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1 Introduction

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The performance “Da Dad Dada” is a solo dance project which is examining the relationship between a successful musical dancer in the 1960’s, Ken Hara, and me, his daughter Saori Hala. We were related by blood, but never familiar. After his death, I started to dive into his personal life through the archives of him as a dancer, so that I could know about him not only as a father but also as a dancer. In this project, I dealt with his career archive as a dancer collected over the last two and a half years, culminating with an audio recording of our reunion, 3 weeks before his death.

 

The biggest purpose of this research is to distill and decompose several elements and constructs of autobiographical narrative, in order to share it with an observer in an abstract way.

 

My general research question since I started to work with the body is “how do we read the context of the environment and find motives to make our own actions?”. This was born from my perspective as a dancer with a background in design.

 

2 Concept and strategy based on “Affordance”

 

All steps of strategy in this project are based on the concept “affordance” that was proposed by an American psychologist James Gibson in 1930’s. Affordance originally means “all possibilities of an animal’s action which are recalled by an object or an environment”. In 1988, Donard Norman took this word “affordance” to mean the possibilities of the action that humans can perceive from an object or an environment, within the cognitive psychology field. Nowadays, the word “affordance” has even spread into the design scene. I was first introduced to this word during my studies in design. To explain the definition of “affordance” by Norman, leading the action of the hand is often used as an example. When you find a flat plate on the door, you can understand that you should push the door to open it. Or when you find a handle on a cup, you can intuitively see which part of the cup you should hold.

 

As the first study to understand this thought, I performed an practice to read the “affordance” from specific objects.

I put out two types of chairs. One with a back(chair), and one with no back(stool). The question was “how do people find an “affordance reason” that shapes interaction with these chairs?”

 

The chair with back showed the direction that people should sit. And the chair without back does not. But if that chair has a square seat on the legs, it help for people to imagine four directions to seat. But in case of a circular seat, it doesn’t matter which direction people sit practically. These hints to make actions are thought of the affordance that Norman proposed. But strictly speaking that is different from original proposal by Gibson. The original “affordance” by him is not the specific possibility of leading that an object/environment show to a human. It should be the all the possibilities of the relationship between an object/environment and an animal. Therefore, even if people do no correctly read the context of the chairs and use it in wrong way, for example, to sit facing the back, this relationship between an object and an animal could be “affordance”. It is all the possibilities which include concrete hints that an object/environment shows an animal’s intention of reading the context. It doesn’t matter if it is right or wrong, if it is purpose or not. Meanings and activities themselves are forms of affordance.

Over the last several years, I was wondering if I could divert both thoughts of affordance to my current research as I was shifting my interest in study from design to performance and movement. The process of that is to transform the context that I read from the environment and the motives behind specific action when I place myself in relation to the space.

 

This in an example of one of the simplest exercises that I did to explore the relationship between space and the body in my study and practice : First, I stand on the center of a square room. And I perceive the 8 points in the room the 4 corners on the floor and the 4 on the ceiling. Then I point to one of those corner randomly with my right hand, and the left as well. Next is legs. The right foot should step toward one of the corners, and the left as well. The situation should be like the game of  twister. 4 actions and 8 points in the room would make specific conditions and shape the body belonging to it. I can also add the direction of face and gaze(eyes), and also other points that are not only the end of arms or legs, but also elbow, knee, pelvis etc. Eventually even two-dimensional elements like back, belly, the nape of the neck could be connected to the eight points in the room. I am motivating specific action from materialistic conditions and in doing so, looking for more complicated shapes within the of body.

 

To observe the relationship which has affordance between “space and body” and “body and body” as further step of the practice was one of larger purpose were served by 15 people that I invited to this piece, even though I call this “solo piece”.

I dealt with them as objects on the stage and shared this thought with them at the first meeting. It means their existence is the same as chairs and tables on the stage.  

 

Another purpose was served by this these fifteen “staged objects” was to make them become one of abstract elements that I could compose on stage as figuration. They became dancers, observers, staff members, storytellers, as well as serving as a projection screen. During the whole piece, they were asked not to express their personal emotions and impulses to do something.

 

Initially I would describe the first purpose. The situation with more than 2 bodies in the room seems complicated but it could be possible to use the same process if they deal with each other in a practical and materialistic way as well. But as the fact, when we practiced to learn “affordance” between bodies, we found the moment that  bodies found the motive to do action from not only practical but also socio-psychological ways. Then I felt big potential to develop it, and made 3 groups each with 5 people in order to observe their improvisations. Eventually I took this work as the actual element of the piece.

 

Some concrete instruction that I gave them :

• to understand exactly the situation of your body moment by moment

• to observe thoroughly the situation around you, choose the concrete reason to move, and react instantly

• to leave your motivation of moving to the environment or other body

• not to act, dance, or have personal or emotional motives behind doing something on stage

 

Additionally, I shared with them the thought of “This body is not mine.” with giving some example like the moon reflects the light of the sun, and the mirror reflects the light in front of it.

