collaboration
Ryusuimon Study 2011 / Video stills & documentation from multimedia performance. Premiere: December 4, 2011, Reisinger Hall, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY.
00:08:00 minutes, music: Akemi Naito, piano: Satoko Inoue
Ryusuimon is an ancient Japanese design motif expressing the flow of water. It is found on earthenware from the mid-Yayoi period, and evolved into the Flowing Water pattern of Dotaku (ceremonial bronze bells), circa 1st century B.C. The video for Ryusuimon Study was created in response to Akemi Naito’s composition for piano. Images of nature describe the deep connection between the music and the ancient Japanese motif. Like the sound in the composition, one video image flows into the next. Clouds are reflected in water, water is reflected in the stars, the cosmos alludes to timelessness, reaching back centuries to the period of the ritual bells on which the first ryusuimon imagery can be found. A linear pattern of water, abstracted from images of water surfaces, flows through the entire piece. It connects the imagery to the work’s title and serves as the piano’s visually rhythmic counterpart.
Dunes Project 2009 / Video stills & documentation from multimedia performance project. Premiere: May 4, 2009, The Flea Theatre, New York, NY.
00:30:00 minutes, music: Akemi Naito, percussion: Greg Beyer, actress: Midori Kanazawa, noh choreography: Kanji Shimizu
This project is based on the novel Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe from the female character's perspective.
Littoral 2009 / Video stills from multimedia project performed by Due East. DVD release: November 2011, Galapagos Art Space, Brooklyn, NY. multimedia project
00:34:39 minutes, music: John Supkho, percussion: Greg Beyer / flutes: Erin Lesser, text: Cees Nooteboom & Richard Hakluyt
Littoral is a multimedia project that explores themes of time, distance and memory inspired by the work of Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom and the English travel writer Richard Hakluyt. The video traverses varying spatial and tonal terrains; its title refers to the ocean’s shoreline and to distinctions between low and high water regions. Littoral embodies crossing boundaries, in-between places, and an attempt to represent these terrains through mapping and drawing. Recurring imagery includes alternating perspectives of the horizon, maps, globes, graphs, perspectival drawings and the natural phenomena these images represent: the ocean, water, the shoreline.
