Pieces of light

"What I do is a Japanese dancer moving, but other than that it doesn’t have any nationality – international or any other place."

By ORI J. LENKINSKI
Choreographer Kei Takei: ‘Light is like a creative diary.’ (photo credit: FUMIO TAKASHIMA)
Choreographer Kei Takei: ‘Light is like a creative diary.’
(photo credit: FUMIO TAKASHIMA)
As spectators of an ephemeral art form, dance audiences are, in and of themselves, fleeting groups. Brought together by the desire to watch a specific show, each audience is comprised of a completely unique and utterly temporary cast of characters.
The individuals who filled the seats of Dance Theater Workshop in 1969, when Japanese choreographer Kei Takei presented the first section of Light, have most likely since scattered around the globe. They probably don’t know that what they came together to see was the first moment of a project that continues today, that it was like the first step of a toddler that went on to run and jump from stage to stage for nearly four decades.
“Light is like a diary. It’s connected, but it’s not the same thing. Time goes by, it continues. It’s like a creative diary,” says Takei via Skype. In total, the many segments of the Light Series, if performed consecutively, would take more than 24 hours.
The artist, who has revealed her age only to a select number of friends and family, speaks with a thick Japanese accent.
She is suspicious of the technologies that make it possible to video chat, so the conversation takes place with voice only. She is joined by her husband and onstage partner, Lazuro Brezer, a Canadian artist and associate director of Takei’s company Moving Earth Orient Sphere.
Next week, in Tel Aviv, new audience groups will come together for an instant to watch several of the 30+ sections of Takei’s Light Series. The evening Tokyo Tel Aviv will include performances by Takei and Brezer, as well as Nimrod Fried/Tami Dance Company’s new creation, Tennis, danced by the formidable Noa Shavit.
Takei was born and raised in Japan.
She remembers wanting to pursue dance as early as four. Her early training was in traditional Japanese dance.
In 1967, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York City. During her many years in the US, Takei studied with Anna Halprin, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. In 1992, after 25 years in New York City, Takei and Brezer moved back to Japan.
Her time in the West forever changed Takei’s practice, infiltrating the Japanese aesthetic of her upbringing with modern dance movement.
“Kei’s work was described by Faubion Bowers, an English scholar of Japanese theater, as ‘a Japanese seed transferred in American soil,’” says Brezer. “I daresay that I would have to use the word universal. I don’t think stylistically or thematically it’s Japanese.”
“I look Japanese in the end,” interjects Takei. “So what I do is a Japanese dancer moving, but other than that it doesn’t have any nationality, international or any other place.”
It has been more than a decade since Takei last visited Israel. Her first trip took place at the request of Yehudit Arnon in 1982.
“The first time we were invited by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, they commissioned a piece.
I believe it was Jiri Kylian who referred them to us. Kei created Light Part 11: “The Stone Fields.” Then we were invited back to perform with the whole company at the Israel Festival. It must have been 1982 or 1983.
We came back after that to perform in the Jerusalem Festival and then Kei choreographed a piece for the Inbal Dance Theater,” explains Brezer. Takei says something quickly to Brezer, who adds, “Our son was born in 1984 and Kei says that he was never in Israel so it was before then. The last time that Kei was here was in the early 2000s to perform in a women’s festival.”
When Fried approached Takei and Brezer about returning to Israel, they decided to take the opportunity to showcase excerpts from the past 36 years of creation.
“I will present four pieces,” explains Takei. “The first is called ‘Woman Washing Rice,’ from 2005. The second one is Laz’s solo from Light Part 44: ‘Bamboo Forest,’ which is the most recent piece. The third one is called Running through the ‘Earth,’ from 2013, which is not part of the Light Series. Finally, we will perform a duet from Light Part 14: ‘The Pine Cone Field,’ from 1980. These pieces are all very simple, very much connected in myself. These are the pieces I’d like to dance for the Israeli audience.”
All of these pieces bear Takei’s signature simplistic yet expressive approach.
There are no bells and whistles in her work – rather a true attempt to convey inner feelings and experiences through movement.
“The first time I went to New York, I was a student. A Jewish choreographer, Anna Halprin, chose me. She told me later that the reason was that I’m an honest dancer. That is what I look for in my dancers. It is what I strive to be. I always kept myself honest, at least in my creativity. The challenge is to continue to be honest. To my creativity and to my expression. And spirit. And soul.”
Tokyo Tel Aviv will take place on November 23 and 24 in the Suzanne Dellal Center’s Yerushalmi Hall. For more information: www.suzannedellal.org.il


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