body

The body, for me, is a primary site of communication.

A site where empathy can be created between the performer and the viewer. A site of universality and of extreme difference. Each of us - most of us anyways - can sense things, can feel pain, can feel pressure and when a performer is feeling/sensing/hurting within an action, there stands a chance that we - as viewers - might feel/sense and how the performing body might respond.

Body art/live art/action art becomes interesting when the performer undergoes acts of physical endurance, acts that the viewers might usually carry out within their day-to-day lives that are magnified in and examined by the action of the performer. As the artist uses the body, performs actions with it, to it, on it, so we can begin to understand something of the human condition, something of the cultures we produce and something of the way we interact with each other. We can use these endurance art actions to pick apart our everyday lives.

I've become interested in exploring the exhausted body and the body at its limits in my practice and in my writing. As a student I performed in a play entitled "To Begin" (Dir. Dr A. Fenemore 2007); part of the rehearsal process for this play was to workshop rhythms made by jumping, hopping, and skipping as an ensemble until we could no longer continue. The endurance practice became a competition amongst cast members to see who could stay in the game the longest. From time to time, I would observe rather than participate in the practice and what stood out to me was that the performer wanted to maintain the rhythm, to repeat it again and again without deviating from it; the body, however, would not let this happen, exhaustion would impede it and muscle pain prevented the performer from sustain the action with the same conviction. It was noticeable that the playing of the game was exhausting, but the competitive nature of the cast meant that we played it for long periods even though we were aware of the pain it was causing.

At the last ArtEvict I performed in Jamie Lewis Hadley's piece En la esquina tecnica, in which we wrestling chopped each other in the chest until one of us couldn't take it any more (me, inevitably). I read this performance as a comment on pointless violence, masculinity and competitiveness. The competition and the pain were at odds with each other; I wanted to stay in the game for as long as possible but I knew it would hurt further.

a little bit about me, Kiki

I spent some time in a very conservative and religious town in America when I was a teenager.

During my stay in America I was baptized by submersion and supposedly reborn as a Christian.

In the mind of the baptizer, or the believer as they are known, the spirit is supposedly taken on a journey of life, death, and resurrection. This is an ancient historical ritual and

although I do not interpret it in strictly the same sense, my baptism does undoubtedly represent a self transitional journey which affected my physiological being. I believe this to have been a profound experience which has gone on to influence my art.

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I went back to Japan during the summer of 2007 and I found a job as an archaeological excavator. I was digging the ground everyday under strong sunshine.It was 35 degrees and to make matters worse the excavation site was surrounded by metal sheets which contained and amplified the heat.

My colleague told me about this performance art festival called “NIPAF” that takes place twice a year. That is how I first encountered performance art (or live/ action art or whatever it’s called)

I saw many performances by Eastern European and South East Asian artists during the festival.

In a spontaneous moment I had a chance to make a performance of my own. In what was my first ever performance I sat on a square of flour and started washing my body with mud.Because I didn’t have anything to change into, I had to travel home on the train covered in mud. The experience of standing on a busy train caped in mud for over an hour made me aware of the importance of duration and the transitional events that can take place in various spaces and times.

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Since my action is inspired by the superstitions of other cultures and the psychology behind superstitious behaviour, I have been strongly led towards ritualistic and cultural beliefs from diverse array of cultures across the world.

In some cultures as a result of superstitious beliefs, when a pregnant lady goes though childbirth all the doors and windows are opened, and her plats and all the knots in her clothing are undone. This is done to release the tension from the room.

It is believed that the knots of intrinsic energy are untied thus creating a more relaxed and calm environment. The ritualistic action I recreate in my performance tends to be about releasing the restriction from the compressed society I create within myself. I am using the superstitious behaviour to abstract the reality from the truth and to sublimate the truth with illogical beliefs.

Kiki Taira

on 290910..

 

table inside, pizza and espresso..

bean wants a building and stands on chair/takes picture..

cristina and vago work on filming..

data from past show is transferred back/forth via sticks and disks..

ben and ki ki sort out availabilities..

we sit and watch the project grow like a tree..

a leaf falls on our table.

we sketch the near future:

a blog [this one here] for all to place part of themselves in words and effort..

we ride bus route 76 to our next project..

risky..lovely..

270210

ArtEvict 27210 from Dance Singularity on Vimeo on Vimeo.

the 120810..

ArtEvict 120810 from Dance Singularity on Vimeo on Vimeo.