Program Information

Genre	Dance
Dates	3 May 17:10, 4 May 17:10, 5 May 17:10
Venue	Sumpu Castle Tower Ruins, Sumpu Castle Park
Duration	Aprox. 60 minutes
Language	In Japanese
Seat	Standing-only with a walk-around layout
Choreography	NAKAMA Ayaka
Productionn	NAKAMA Ayaka

For more information, please visit “STRANGE SEED SHIZUOKA” website.

Introduction

Groovy Grave is a new dance piece by NAKAMA Ayaka, a Kobe-based dancer active internationally. The work centers on the following themes: “the end of the body” and “the ideal imposed on a space where such finality occurs”.
Staged at the excavation site of the base of Sumpu Castle keep, where it changed its shape continuously amidst the turbulence of the ever-changing times, such grand themes shall emerge from a dance that embodies a groovy space-time as a phenomenon. In addition to butoh dancer IMA Tenko and actor YAMADA Kota, this piece welcomes an ensemble of dancers selected from applicants. The very moment when their diverse physical expressions connect the past and present, the self and the Other—the bodies of the audiences, who are living the moment, shall together take roles in the phenomena unfolding on the stage.

Director’s profile

NAKAMA Ayaka
NAKAMA Ayaka is a dancer based in Kobe, Japan. She has worked with KUROSAWA Mika, contact Gonzo, and OKADA Toshiki (chelfitsch), among others. She has recently pursued her own practice, in which she seeks out phenomena impossible to call anything but dance, and makes “mechanisms” for sharing the moments when such phenomena arise with others. Her previous works include Freeway Dance, a four-hour solo dance in which she dances in a garden to reenact the memories of others, and The Odoriba Legend, in which she ran a temporary theater built in an empty lot and witnessed its demolition. From 2018 to 2020, she was an associate artist of Dance Box (Kobe). Since 2022, NAKAMA has been a fellow of The Saison Foundation (Tokyo). She was awarded the 16th Kobe Nagata Cultural Award.