TOKYO EXPERIMENTAL FESTIVAL― SOUND，ART ＆ PERFORMANCE　vol.6

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Title	TOKYO EXPERIMENTAL FESTIVAL― SOUND，ART ＆ PERFORMANCE　vol.6
Date	2011.12.5(Mon) - 2012.1.31(Tue)
Admission	see each program
Organize	Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Tokyo Wonder Site
Subsidize	Asahi Beer Arts Foundation
Venue	Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya/ Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama: Creator-in-Residence/ Tokyo Women’s Plaza Hall

TOKYO EXPERIMENTAL FESTIVAL SOUND, ART & PERFORMANCE- Vol.6 Performance Details

Tokyo Wonder Site (TWS) hosts an annual sound festival which presents truly experimental projects. This year, from all over the world, many next-generation artists who keep on seeking new expression will be gathered to Tokyo. Under the unprecedented disaster, the Great East Japan Earthquake, what kind of direction should Tokyo, and indeed Japan as a whole, take in the future? What are the "experiments" that are truly required right now ? 24 projects will be given by the participants who are selected from an open application process, award winners and invited artists. In addition, Ensemble Modern & TWS Academy and Ken'ichi Nakagawa's performances will be held at the same time.

Booking

Please send your name, phone number, date/time/name of the
performance and number of tickets by
Email to performingart11@tokyo-ws.org or FAX to 03-5766-3742

Booking of each performance will be closed by 17:00 on the day
before the performance or as soon as the seats are fully
reserved. For the ticket information, see this website.

Performances by awarded winners

Grand Prize

Lars Kynde-Composition Machine no. 4, Wandelende Tak-

Date: January 10 (Tue), 2012 Start 20:30
Ticket: 1,500JPY (Finished)
With support from SNYK and Danish Composers' Society / KODA's Fund for Social and Cultural Purposes

"Wandelende Tak" is a musical score
"Wandelende Tak" is an instrument
A composition machine composed by three:
Tempo, Rhythm and Pitch
An attempt of control of a chaotic reality
An artificial game about structure and freedom
A collaboration resulting in sound

Special Prize

The Dialogue <1981>

Date: December 20 (Tue), 2011 Start 20:00
Ticket: 500JPY (Finished)

Tcherepnin and Arakawa will collaborate on a new work which juxtaposes sound, performance, and visual art. The duo will explore the physicality of sound using psychoacoustic phenomena, physical "object filters," traditional instruments, and traditional song format, while continuing an exploration of personal and historical links between Japan and USA.

Encouragement Prize

Neil Luck

Date: January 10 (Tue), 2012 Start 19:00
Ticket: 1,000JPY(Finished)

Notebook is an act of translation. Not just a translation in language, but a translation in action and sound. The artist's body is transformed by taking the recorded, perceived or imagined actions of other people's movements as a score. Notebook is a series of sonic and physical imitations, expansions and phantom actions.

Encouragement Prize

Go Suenaga

Date: January 13 (Fri), 2012 Start 20:30
Ticket: 2,000JPY (If you bring & wear your pajamas, it's 500JPY OFF) (Finished)

'THE SLEEPER' gets into a bed we prepare in a designated space.
The musicians and the audience surround THE SLEEPER and play the music to make them sleep.
We have two rules,
'Send the SLEEPER to sleep', Can we send THE SLEEPER to sleep?

Encouragement Prize

Navinko with Yu Kuwabara -Citymixer-

【Cancellation Notice】
This performance has, with regret, been canceled due to Navinko's technical problem. For the details, please visit here.

Date: January 15 (Sun), 2012 Start 16:00
Ticket: 200JPY for participants, 500JPY for audience

Erratic paths of pedestrians in the city are not often paid much attention. In this performance, music is generated from pedestrian movement data that we collect using special iPhone application. Anyone can become a human-instrument through the walking experience as well as enjoy the music as an audience.

Encouragement Prize

Carla Cisno Installation

Date: January 17 (Tue), 2012 18:00-19:00
January 18 (Wed), 2012 18:00-19:00
January 20 (Fri), 2012 18:00-19:00
Ticket: 500JPY (Finished)

An acoustic horizon and a sensitive environment, modulable with a puff.
Temporalization of space. Transparency. Ethereal constructions with air pressure.
Sound as a radical form of materiality.

Selected projects for the Festival

Masayuki Kawai with Ryota Hamasaki -video feedback live performance-

Date: December 22 (Thu), 2011 Start 20:00
Ticket: 1,800JPY(Finished)

"No PC, no pre-recorded image, no musical instrument". An improvised performance with analogue video feedback. Flickering video signals create synchronized beat and melody. An explosion of abstract and psychedelic image and sound!!! (Equipment sponsored by BENQ Japan Co,. Ltd.)

