Sydney based artist Shaun Gladwell was invited to Tokyo to participate in the exhibition Wave Front: Australian Contemporary Art Scene at Tokyo Wonder Site. He asked me to assist him with the creation of his new work, Study for a Station of the Metro (After Ezra Pound), the sequel to Untitled, the work he made for the 2005 Yokohama Triennale. In Untitled, he followed several break dancers as they walked in shopping centers and subway stations, filming them from behind when they suddenly stopped and vigorously began breaking. For the new work, Shaun wanted the dancers to “baby freeze” amidst the busy traffic of moving people. “Baby freeze” is a technique in which the dancer supports her body with arms and head, and suspends the movement of her body, so that it appears to be frozen in time. The chosen location was the JR Shinjuku station in Tokyo. With an average of 220,000 passengers daily, Shinjuku is one of the busiest train stations in Japan. Since we had too little time before the show’s opening and had no official support from the organizer of the exhibition, we decided to do a guerrilla shooting.
We were able to gather several dancers quickly. Some we worked with duringUntitled; others were participating for the first time. When we explained the details to the dancers, one of them reacted badly to the idea of shooting in a public space without permission to film. She commented, “The artist tells us that he would take all the responsibility, but I don’t believe so. If we get into trouble, we who speak Japanese will suffer, not him.” This reaction was quite surprising and disappointing to me. Doesn’t the excitement of the street culture come from the thrill of sneaking past social rules? I, then, remembered the same dancer telling me that many Japanese kids learn to breakdance from watching videos from the USA. These dancers may be faithful to techniques, but lack the social and historical context that originally nurtured breakdancing.
We proposed to her an alternative location near the dancer hangout, or near a corporate building that officially permits dancers to practice in the evening. We hoped she would feel familiar and safe there, and she agreed. Shooting began after the business hours, on a Saturday, so absolutely nobody was around. It took only 20 minutes for a security guard to notice us. He took a coercive attitude and kept talking through a walkie-talkie, as if we were a terrorist group. We quickly relocated.
On the other hand, our filming at Shinjuku Station went unnoticed from the authorities. Security guards were on duty, but we were completely masked by the crowd of people. We did, however, get a lot of interruptions by drunks and curious bystanders. A man tried to touch a dancer’s foot and a few guys tried to pose for the camera. The best performer we met was a lambasted man, who was literally sleep-walking. He stood right in front of the camera and slept. When Shaun asked him (in English) to move, he put down his bag and flashed us a peace sign. Both guerilla actions, the filming and the breakdancing, did not stand out against the other crazy happenings at the stations.
Published in ... might be good (Issue 82, January 26, 2007)
We were able to gather several dancers quickly. Some we worked with duringUntitled; others were participating for the first time. When we explained the details to the dancers, one of them reacted badly to the idea of shooting in a public space without permission to film. She commented, “The artist tells us that he would take all the responsibility, but I don’t believe so. If we get into trouble, we who speak Japanese will suffer, not him.” This reaction was quite surprising and disappointing to me. Doesn’t the excitement of the street culture come from the thrill of sneaking past social rules? I, then, remembered the same dancer telling me that many Japanese kids learn to breakdance from watching videos from the USA. These dancers may be faithful to techniques, but lack the social and historical context that originally nurtured breakdancing.
We proposed to her an alternative location near the dancer hangout, or near a corporate building that officially permits dancers to practice in the evening. We hoped she would feel familiar and safe there, and she agreed. Shooting began after the business hours, on a Saturday, so absolutely nobody was around. It took only 20 minutes for a security guard to notice us. He took a coercive attitude and kept talking through a walkie-talkie, as if we were a terrorist group. We quickly relocated.
On the other hand, our filming at Shinjuku Station went unnoticed from the authorities. Security guards were on duty, but we were completely masked by the crowd of people. We did, however, get a lot of interruptions by drunks and curious bystanders. A man tried to touch a dancer’s foot and a few guys tried to pose for the camera. The best performer we met was a lambasted man, who was literally sleep-walking. He stood right in front of the camera and slept. When Shaun asked him (in English) to move, he put down his bag and flashed us a peace sign. Both guerilla actions, the filming and the breakdancing, did not stand out against the other crazy happenings at the stations.
Published in ... might be good (Issue 82, January 26, 2007)