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  • Dance
  • SPRING coproduction
  • NL premiere

Kono atari no dokoka (Somewhere around here)

Date
Fri 24 May 2024 19:30
Sat 25 May 2024 15:30
Location
Theater Kikker Grote Zaal
Duration
75 min
Language
English, French, Japanese (English & Dutch subtitles)
Country
Japan/Austria/France/Netherlands
Price
€18,- / €15,-
Themes
Performing speculations, Non-western, Face from the crowd
Edition
SPRING 2024
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Three artists meet on stage to revisit their early careers. Mapping how artistic creations and biographies interweave, they embark on a journey through time and space in search of the past and its meaning today. Touching and infused with subtle humour.

Video

In exploring the remnants of dance beyond the stage, the collaborative project Kono atari no dokoka (Somewhere around here) navigates the artistic relationships of Japanese-Austrian performance-maker Michikazu Matsune, French choreographer Martine Pisani, and Dutch painter-performer Theo Kooijman. Focusing on their activities from the 1980s and 1990s, this venture examines the interplay between archives, personal memories, shared anecdotes, and imaginations.

Martine Pisani’s poetic and humor-infused body of work, initiated in the mid-1980s, intertwines movements, words, and performative acts. Michikazu Matsune, blending documentarist and conceptualist approaches, collaborates on this project, recording the trio’s shared history. Theo Kooijman, Pisani’s real-life partner and longtime performer, reimagines her early works for the project.

The fictional setting of Kono atari no dokoka brings the spectator to Japan, inviting reflection on local and global contexts and histories. The performance weaves together anecdotes from the trio: Pisani’s encounters with choreographer Odile Duboc, Kooijman’s arrival in Paris and fascination with tango, and Matsune’s youth in Kobe and subsequent move to Europe. Pisani’s life took a dramatic turn during this period due to an illness, adding another layer to the collective memory.

From Kobe to Marseille, Paris to Vienna, the performance constructs a composite present from personal stories, blending simplicity, poetry, humor, and tenderness. Kono atari no dokoka becomes a journey through time and space, revealing a shared history that lingers in the gaps and universality between continents, generations, and individual narratives.

http://www.michikazumatsune.info

http://www.ciemartinepisani.fr

http://www.theokooijman.com

Reviews

“I had to cry at the end of the documentary performance Kono atari no dokoka (Quelque part par ici – Somewhere about here), when French choreographer Martine Pisani spoke her lines.” – Fransien van der Putt in Theaterkrant.

Read the full review here.

"Their journey through time and space blurs borders, reduces distances, superimposes eras and combines languages in the eternal present of the imaginary"

Le Monde, Rosita Boisseau

This performance is made possible by:

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Artist

Michikazu Matsune

Artist

Martine Pisani

Artist

Theo Kooijman

Credits

Concept: Michikazu Matsune in dialogue with Martine Pisani

Based on the early works by Martine Pisani

With: Theo Kooijman, Michikazu Matsune, Martine Pisani

Light: Ludovic Rivière

Video: Michikazu Matsune, Maximillian Pramatarov

Artistic feedback: Miwa Negoro, Ludovic Rivière, Anne Lenglet

Translation, proofreading: Marion Schwartz, Brian Haman

Publication concept: Michikazu Matsune, Miwa Negoro

Publication design: Aki Namba

Video documentation: Markus Gradwohl

Management: Franziska Zaida Schrammel, Frauke Niemann

Production: Studio Matsune, La compagnie du solitaire

 

Coproduction: Festival d’Avignon, Tanzquartier Wien, Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, fabrik Potsdam, SPRING Performing Arts Festival Utrecht

 

With the support of La Briqueterie Centre de développement chorégraphique national, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Centre national de la danse (Pantin)

 

Funded by the Ministère de la Culture Drac Île-de-France, the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sports, the Austrian Cultural Forum Paris, Fonds Transfabrik (France, Germany) and ONDA – The French office for contemporary performing arts circulation

 

Creation for Festival d’Avignon 2023

 

Photo credits: Christophe Raynaud de Lage and Fabrice Robin

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