 

On the instructions that I gave, they tried to take the motive from the materialistic situation of each other : distance, position, height, speed etc, and look that they understand the positions of themselves in the space and construct the relationship with each other.  As the single unit of movement narrowed, sometimes I came to see theatrical elements more than what I wanted and I suspended them. So I suggest new task that they should also deal with themselves as object more intentionally. For example, to look doubtful with your neck is the action looks like “I have no idea” in the context of social communication. But you can’t do this action to act “I have no idea”, you can only do the action of  “to lean your head to one side 20-30 degrees” with materialistic consciousness. This should not be acting to indicate one's intention. As another example, you can also make yourself smile, but you have to know which degree you lift the corner of the mouth and which direction and how long seconds you look at. I instructed them to concern the environment with knowing concrete shape and situation of their body as if they control themselves by programming.

I brought all those thought that I shared with them to actual scenes.  What I needed then was the relationship that 16 bodies including me are dealing with ike sampling, understanding the situation of the space, and leaving motive and identity of the movement to each other. I believe that this situation embodies affordance exactly as proposed by Gibson all possibilities of the relationship between environment and body.

 

As the second, the specific role that I gave fifteen objects, was to be the metaphor of my father, as symbol of his job, and the cultural and historical situation surrounding his prime years in 1960’s concerned national character of Japan, scene by scene.  

I took the method of collective actions like unison dance, flock, procession etc. to articulate my critical perspective regarding the present situation of my country.

 

Recently in the european contemporary dance scene, the use of unison is often avoided from several perspective. However in Japan, it is still being used widely, even by front line artists. I insist that this is the result of the education and the body in Japan since before the WWⅡ. Not only in the university for dancers but also in standard primary school, all students are required to learn the traditional health gymnastics (which is called “radio taiso”) developed in the 1920’s. The government directed all people towards this gymnastic exercise in order to promote their physical health and well-being.

 

This movement was influenced by calisthenic radio broadcasting in U.S and also by the Sokol movement - an all-age gymnastics organization first founded in Prague in the Czech region of Austria-Hungary in 1862. Japanese radio gymnastics started across the whole nation in 1929, and was “perfected” in 1951. The same song and movement is still widely used since then and is common knowledge for all ages.

It says that Sokol movement emphasized the systematics and aesthetics, actions leading nationalism in 1920’s. So I argue that the wide-spread use of the radio gymnastics in Japan is still affecting the national characters on levels of nationalism and education as well. I contemplate that the Japanese peoples’ organized character comes from “Muga”(※) which is one of thought of Buddhism the Japanese have taken in deeply and unconsciously. It played a big part in realizing the meticulous national reconstruction after the war. All people were in step and sent out with the same power in the same direction and motivation. Consequently, Japan, which was reduced to burnt-out ruins, could revitalize itself into one of the strongest economies in just under 20 years after the war. Eventually it became a host country for the Olympics - the first in Asia - and showed off their national power. It conjured up negative effects as well, like a leaning towards the totalitarianism and militarism of the previous era. National power and social conservatism increased rapidly due to two happenings in the following 30 years : burst of economic bubble (The age around the 60-80s was called “The bubble economy”, because shortly after revitalization it collapsed suddenly, as if the bubble breaks. ) in 1980’s, an Tohoku/Fukushima’s earthquake and tsunami in 2011.  Also some behavior of the old nation including the gymnastic education still remains.

As irony would have it, Tokyo will become a host country for Olympics again in 2020. We should see the contrast between recent age of Japan and prime age when it was a host country for Olympics for the first time more clearly.

So I tried to refer to those two different ages, and to claim not only critical perspective but also a sense of crisis about that through the method of collective actions as metaphors.

 

※ The doctrine of "non-self", that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in living beings.

 

3. Practice of “absence”

 

We also realised that we could find and use “absence” as the one of elements in the space. That is a new perspective to embody the thought of affordance.

 

Here are concrete examples, I consider three patterns of motives when we move(do) between point A and point B.

 

1 to create “existence” at point B

2 to create “absence” at point A

3 both of 1 and 2

 

We aim to deal with “absence” as the same element with “existence”. This practice about “absence” is research to visualise reactions summoned by absence/death/separation etc. it means experiment “to touch nothing”. This is different from the skills of a pantomime. I was trying to make “nothing” be visible, this is the most biggest difference with Pantomime. Because it is a skill of illusion that makes people imagine existence even if there is nothing. It is not reaction to “nothing”.  My interest was what people would do when they touch the things that they perceive as “absence” in an epistemological way.

