The Research Project, “The Dance Dramaturgy of Aging”
Principal Researcher: Nanako Nakajima
This research project explores the dance dramaturgy of aging for the future performance making. What it means to be aging in dance was a taboo subject in ballet contexts, while, in some Asian contexts, professional dancers continue dancing until their high age. Influenced by these dancers, one sees the trend in contemporary dance to highlight longer career of dancers.
This project by Nanako Nakajima has organized three closed meetings this fiscal year: 1. Discussions with a film screening of traditional Japanese dancers Toshinami Hanayagi & Oohisui Hanayagi, 2. Lecture by Prof. Mariko Okada on characteristics of aging in Inoue School of Kyo-mai, 3. Presentation by dancer-choreographer Hokuto Kodama on the system of ballet and repertoires by Mats Ek with aging ballet dancers.
Director and choreographer in Beijing, Mengfan Wang has worked with diverse bodies of performers. During 2019-2020, Wang has worked with two retired ballet-trained dancers from National Ballet of China in “When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer.” For this meeting, we welcome Wang to talk about this dramaturgy.
Online Event
Sun 14:00 – 16:00, January 31. 2021. (Japan Standard Time)
14：00
Introduction
Presentation by Mengfan Wang
＜Break＞
15：00
Mengfan Wang in Conversation with Nanako Nakajima
Q&A
Translator: Miho Tsujii
Reservation
Free for Participation, Reservation Required
Google form
Microsoft forms
Sponsored by 2020 Fiscal Year “The Dance Dramaturgy of Aging,” Nanako Nakajima, The Interdisciplinary Research Center for Performing Arts at Kyoto University of the Arts
＊TPAM Fringe Project
＊This research meeting is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20H00009.
Wang Mengfan
Born in 1990, Wang Mengfan works as an independent theater director and choreographer in Beijing. She studied History of Art and Dance Studies in China and Germany.Since 2015, Wang has been working with different groups of people in her dance theater projects, including old ladies, children and retired ballet dancers. During the creative process, she wanted to help them explore their own performative expression in the theater and to understand how those bodies were shaped by different aesthetics and ideologies. Her theater works were invited to VIE Festival Bologna, Beijing Fringe Festival, Wuzhen Theater Festival, etc.Wang has conducted artist residencies in Shanghai, Berlin and Copenhagen. She is selected as “Dance Hopeful (Hoffnungsträger)” by German dance magazine tanz in its yearbook 2018.
Nanako Nakajima
Dr. Nanako Nakajima is a scholar and a pioneer of dance dramaturg. She has been a Valeska Gert Visiting Professor 2019/20, at Freie Universitaet Berlin, and realized “Dance Archive Box Berlin.” Nanako received 2017 Special Commendation of Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy from the Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Her next dramaturgical work with Pichet Klunchun/Wu-kang Cheng will be premiered in Taipei, 2021. Her publication includes The Aging Body in Dance: A Cross-cultural Perspective (co-edited by Gabriele Brandstetter, Routledge 2017), and currently she writes her monograph on dance dramaturgy.