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Yoko Higashino

"ALL LOVES YOU!"

Having received many awards including the TOYOTA Choreography Award in 2004 as one of the leading choreographers in the next generation, Yoko Higashino is a contemporary dancer and choreographer whose improvisational dance performances receive high attention worldwide. She recently started a dance company BABY-Q, and also performs solo works under the name Yoko Kemumaki.

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] presents one-night dance session "ALL LOVES YOU!" - a collaborative dance perfomance with Yoko Kemumaki and all kinds of artists, musicians, DJs, VJs to exploring different kinds of expression in dance, music, video, light and space for the 4th series of the dance performance YCAM Performance Lounge.


Yoko HigashinoYoko Higashino
Photo: Banri


Please introduce yourself.

Yoko Higashino. I am a dancer and choreographer, and host a dance company BABY-Q. Organizing workshops I work to nurture dancers in Tokyo and beyond. As a solo artist, I perform sessions with many musicians under the name of Yoko Kemumaki at clubs, live spaces and galleries. I also perform and collaborate with artists abroad in France, Czech, New York, and so on. I'm a designer for an original brand HEXTION as well.


How did you start to dance and how did you become a dancer and choreographer?

I was born in the countryside of Japan, Sakurai in Nara, I was a shy and kind of quiet girl. As my mother saw me enjoying to dance while watching TV, she recommended that I learn modern ballet. That was when I was 10. I kept taking lessons until I was a teenager. I started entering contests, and began to make my own work and started my own expression. Since then I became a free dancer based in Osaka, sometimes participating in workshops in New York. And, 2 djs and I made a group ERROR SYSTEM in 1995 to perform at clubs, small theaters, and open-air events. This experience led to establishing the current BABY-Q in 2002 with several members to create works in a larger frame.


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BABY-Q Dance Performance "←Z← Z Kokkeina Dokushinsha Kikai" 2003 / Photo: Toshihiro Shimizu


How did you start to form a dance company? How many members are there and what does the company do?

Before forming BABY-Q, I had participated as an actress and dancer for an open-air theater called Pretty Hate Machine, which was derived from Ishinha, an Osaka based theater company. With musicians I met there, artists from DESTROYED ROBOT and a few others, we formed BABY-Q. Currently there are more than 10 dancers, music composers, video artists, costume designers and visual and web designers. Each member pursues different genres of media like dance, art, music, video, fashion, design and photography and their experiences and deep minds resulted in the course of their profession are forming a main structure of our performance work. We aim to create a new age for body and its related expression by experiencing our energy at the stage and deepening more real connections to humans. BABY-Q explores its activity resonating to diverse genres in grassroots, from alternative / subcultural scenes to the theater art in Japan and overseas lately.

As for a dance scene, I was awarded grand prizes for dance competitions like the "Toyota Choreography Award" and "Yokoyama Solo Duo +", focusing on my quixotical creativity and bold and ambitious choreography. The feature of our work is a mixture of various aspects like dance techniques that are matched by none, stand-out presence of characters, video works tightly linked to dance using an analog way. Because of this, we are perceived as an edgy artists group and our dance works are talked about in various scenes. Recently we work internationally not only in Japan but throughout the world.

As BABY-Q so far, we did performances such as ALARM!, GEEEEEK, E/G, Matar o no matar. As solo works, I did ERROR CORD, VACUUM ZONE, MESs. The latest work will be performed in Tokyo at Kichijoji Theater as a program for New Dance Performance Tour 2009, and in Kobe at the Ai Hall, and follows the tour in Dusseldorf, Munster and Berlin, Germany.



BABY-Q Dance Performance "GEEEEEK" 2007


Please tell us about your solo work as Yoko Kemumaki. Where did Kemumaki come from? How do you work as Yoko Kemumaki?

Kemumaki stands for "blow smoke" in Japanese. So as blowing smoke, I intended to make the audience looking at my dance be confused as to where they are, who they are what the performance is. Besides that, I always used to ware a white costume. Taking photos of my performance, the white afterimage on the photo looked like smoke. Yoko Kemumaki does solo performances improvised with different genres of people like musicians, video artists amd designers among others.


