In this lecture, I show how the recent increase in awareness of environmental issues has expanded the framework for considering areas of dance participation from human to non-human. I call this ecological dance. In expanding the sphere of participation, non-human as well as human participation is important for ecological dance in the context of climate change issues. This practical question is: Can humans’ sense non-human movement?
Although this research is via the academic discussion of the Anthropocene, it is grounded in a non-human perspective that removes the anthropocentric view through physical experience. The non-human perspective highlights the nuances of the discomfort of other species and confronts the challenges of invisible integration of the real human world.
This research will present case studies of other species’ choreography; First Touch (2022), Turn off the house lights (2022), and Soil memory (2022), and the impossibilities of human integration: dissonance of sloth movement, invisible movement in entangled landscapes and contamination of body in the soil memory. These each works has interaction between human and non-human. The choreography represents the ecological dance between human and non-human. However, these other species choreographies present that the effects of other species’ choreography on humans are not yet fully understood.
Agency of other species is considered a scientific problem, but this research has not faced such a problem. The collaboration with other species has historically been viewed ritually and positively, but this lecture shows that suspicion about human integration is important. Three case studies confront Western contemporary dance companies with the challenge of choreographing other species as an experience that mirror the invisible integration of nature that is going on in the real world.
Dr. Shuntaro Yoshida (b. 1989, Miyagi, Japan) is a dancer, choreographer, and researcher of contemporary dance and performance. He is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University. His postdoctoral fellowship is fully funded for three years by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). He obtained a Ph.D. from Tokyo University of the Arts in September 2020. His Ph.D. thesis titled ‘Post-choreography’ as choreographic practice in contemporary dance: Clumsy-seeming movement and Jerome Bel’s choreography was supported for two years by a JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists. During his Ph.D., he became a Visiting Scholar in the Department of East Asian Studies at New York University (NYU). Since completing his Ph.D., he has been a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Performing Arts at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Shuntaro is a recognized specialist in contemporary dance and performance who conducts practice-based research in areas such as participatory choreographic practice, AI choreography, and other species practice including dance and performance studies, and environmental dance strong investment with an ecological body. His recent articles include “Other Species’ Choreography and Its Theoretical Background” (Lichen score, 2022); “How Artificial Intelligence Can Shape Choreography: The Significance of Techno-Performance” (Performance Paradigm 17, 2022). The book proposal for his monograph titled Post-choreography: Choreographic Practice and Clumsy-seeming Movement has been well-received by Routledge. Alongside his work in academia, Shuntaro has worked for ten years as a choreographer, performer and dancer, engaging in the artist collective “Mapped to the Closest Address” from 2018. He has collaborated with more than twenty artists internationally on various dance productions and other performances, including We like to watch clumsy-seeming mountain at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in 2022 and Open Forest Launch supported by Saison Foundation in 2021.
Co-website: https://www.mappedtotheclosestaddress.com
References
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “The Climate of History: Four Theses”. Critical Inquiry, 2009, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter 2009), pp. 197–222.
East, Alison. Teaching Dance As If The World Matters: Eco-Choreography: A Design for Teaching Dance-Making in the 21st Century. London: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011.
Eckersall, Peter – Paterson, Eddie. “Slow Dramaturgy: Renegotiating Politics and Staging the Everyday”. Australian Drama Studies, April 2011, pp. 178–192.
Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble. NC: Duke University Press, 2016.
Mapped to the Closest Address + Yuni Hong Charpe. Lichen Score. Tokyo: Mapped to the Closest Address, 2022.
Moore, Jason. “The Capitalocene, Part I: On the Nature and Origins of our Ecological Crisis”. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2017, 44:3, pp. 594–630.
The Watchers. “Kashiwa hot spot linked to Fukushima nuclear disaster”. Environmental Disasters･Radiation. 2011, last modified March 4, 2022. Available from: https://watchers.news/2011/10/24/kashiwa-hot-spot-linked-to-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/.
Yusoff, Kathryn. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
Performances
“First Touch”. February 4, 2022. Available from: https://vimeo.com/676594660/714472a3e6.
“Turn off the house lights”. May 21, 2022. Available from: https://vimeo.com/713382065.
“Soil Memory”. May 10, 2022. Available from: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/771500134/79bf7575d8.
Online sources cited in this paper were checked shortly in April 2023. All links were current at that time.