings, and where you are in the condition of the image you assigned for your body, and just" I feel good dance", its a lonely, seem like a private thing to watch from the outside.... That day, I went across the street to the Elliot Bay Book store and researched through some black and white photograph books and to my surprize, I found one of the rarest book,Eikoh Hosoe's photography book of Hijikata,"KAMAITCHI" . Its strange I was looking for it for years, and then forgotten, and then lost interest, and then desired it again recently, and here it was, buried in the photography section, seemingly forgottened,I was shocked and excited that I immediately had the book on hold.. strange that when your mind is on a one track focus, you can find even the seemingly impossible things right away.....!! This day, the musician was a bit pushy while I was focused on my training and was talking to me, that I snapped finally, and I surprized myself.I have been experiencing some homeless people commenting, murmuring, watching, and cussing even,yelling, and encouraging me too, which I enjoy.. but this person was NOT interested in my dance....
The next training day was the 25th!!! at the 3rd Ave NW park , across the street from OH NO MR BILLS park. The X-mas day..! There were many people out in the park, playing ball games and frisbee. I felt very very very cold for doing too subtle movements so I thrashed around!Jumped and hopeed around and it was surprizingly a difficult to focus day....! Rex has not been with me for the photps the last couple of sessions, and I miss him. He got too busy from his work, and we spoke of maybe working together in a skating rink next year, through his nephew's hanging ground.I feel grateful for the sun..! my health,my friends, Rex, the people who commented on the facebooks, and my health, my supportive husband Joshua!!! I will keep going and going to my December challenge..! Love, hARuKO

adventures with cold mornings and Rex

This is the December of 17th, thursday and Rex clicked away all these photographs, its been my tenth session so far.Today we were under the incredible view of the aurora village that is over the lake Union, and it was one of the warmer winter mornings! This here, the picture of the toilet paper in my nose dancing, was one of the painfullest coldest mornings shot by the Fremont canal in bewteen the Adobe office buildings. Rex has used his architectural eye and also playfulness ( he is an architect! ) and continued clicking even when his hands were numb with cold, and my nose wouldnt stop running and running and so I danced with it for a while. I cannot seem to put the pictures elegantly ( Sorry Rex..! ) on this blog without the ugly white spaces...I think I will get the hang of it gradually... so the photo continues below!!
I have so far danced at the Downtown Olympic Sculptural park, in front of the beautiful St. Ignatius church in the Seattle University campus, the Lincoln Reservoir park next to the Velocity Dance Center,In front of the Asian Art Museum, and Occidental Park in Pioneer Square among other places... If anyone out there have more ideas, I would LOVE to get suggestions. For Rex, it would be great if the places have interesting light and design-space possibilities too.I am learning from him about all these things, the design and architechtural perspectives, the lights, shadows, shapes in the black and white photographs. I am very honored!!! The day he could not come was the Occidental park one, which day was it... yes, the 16th...! It was such pouring rain, I splashed from puddle to puddle, my eye makeup was running into my eye and could not see very well. But the sound of the drumming rain, and numbness of cold let me slipped into a state of very clear, pin-drop awareness and I wasin a place my tramatic self was silenced.It was a brief moment but how LOVELY it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had another joyful moment today when I was under the aurora bridge dancing, and my body memories from my movement brought feelings of pain/suffreing and a sense of release and somethinglike acceptance at the same time,again, a brief moments of this journey rushed by.
Thankyou Rex, for today, and thankyou friends, for some comments already! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.