Junichi Sato-Around the Luciano Berio-

Date: December 23 (Fri), 2011 Start 19:00
Ticket: 2500JPY (Finished)

Luciano Berio said his work that it was harmony journey. You will meet a pupil and a friend of Berio and will meet "SequenzaVIIb" three times in this performance. Because the performance is journey around the Berio.

Exotikdot -The Perception Opera-

Date: January 15 (Sun), 2012 Start 17:00
Ticket: 1,800JPY (Finished)

The performance will explore the synesthesic relation between sound/music with color, as well as the potential ways to represent a vibrating space from the relation between light and sound frequencies. It aims to direct the audience's senses into an audiovisual physical flow of waves, as they are immersed into a virtual and hypnotic journey of meditation where the perception of space and time is constantly altered.

picotek -Pleasant sensation which exists between regularity and irregularity-

Date: January 17 (Tue), 2012 Start 19:00
Ticket: 500JPY (Finished)

*Performance duration will be about 15 minutes. A loud spasmodic extreme music which are between rhythm and no-rhythm, between expectation and unexpectedness, and a meticulous video, filled with light and synchronizes with sound. These elements bring a pleasant sensation in your brain and body.

Leonardo Pellegatta -Cinema before Cinema-

Date: January 17 (Tue), 2012 Start 20:00
Ticket: 2,500JPY (Finished)

Cinema before Cinema, is a project about sound and vision, which aims to explore the relationship and dialogue between still and moving images along with improvised sound and music. We believe that the scientific and artistic impulses behind the birth of silent cinema, still needs to be amplified in a powerful modern alternative. In the cinematic experience and live performance we would like to propose, music and moving images stands equally, in continuous transformation and evolution.

Depuis 1975 -Fumie HIHARA (Koto/Shamisen) + Kazutomo YAMAMOTO (Composition)-

Date: January 18 (Wed), 2012 Start 19:30
Ticket: 2,000JPY (Finished)

The Koto and Shamisen player Fumie HIHARA performs 4 pieces which were composed by Kazutomo YAMAMOTO including 2 premieres. We offer highly experimental concert along with a performance and a sound installation. Two artists born in 1975 present the pieces which will remain as a classical music in the future.

yoshihama syo -blindness-

Date: January 20 (Fri), 2012 Start 19:00
Ticket: 1,500JPY (Finished)

A sound installation contains the workshop for being conscious of the sound which we cannot be usually conscious of.

The Paper Ensemble <#8>

Date: January 22 (Sun), 2012 Start 14:00 January 22 (Sun), 2012 Start 18:30
Ticket: 1,000JPY (Finished)

The Paper Ensemble is a music ensemble founded by Jochem van Tol for 4 performers. A series of sculptural paper instruments emerged from 3 years of research on the relationship between time, sound and instrument design. The performance focuses on listening. Each instrument has new playing techniques and require certain physical acts. The techniques are defined in a graphical notation system.

Ensemble for Experimental Music and Theater -Concert in "sapporo"-

Date: January 27 (Fri), 2012 Start 19:00
Ticket: 1,000JPY (Finished)

Based on the "theatre", propounded by John Cage, we re-create classical pieces of experimental music, for example Fluxus, Scratch Orchestra and so on, and perform contemporary pieces of Ensemble's members, Japanese and international artists. The concert is a part of exhibition <"sapporo" around the world> which will be held at TWS Hongo from January 14th to February 26, 2012.

Performances by residents

Local Creator Residence Program

Institutional Recommendation Program

Message by Jury Members

Toshi Ichiyanagi (Composer, Pianist)
After experiencing the reality of a disaster resulting from an immense natural phenomenon like that of March 11, it is not easy to create art. This is because, rather than techniques or images, "experimental-ness" under these conditions strongly requires thought to interpret the core elements. Firstly, more than anything else, ascertaining the true nature of the situation that one is being compelled to face and identifying from that what kind of methodology one should construct in order to find a way forward is the key to facing up to that reality. This also involves the question of how profoundly one can cross swords with such immense events, which should be called the transience of nature. In this sense, I hope that everyone will try even harder than before in thinking about future creative activities and the world, so that Tokyo Wonder Site's Experimental Festival will become a rewarding event of profound significance.


Yosuke Yamashita (Jazz Pianist)
I think that "experiments" are the act of expressing through sound and images and human acts the things that one's own brain can devise? Amidst this situation, one's own existence since March 11 should be reflected without fail. Take this festival as an opportunity to find out what we need now. We should appreciate the chance to have time for considering under the situation now and hope we will find a great quality of expression, worth for the time. I like something "interesting", "exciting" and something makes me think "what is this?" I am expecting the expression that challenges the boundaries of what people can think strange or mysterious as well as beautiful.