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BABY-Q Solo Dance Performance "ERROR CORD /// pclost469hsholecp" 2005 / Photo: Yoshikazu Inoue


What is the difference between performances of Yoko Higashino and Yoko Kemumaki, besides as a dance group and solo?

It's like Kemumaki is more irresponsible than Higashino. Yoko Higashino is a part of BABY-Q and is responsible for it. Kemumaki is in a way more "bad" and more free. She can dance wherever she wants. Kemumaki is more free like appearing in unexpected places.


I can see you are also focusing on music, film, theater art and costume in your dance works. In music, for example, I see you are interested in noise music as you collaborated with Masaya Nakahara and Keiji Haino on the improvised session. Do you have any genres of music you are particularly interested in? How does music influence to your dance expression?

I focus on the quality rather than its genre. Basically I incorporate noise music a lot into my work, but I think a great deal of the world of music and I'm sensitive to music. There are many scenes that are inspired by music. It's more like music builds space rather than music as an accompaniment to our dance. The dancer's dance is not main either. Music and dance are equal. I want all the aspects including dance, decoration, music, film, lighting, stage space, costume, visual, information to be present on the same level.


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Photo: Banri


Do you have a core idea / common thought behind your dance performances?

It's a sense. It's like "do you understand this sense?". It's about my sense, your sense and the audience's sensse. And for me, to dance in various situations is training myself.


How do you get inspirations for your body expression?

Experience. I get it by visiting many places, experiencing and feeling things there. It's a part of my everyday life. I also get it on the stage in many places and unfamiliar places abroad. What will be expressed varies, depending on how imaginative you are. How you take it into your body is like daily practice.




L'EXPERIENCE JAPONAISE 2009 - Nîmes Biennial, 2009


You have performed abroad in such places as the USA and France so far. What's their feedback on your performance, compared to that in Japan?

Super great. In Japan the audience is aware of other audience and they are kind of shy, but abroad they give direct feedback as they feel. We usually take more than 5-6 curtain calls.


On June 27th, You will have an improvised dance session as Yoko Kemumaki at YCAM. Please introduce us about the event "ALL LOVES YOU!".

A big club will appear at YCAM. Cutting edge musicians will gather in the area where there are few clubs. So 3 musicians and I will collaborate on the session. There's no doubt we will open up a super spectacle world with dance, dance music and space. Groups gathered for the event include OLEO for decoration, YAMACHANG for laser lighting, ROKAPENIS to VJ and others.


Will you be collaborating with the other participating musicians for the first time? How did you decide to collaborate with them?

With EYE and OORUTAICHI it will be the first time, but we always wanted to do something. TOSHIO KAJIWARA is a director / musician for BABY-Q so we've been collaborating lately. He is the best as a DJ. As for MOOCHY, I know his music from clubs. He is a very sensitive musician. Staffs at YCAM and I looked over and over again for deciding the members. They all have their own world and they all are well-known in the province area. As for TOSHIO KAJIWARA, he's the only unknown, I wanted to share his experience in New York and his music sense with all.


What's your upcoming plan?

As BABY-Q, we will perform our latest work at Kichijoji Theater on August 7-9, at Ai Hall in Hyogo on August 28-30, and the new work tours to Dusseldorf, Munster and Berlin, Germany. We also perform ALARM! for CODA INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL in Norway.


Yoko Kemumaki dance session "ALL LOVES YOU!"
Date: June 27th, 2009 Opens/Starts at 18:00
Place: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] / Studio A
Address: 7-7 Nakazono-cho, Yamaguchi
TEL: +81-83-901-2222
Admission: Advanced tickets 2,300 yen; "any" members & special discounts 1,800 yen - Tickets at the door 2,800 yen
Performed and directed by Yoko Kemumaki (Yoko Higashino)
Live /DJ: EYE (BOREDOMS / V∞REDOMS), JUZU a.k.a. MOOCHY (NXS / CROSSPOINT), OORUTAICHI, KAJIWARA TOSHIO (DJ BING), HARUCHIKA (people)
VJ: rokapenis Decoration: OLEO Lighting: YAMACHANG
http://www.ycam.jp


Text: Mariko Takei

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