Impro. (インプロ, 2015)

In the heart of Tokyo, a crew is setting up for this unusual shoot.  Gear is unpacked from the back of a car, and a kitchen space with a hardwood floor is temporarily cleared of its clutter.  Meanwhile, microphones and cameras are set up outside.  Make-up is applied to the dancer (Masumi Endo).  Traffic noise and the sounds of nature are caught on the microphones outside. 

With the space clear, and the performer ready, the sound of a dripping tap (shown in close-up) gives the opening beat for the improvisational dance performance to begin.  The sounds of Tokyo: crickets, jungle crows, whirring of a Japan post motorcycle, latches and windows opening, a gas stove-top being lit, footprints, become the soundtrack to which the dancer dances.

Although the film is called Impro. (short from improvisation), and gives the impression that the dancer is responding to live sounds (cars starting, traffic signals, shop workers’ greetings, trains, etc.) as the sound crew travels the city streets, this is clearly a planned and edited production.  It gives the impression of the dancer responding spontaneously to the sounds of the city, but this is a carefully woven illusion.  The result is an ode to a day in the life of Tokyo, from dawn to dusk, with the dancer working herself up into a crescendo of as the sounds of night life increase.  Finally, a moment’s respite.  A new day dawns on the green space next to a river, the dancer pauses to catch her breath.  A living, breathing member of this vibrant community. 

Impro. was co-directed by Keisuke Nishizaki (西崎啓介) and Tomomi Okamura (岡村知美) of Tokyo Eizo Brig. (東京映像旅団).  Both graduates of the College of Art at Nihon University, Nishizaki is a director, illustrator and animator while Okamura calls herself an independent motion graphic director.  Learn more about them on tumblr.

This film screened at Oberhausen 2015.

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes

Cornelis (コルネリス, 2008)

©Ayaka Nakata

The great Scottish-Canadian experimental animator Norman McLaren once said that “every film is a kind of dance.” For him, being an animator was like “being a dancer at second-hand.” His love of dance expressed itself metaphorical as in his abstract interpretations of music in films like Boogie Doodle (1948) and Begone Dull Care (co-directed by Evelyn Lambart, 1949). He also explored the possibilities of choreographed dance on film by shooting real dancers in his breathtakingly beautiful 1968 film Pas de deux. In Pas de deux, McLaren was able to create beautiful shapes by overlapping frames of the ballet dancers in motion using step-and-repeat printing on an optical printer.

I was reminded of Pas de deux when watching Ayaka Nakata’s 2008 drawn animation Cornelis, a film that explores the possibilities of contemporary dance when the human figure is free from the restraints of gravity and the limitations of human movement. The film begins with a male figure dressed in red against a greyish beige background accompanied by ominous, suspenseful music by Kaoru Ura (浦馨). The figure, Cornelis, looks directly at the camera, raises his finger to his mouth and says “Shhh” several times. Soon his body begins to interpret the music in a contemporary style of dance.

The essence of contemporary dance caputured in drawn animation.  ©Ayaka Nakata

Not only is Cornelis able to defy gravity and float, back arched, through the air, but his jacket slips on and off his body as if it too has come alive in order to dance. This impression is then justified when the jacket transforms into a white Doppelgänger of Cornelis and the two figures begin to dance with each other. The dance then moves into a repetition and variation sequence with clothes seamlessly coming off and transforming into new versions of Cornelis. When this sequence concludes there are five versions of Cornelis in red – but with differing heights and stances – standing in a row staring at the camera. The music, which predominantly features a piano, increases in both volume and tempo as these five versions of Cornelis begin to dance. This dance sequence becomes quite spectacular as Nakata experiments with different shapes and movements of the five figures including a pentagram and a cube.  My favourite moment is when their bodies  lose the restraints of a human skeletal structure and begin floating in the air like carp swimming in a pond. The dance ends with only one version of Cornelis remaining, floating in a tucked position with his shadow on the floor beneath him.

Although the animation is a mere three minutes long, it leaves a lasting impression. Nakata has both managed to capture the nuances of the human body engaged in contemporary dance – not an easy feat to do smoothly with hand drawn animation – while at the same time taking advantage of the possibilities of the animation medium to transform the dance into a surreal exploration of shape, form, space, and movement.

Ayaka Nakata (中田彩郁, b. 1983 in Saitama) is a graduate of Tokyo Zokei University. Upon graduation in 2007 she started working for Animation Staff Room. She designs and animates TV commercials and independent animation. Cornelis was a Jury Recommended Work at the 12th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2008 and went on to win awards at festivals across Japan.

Filmography

2004 The Day When a Clicking-its-Tongue Bird Appeared
          (舌打ち鳥が鳴いた日, 4’46”)

2005 The Needlework Room of Grandma (おばあちゃんの作業部屋, 2’54”)

2007 Kikimimi Act Two: Mirrors (聞耳 第2幕 鏡, 3’22”)

2008 Cornelis (コルネリス, 3‘18“)

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Kei Oyama's Hand Soap
Top Animated Shorts of the Decade

Atamayama - Animation by Koji Yamamura on DVD

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Animal Dance (アニマルダンス, 2009)

 Opening titles

Nippon Connection is starting tomorrow and I’m excited about all the animated shorts I will be able to watch at events like Digista Vil. VIII, DOME Animation Special, and Open Art Animation. Thanks to NHKOnline and YokohamaArtNavi, I have already seen a number of the shorts, including Ryo Okawara’s Animal Dance (アニマルダンス, 2009), but nothing beats the pleasure of seeing films projected on the big screen together with an audience.

Okawara (大川原亮, b. 1986) is a graduate of Tamabi’s Graphic Design programme. Together with Masaki Okuda and Yutaro Ogawa, Okawara co-directed the short animation Orchestra (オーケストラ, 2008, 6’40”) which is also featured at YokohamaArtNavi. He has also directed another short film called Insomniac (2009, 2’30”).

 The visuals are beautiful in their simplicity & attention to detail.

Sometimes student works seem clumsy, but Okawara’s films are all very professionally crafted. One does get a sense of an artist at the beginning of his career through the way in which his films play with combining visually intriguing animation with music. Animal Dance is a hand-drawn animated short (black charcoal on an orange background) synchronized with a piano score composed by Ayoan Igokah (アヨアン族イゴカー).

The black flecks that dance on the orange background give the film the appearance of being an old 16mm handmade film, but the film was edited using Photoshop and Aftereffects. In its design, Okawara’s animation gives a nod to early experimental animation. This is created through a combination of a minimalistic black on orange graphic design with the playful music inspired by Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 14. The film score is very similar to the kind of piano scores that would accompany early Hollywood and European movies.

 

The visual themes of the film are that of transformation and evolution. One of my favourite moments is when a black dot transforms into an egg, which then develops a small fish inside it, which then comes out of the egg and joins to others swimming in a river. The scene wipes to a new one using the mouth of an alligator. This short sequence is just one example of how expertly Okawara transitions from one concept to the next throughout the film.

Okawara captures the same visual simplicity and dynamism of 

McLaren's Hen Hop (above) in Animal Dance (below).

I see this film as a nod to the early animators – like Norman McLaren, Len Lye, and Oskar Fischinger – who transformed our understanding of the relationship between music and animation. I was particularly reminded of Norman McLaren’s Hen Hop (1942), which also uses minimalistic animation against an orange background (though the reverse orange on blue is also used) set to a song. . .  and even featuring an egg (albeit that of a chicken). For me, Animal Dance, is animation pared down to its basics. A real visual treat.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010