 

4. Documentation regarding “action and absence”

 

As the preliminary step towards materialistic “absence” as personal research, I was collecting documentations about “caring about death by human and animals, such as funeral ritual, and views on life and death, in terms of body expression.

Various funeral are still taking place among human realm over the world. Some practical and hygienic issues are always following those ritual in terms of body treatment methods. There are burial, cremation, open-air burial, water burial, bird burial, scattering of ashes etc. Also cosmos burial is in development nowadays. In Japan, there is some evidence of people practicing the ritual for caring about their dead since B.C. The history of the funeral went through many unique transitions with the influence of various religions’, cultures’ views of life and death. Not only ways of treating the body, but also the style of the ritual and grave are different in each age.

But this funeral culture could be found not only in human beings but also in some animals.

Some research has shown that Neanderthals, a now extinct species or subspecies of humans, may have performed funeral rites by placing flowers with the dead. In the 1950s and 60s in modern day Iraq, researchers discovered fossils of pollen and flowers at a Neanderthal burial site in Shanidar Cave.

Research into mourning practices has extended to the animal kingdom as well. Several species of animals, wide-ranging from penguins and birds to horses and elephants, have been reported to exhibit surprising actions as a response to grief. Visual documentation has shown that elephants, during the loss of a family member, have been known to make a line in front of the dead body and stroke it carefully. Some not leaving its side for several days. Another documentation shows a bird’s funeral where they make a circle around a dead body for a long time. Though no one is sure if the action is recalled by the emotion of grief yet, it should be recalled by death at least.

Even if humans and some animals are taking different ways of mourning, what is very important is the fact that such as universal sense is shared across different attributes.

 

I personally felt a fact about separation by death through my father’s funeral. That was “It’s extremely hard to feel reality of absence as compared to feel existence”. That’s why lives are at a loss and can’t look at the fact come together, and make a ritual in order to share the fact “This body is already dead and he/she is not here any longer”. Then live bodies surround the dead body, look at the dead face, offering flowers, and check the bones before/after burned. They try to make sure of one’s death by pointing out step by step. It’s rather impossible to keep our minds on the thought of absence.

 

I also realised that ”sharing absence” needs a thorough contextualisation as I was researching that with 15 people. We have to share the fact of existence before we share the sense of absence. Otherwise no one could recognize this loss. But this absence could be a very strong motive when we would consider it as one of the elements in the environment, however, that is not an easy task. The nature of absence means that it is much harder to share, show, or claim it. Being is much simpler.”

 

If I could say that the actions of mourning by humans and some animals are reaction to the sense of absence, I could say also that this phenomenon is related to affordance, as one of possibilities of the actions are recalled by “absence” as part of environment.

 

5   “Affordance” as the perspective to look at the world

 

I tried to divert this thought “Affordance” as also motive to create this piece.

I view human life, also Ken Hara’s personal life, as the collectivity of action and choice that stems from the concrete. It means that personal history comes with a background - be it cultural, social, familial, personal, or instinctive.

I analysed my father’s life through its different contexts as it appeared under my lens. As stated previously, 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. 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.

 

The film “Asphalt girl” that my father appeared was one of example of that and it’s like a fossilized remains of the age that Japan was a country influenced by America . As he testified, 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.

 

As I followed the Japanese situation behind my father’s personal life and this line of research to Europe, I was uncovering another layer, one greater than him and the sociopolitical situation in Japan: a sensational age worldwide. For example, the start of Vietnam War in 1960, the installation of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the first manned space flight by the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the assassination of JFK in 1963, NASA’s first moon landing in 1969...the continuing impact of The Beatles and the rising cultural phenomenons of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones...all years during The Cold War.

Those political, cultural, historical happenings should affect personal being and its life in various ways.

Simultaneously, we are then also covered in an even larger layer, beyond the sociopolitical and cultural, one related to the “mission” and “purpose” of existence, such as life and death, age, legacy, to name a few.

Each country has its own culture and history but each of those small contexts are always covered with a bigger layer. Exploring the personal allows me entry into multiple layers and those different levels.

 

Thus in the world that has multiple layers, various narratives were born day by day, those elements make thinner layers, and personal beings and its lives are composed. And each personal beings are giving effect, and those activities make the world over and over. The presence of the world has no identity, or motive.

 

6   Conclusion

 

The thought of “affordance” proposed by Gibson, means all possibilities of animal’s action is recalled by an object(environment) worked as one of perspective to understand the world for me, and helped the research of examining my father’s personal life and the relationship between he and I. And I developed my study of body motion through using “affordance” as an axis, from the perspective as a dancer who has a background in design.

 

This “Da Dad Dada” is not a theater piece, it’s the result of study and viewing the structure of the world and body motion. I also believe that to create and play this piece is my reaction to my father’s death, which means bemusement from absence, and action to keep the fact in my mind. So I am just like one of birds that was making a circle around a dead body in the documentation.