Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2010

Fusions between performing, visual and musical arts were at the heart of the recent Harajuku Performance + Festival. So it’s no surprise to see some of the same producers’ fingerprints on a forthcoming event taking place just up the road in Aoyama.

“We use the term ‘mainstream’ to refer to performing arts that present or pretend to be presenting a total, integral, comprehensive or universal vision of the world,” explains Hiromi Maruoka, who served as co-producer for both festivals. “I think this is indeed often what people still expect performing arts to do. In contrast, we focus on ‘postmainstream,’ of which the approach to reality is fragmentary, experimental and particular without the megalomaniac desire to speak for or represent the world.”

The two-month-long program launches this weekend at Spiral Hall with The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny (below right), a collaboration between Hans Petter Dahl and Anneke Bonnema and their former troupe, Needcompany. The performance has been described as a new kind of “pop opera” featuring the svelte Bonnema and buff Dahl parading about a minimalist stage—mostly attired in little but bondage wear—as they sing about sperm and slime and in general tell each other to get lost.

Photo by Maarten Vanden Abeele

All this should not be surprising coming from a duo best known for their piece Love & Orgasm. And strangely enough, the work comes off as somehow moving—at heart, Ricky and Ronny seem to represent the typical modern couple, onto whom the impossible expectations of the world have been, erm, thrust.

Also from overseas comes Forced Entertainment, a group of six Sheffield-based artists that has been hailed by The Guardian as “Britain’s most brilliant experimental theater company.” The company says it tries to “talk about contemporary experience, and to create exciting and intimate encounters with audiences.” The new Vacant art space in Harajuku, where the troupe will be performing a pair of works, should prove intimate enough.

The first piece is the new Sight is the Sense that Dying People Tend to Lose First, a long free-associating monologue from artistic director Tim Etchells that “tumbles from topic to topic to create a vast, failing iteration and explanation of the world.”

Audiences will have their patience tested by the company’s second offering. Quizoola! is a six-hour performance based on a text of 2,000 questions formulated by Etchells that, while mocking quiz TV programs, shows how harrowing they can be for the participants. It also sounds pretty harrowing for the audience, but no need to worry—visitors are encouraged to experience only as much of it as they can take.

PPAF’s third overseas entrant comes in the form of The Netherlands’ Hotel Modern. The group presents KAMP (top), an attempt to come to grips with the enormity that was Auschwitz by, counterintuitively, reducing it to a scale model in which thousands of 8cm-tall puppets represent the prisoners and their executioners. The actors, says the company, “move through the set like giant war reporters, filming the events with miniature cameras; the audience becomes the witness.”

Photo by Yusuke Tsuchida

Representing domestic performing arts are Zan Yamashita and Fuyuki Yamakawa. Kyoto-based dancer Yamashita presents It’s Just Me, Coughing, the third piece in a trilogy on the relationship between language and the body. The work features Yamashita dancing solo to instructions projected on a screen composed of symbols and phrases such as “inhale/exhale” and quotations from freestyle haiku.

Yamakawa (right), meanwhile, is known as the “avant-garde Khoomei singer” for his mastery of the central Asian vocal style, sometimes called “throat singing,” in which two tones are emitted simultaneously. He combines this talent with a background in audiovisual design to create unnerving performances in which he amplifies his vocalizations with lights and other effects to turn the entire hall into an extension of his body. He presents a new work, BlackHair Ballad.

Postmainstream Performing Arts Festival 2010: The Ballad of Ricky and Ronny
“Pop opera” produced by Belgian dance companies Maison Dahl Bonnema and Needcompany. Jan 16, 7pm; Jan 17, 5pm, ¥3,500 (adv)/¥3,800 (door). Spiral Hall, Aoyama. Tel: 03-5724-4670.

Postmainstream Performing Arts Festival 2010: Sight is the Sense That Dying People Tend to Lose First
Solo work by the artistic director of British theater company Forced Entertainment. Feb 10 & 12, 7:30pm; Feb 11, 6pm, ¥3,500 (adv)/¥3,800 (door). Vacant, Harajuku. Tel: 03-5724-4670.

Postmainstream Performing Arts Festival 2010: Quizoola!
Six-hour “Q&A performance” by three actors. Feb 13, 1pm, ¥3,500 (adv)/¥3,800 (door). Vacant, Harajuku. Tel: 03-5724-4670.

Postmainstream Performing Arts Festival 2010: Kamp
Puppet play about Auschwitz, using a microscope camera to create a live documentary-style film. Feb 20, 7pm; Feb 21, 5pm, ¥3,500 (adv)/¥3,800 (door), Spiral Hall, Aoyama. Tel: 03-5724-4670.

Postmainstream Performing Arts Festival 2010: It’s Just Me, Coughing
Contemporary dance performance by Zan Yamashita gets its world premier. Feb 8-9, 7:30pm, ¥3,000 (adv)/¥3,300 (door). Vacant, Harajuku. Tel: 03-5724-4670.

Postmainstream Performing Arts Festival 2010: BlackHair Ballad
World-premier performance by Khoomei singer Fuyuki Yamakawa. March 28, 5:00pm, ¥3,500 (adv)/¥3,800 (door). Vacant, Harajuku. Tel: 03-5724-4670.