Nihon Buyo

This practice-led-thesis draws on an existing Japanese movement practice called suriashi, which translates as sliding foot. Suriashi is a specific gender codified walking technique in classical Japanese dance and theatre, and an important method for acting on stage. It is one of the foundations for how the performer positions him/herself for movement on stage. My thesis asks whether suriashi could also be a method to act, as being active, or to activate, in other spaces outside the theatre. A key feature is the practical application of this artistic practice outside the theatrical contexts where it is usually located. This relocation brings a traditional form into new configurations, connecting to everyday practices and sites of resistance and performance. It also contributes to the burgeoning field of walking arts practice, bringing a Japanese dance-based practice into a dialogue with debates and practices of Western dancing and walking.
The practice-led research includes suriashi walks, labelled as ‘experimental pilgrimages’, which are documented especially for the thesis. They have been captured on video and serve as material evidence of what kind of questions and answers suriashi as experimental pilgrimage activated. The video documentations, to which readers are guided to through specific links and timecodes, provide the possibility to experience suriashi walking both visually and corporeally. They also represent the artistic artefact and outcome of this practice-led research. The video capturing suriashi adds to an expanded perspective on screendance as durational artistic practice.
The thesis shows how suriashi embodies ideologies, such as gender, as well as discussing how our presence in urban spaces is always gendered. Suriashi as a gendered technique provided a tool for walking with integrity - a flâneuse strategy - which led to the application of suriashi for political engagement through embodiment.

Dance practice is often hidden inside dance studios where it is not available for dialogue or interdisciplinary critique. In this paper I will look closer at one of the accents my body holds, since the year 2000. To Swedish dance academies it is maybe the most foreign accent I have in my dance practice. It has not been implemented as ‘professional dance’ in Western dance studios. This foreign accent is called Nihon Buyō, Japanese dance, also known as Kabuki dance. Nihon Buyō, Nō or Kabuki are local performing arts practices for professional performers in Japan. A few foreigners are familiar with these practices thanks to cultural exchange programmes, such as the yearly Traditional Theatre Training at Kyoto Art Centre. There is no religious spell on the technique, or a contract written that it must be kept secret, or that it must not leave the Japanese studio or the Japanese stage. I will compare how dance is being transmitted in the studio in Kyoto with my own vocational dance education many years ago. Are their similarities to how the female dancer’s body is constructed? Might there be unmarked cultural roots and invisible originators to the movements we are doing today in contemporary dance?

Dansutövandet hålls ofta dold innanför dansstudion där det inte görs tillgängligt för dialog eller tvärdisciplinär kritik. I denna text kommer jag att se närmare på en av de dialekter som min kropp har sedan år 2000. För svenska dansakademier är det kanske den mest främmande dialekten som jag har i min danspraktik. Den har inte implementerats som "professionell dans" i dansstudior i väst. Denna främmande dialekt kallas Nihon Buyō, japansk dans, även kallad Kabuki-dans. Nihon Buyō, Nō eller Kabuki är lokala scenkonstformer för professionella scenkonstnärer i Japan. Några få utlänningar känner till dem tack vare olika kulturutbytesprogram, till exempel den årliga traditionella teaterträningen, T.T.T., på Kyoto Art Center. Tekniken är inte belagd med någon religiös besvärjelse. Det finns heller inte några skrivna avtal om att den måste hållas hemlig, eller att den inte får lämna den japanska studion eller den japanska scenen. Jag kommer att jämföra hur dans kommuniceras och förs vidare i studion i Kyoto med min egen yrkesdansutbildning för många år sedan. Finns det några likheter i hur den kvinnliga dansarens kropp konstrueras? Finns det några omärkta kulturella rötter och osynliggjorda upphovskvinnor till de rörelser vi gör idag i nutida dans?

How does artistic research engage with the concept of local? In what ways can art practice be an intervention into traditional notions of history and culture? How does it engage with local and global identities? This book raises questions about transient art practices and site-specific works within communities, as well as art and research based experiences localized in urban and rural spaces, within the body and memory.

Being There is a wide-ranging anthology that demonstrates the field of artistic research has never been stronger. The essays and meditations are by visual artists, writers, performers, filmmakers, historians, sound artists, and activists who have worked together in the Nordic Summer University and who share a desire to unite their creative practices with critical enquiry. Their contributions were generated within twice-yearly symposia that moved between Nordic and Baltic countries over a three year cycle of practice-based research.

Some contributions are enigmatic meditations on place, whilst others, paradoxically, address the question of what is local through the notion of the nomadic. Whether describing quests of individual artists, or relating to collective endeavours, these works are engaged with the spaces in between. Each offers the reader a thoughtful encounter with the aesthetic, and the political, within a myriad of art practices across a rapidly evolving Europe.