Minoru Hatanaka (NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] Senior Curator)
There is an implication that an "experiment" means that something understood (perhaps) will not take place. Consequently, both the person conducting it and the person watching it have to be prepared that their existing hopes and expectations will be violated. This might perhaps fail or expose oneself to danger. These days, we are seeking safety and peace of mind more than ever, and have a strong belief that we must not cause a situation in which failure is irreversible. Naturally, nothing can ever be certain, but in a situation in which we are apt to lapse into stereotypical ways of thinking, even in our expressions, it is necessary to remember that expression itself can become a kind of antidote and can become a means of withstanding a crisis. I believe that we must continue "experiments" aimed at this objective.


Yuji Numano (Musicologist, Associate Professor at Toho Gakuen School of Music)
Before and after March 11, there has been no change in the meaning of "experimental", fundamentally speaking. However, it is a fact that our spirit and society have inevitably changed, and various changes will doubtless emerge in the works of artists as a matter of course. What is likely to be important is to take care of these changes do not become transformed into oppression. Although this might seem to contradict my previous statement, this kind of thing is changing the meaning of the word "experimental" subtly in terms of the matters that we have to "take the trouble" of thinking about. In any case, now more than ever, it is the experimental spirit, which does not mourn the impotence of art unnecessarily, nor constantly emphasize its simple healing power, but which is full of quiet insight, that will become precious.


Ken'ichi Nakagawa (Pianist, Conductor)
At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, I experienced the earthquake at my family's home in Sendai. Since the quake, I have already been to almost 30 evacuation centers to give performances. There were truly dreadful sights everywhere. When I heard many people who listened to my performances said things like, "The last 30 days have been a nightmare, but just for a moment, I was able to forget it", I was once again touched by the sheer power of music. I have seen many people who, thanks to music, have been able to cry, be healed, and smile again, even just for a little. It is possible that music could actually be an inspiration for the philosophy of outrageous sounds, or it could be something just to help their little escape. However, I cannot help but feel that there is something big in what this provides to people. In this, there was nothing "experimental" at all. In the disaster-struck areas, when I saw the objects that have all been "wrecked", I had to ask myself again what "experiments" in art can be. There were an authentic truth, and the surreal layout of the absolutely immense objects, strange odors, and thunderous din resulting from the removal of the debris, or a collective as a whole along with the silences where everything had been devastated. This was not art, but rather tragedy. Among this year's works submitted in response to our public call for entries, I look forward to plans that make one feel the fundamental question of "what is the power of art" in oneself.


Kayoko Iemura (TWS Program Director)
Since March 11, I have spent time being aware of each and every ordinary thing in our everyday lives and evaluating it. In response to this kind of conflict between civilization and nature, various issues appear in our everyday lives. It is only now that I have realized that, rather than being Japanese, we have been people of the Japanese archipelago for much longer. I wonder what will reawaken us and what we will reawaken within the span of our time and the power of our energy....

Meet the Japanese Contemporary Musician Vol.6 Ken'ichi Nakagawa×Sound×Art×Performance 

Meet the Japanese Contemporary Musician Vol.6 Ken'ichi Nakagawa×Sound×Art×Performance Part 1

After 3.11. Symbol of Peace?Bird? Olivier Messiaen《Catalogue d'Oiseaux》

Long-awaited project comes true!
Olivier Messiaen's huge piece of "Catalogue d'Oiseaux" will be played whole part, and between each music, many creators will give their performances. Is it "Music" or "Bird"? Soul of the sound will have been appeared in this unique project!
for the details of this concert, visit here

Meet the Japanese Contemporary Musician Vol.6 Ken'ichi Nakagawa×Sound×Art×Performance Part 2

After 3.11. Pray ? John Cage 《Sonatas and Interludes》

Ken'ichi Nakagawa challenges his limitation of physical capacity.
70mins X 10 times performance of "Sonatas and Interludes", Milestone of the piece for prepared piano and 10 cross-genre performances will be mixed together in this 24 hours last project! Let's join into truly experimental time and space, coming and going between TWS Shibuya and Aoyama.
for the details of this concert, visit here

ENSEMBLE MODERN & TOKYO WONDER SITE ACADEMY Vol.5

"EAST×WEST TOWARDS NEW TRADITION"

There will be special programs by the members from Ensemble Modern, which is one of the world's leading ensembles of contemporary music. This is a unique opportunity to learn the thirty years experience of Ensemble Modern, such as latest methods of performance, composition and collaborative work with experts in the other fields. All programs are open to public.
for the details of this academy, visit here

Participating Creator

Alexandra CARDENAS
ARAKAWA Ei& Sergei TCHEREPNIN
YOSHIHAMA Syo