EMAKI-TIGER-DRAGON at Baroom Club Tokyo with Mark de Clive-Lowe, Mahina-Ina Kingi-Kaui and Daniel Belton, October 13th 2024.
For the Tokyo audience this meant that our three pieces became thematically bound in their aesthetics, sound language and conceptual thread - emphasising the human relationship to nature through dance film with live music.
The works inter-relate across de Clive-Lowe’s captivating music scores, connecting Belton’s film design visuals. EMAKI represents the first Good Company Arts collaboration with a Japanese artist (dancer Meri Otoshi) in 2016-17. The evolution of EMAKI this year with de Clive-Lowe playing solo piano/electronics (his Kodama Shade and Mizugaki compositions), enabled a reworking of the original film which highlights Japan’s megalithic site - Masuda no Iwafune (Rockship of Masuda). Belton deployed new motion graphics created by Jac Grenfell, that similarly appear in our TIGER (Silver-Lotus) and DRAGON cinema works of 2022/2024, deepening the Aotearoa-Japan cohesion for this triple bill.
To bring Kingi-Kaui to play live taonga pūoro in the jazz club with de Clive-Lowe was a mesmerising first for the Japanese audience. Live keyed film projection, live piano and electronics with taonga pūoro took flight inside the exquisite Baroom Club. To have Idiot Savant Theater Company in-house on the night and feel the aroha from Japanese public was very special. Ngā mihi nui Mahina and Lavinia Kingi-Kaui, Donnine Harrison, Mizuhito Kuroda, all our Japanese friends and team. Big thanks to Mark de Clive-Lowe for arranging this event and making it possible - also to Yuki Tamai of DubLab and the Baroom Club crew for their excellent partnership. Ngā mihi nui for your awesome support Tui Tuia Learning Circle (NZ) and Creative New Zealand toi Aotearoa.
“It’s been such a pleasure for me to contribute to both Tiger and Dragon as short film projects, but even more special to bring them to life for a live audience along with Mahina and Daniel. With so much of the inspiration and intention for both pieces leaning into Japanese culture and folklore, bringing the live presentation to Tokyo felt like a real full-circle moment for the project and a great step in our collaborative process together. Being invited to reimagine Emaki’s soundtrack with my own compositions to open our live triptych was a perfect addition and I’m excited to see where we take our collaboration next!” Mark de Clive-Lowe
https://vimeo.com/dbel/dragon-live-tokyo
https://vimeo.com/dbel/tiger-livetokyo
https://vimeo.com/dbel/emaki-livetokyo
"Thankyou for showing me something so wonderful! You took me from BAROOM in Minami Aoyama to a place further away from the Earth I don't know. The mysterious music, live performance and video work put me in a healing trance. Thankyou for letting me know about the amazing performance!" Haruka Tomozawa (audience member)
