Programme
Permanent Installation, South Terrace: Fujiko Nakaya, London Fog with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani
18.30 South Terrace: Min Tanaka Locus Focus
From 19.00 Tanks foyer and East Tank – Isabel Lewis Occasion
19.10 East Tank: CAMP Four-Letter Film
20.00 South Tank: Lorenzo Senni Echoes (Oracle Version)
21.00 South Tank: Pepa Ubera and Josefina Camus Ellipsis Land
23.00 South Tank: Lorenzo Senni AAT (#16)
The first night of the BMW Tate Live Exhibition begins in Fujiko Nakaya’s immersive fog sculpture interacting with a light and soundscape by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani (Dumb Type).
Min Tanaka performs in dialogue with the fog and wind, dancing his improvisational performance Locus Focus in this open-air host setting. Initiated in 2006, Locus Focus is an ongoing project which abandons the stage in favour of non-theatrical settings including parks, streets, seashores, and fields both in Japan and abroad.
Moving into the Tanks suite, Isabel Lewis hosts the first of six site-specific Occasions, celebratory and sensory gatherings of things, people, plants, music, scents, food, conversation and dance that offer an alternative to the sterility and visual dominance of the traditional exhibition format. Exploring modes of connection and attention, Lewis shapes a sensorial experience that responds to the energies of her guests.
In the East Tank, CAMP’s Four-Letter Film presents an overheard conversation between two women. The film plays out through text displayed via a large-scale, minimum-bandwidth LED structure.
In the South Tank, Lorenzo Senni premieres two new live electronic music sets deconstructing the euphoric culture and emotional mechanisms of trance music. Senni focuses on common visual effects used in club culture: the laser in his first live set, Echoes (Oracle Version), and carbon dioxide canons in the second, AAT (Abstract Advanced Trance)(#16).
Pepa Ubera and Josefina Camus perform their choreographed work Ellipsis Land that addresses the body’s immersion in technology. Using a choreographic language that involves vibrations and repetition, the organic and the artificial, Ellipsis Land explores the body as a container of energy.
About the artists
Min Tanaka (b.1945, Japan)
Min Tanaka is an experimental dancer and choreographer. In 1974 he developed a unique style known as ‘hyper-dance’ which emphasises the psycho-physical unity of the body. He strives to explore the fundamental elements of dance, rather than be confined by the principles of an existing technique. Tanaka’s idiosyncratic solo performances are generally not based on a pre-determined choreography. Instead, they are pure experiments in which he responds to the space’s history, the context of the performance and the audience’s reactions. ‘I dance not in the place; I dance a place’, he has said. In the 1980s, Tanaka secretly infiltrated the former Soviet Union countries to perform as an act of rebellion. In 2006 he began a series of improvisational performances that abandon the stage in favour of ‘every-day life scenes’: parks, streets, seashores, and fields both in Japan and abroad.
Isabel Lewis (b.1981, Dominican Republic)
Since 2009 Isabel Lewis has been investigating the role of artist as host. Her signature Occasions – celebratory and sensory gatherings of things, people, plants, music, and dance – offer an alternative to the sterility and visual dominance of the traditional exhibition format. With the Occasions Lewis creates a more complete, bodily experience for the visitor offering an open situation in which guests may freely enter, exit, and revisit. Exploring modes of connection and attention, Lewis shapes a sensorial experience that responds to the energies of her guests. Her Occasions investigate how the subtle introduction of a word, sound, movement, or scent can shift perception and awaken the importance of being together.
Lorenzo Senni (b.1983, Italy)
Lorenzo Senni (b. 1983, Italy) is an artist and musician known for his conceptual and deconstructionist approach to production within the field of dance music. Using repetition and isolation as key tactics in his production, Senni’s installations and performances deconstruct and almost sadistically subvert various aspects of the typical euphoric trance sound and of the rave culture imaginary that has developed since the early 1990s. He has composed music for film and theatre, in addition to five albums and the most recent Warp Records EP release Persona. Senni also forms part of the power-trio One Circle along with Vaghe Stelle and A:RA, and independently produced a side project titled STARGATE which toured Europe extensively in 2013. As founder of the experimental label Presto!? Records, he has released albums by a number of internationally acclaimed artists including Florian Hecker, Carsten Holler, DJ Stingray, Carl Michael Von Hausswolff, Evol, Gatekeeper, Mattin, Palmistry, and John Wiese.
Pepa Ubera (b.1981, Spain) and Josefina Camus (b.1982, Spain)
London-based dancers and choreographers Pepa Ubera and Josefina Camus have collaborated since 2014. Their performances use video, sound and digital technologies to explore connections between the body and the technological world. Their interdisciplinary work explores ways to enlarge the use of perception and emphasize the performance as a synesthetic experience. Ellipsis Land premiered at Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells, London in 2016.