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Research / Material / Practice
Personal Narrative
Ken Hara and I were family, but never familiar since I was born.
Though we have not seen each other over 20 years, the idea to see him just came up to my mind for some reason in 2015.
I tried to make our reunion like an interview and made a recording of it.
Because I hoped that it would make our conversation make smoother.
On 14th of February 2015.
I was 26 years old.
He was 84 years old.
That was 3 weeks before his death.
Archives of my father's activity as a dancer
The musical film that Ken appeared in 1964.
“Asphalt Girl”
My father testified that this was created as a homage to “West Side Story”. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good quality film and failed at the box office. However, this is very important evidence to show the situation of the specific age.
Even though my father was one of many easily replaceable chorus dancers in a commercial film, he held great value in his experience that would be deeply valued during those times as the evidence of the age.
I analysed my father’s life through its different contexts as it appeared under my lens. I realised that this particular temporal context would be a defining element in my research as it was the golden age of my father’s career in the thick of Japan’s recovery from damages suffered in World War II. It was a greedy, joyful and energetic age. (next page)
Also, a great flood of American culture happened and the cultural situation was changed a lot. At the beginning, those creations were just like imitation or homage, but it was getting originality towards 1980’s.