60_minutes performance with
AKI TAKASE – PIANO
AYAKO KATO – DANCE
22 July | start about 20:00 | Studio 2, Mime Centrum Berlin
as a part of FREEDOM : FORM : FRIENDSHIP evening starting at 19:30
AKI ::: Continuity – Acceleration – Variety – but no Sentimentality
AYAKO ::: Stillness – Gravity – Infinity – with natural Sensibility
The pianist and composer Aki Takase has been recently awarded “The Jazzpreis Berlin 2018”.
Aki Takase, born in Japan in 1948, experienced her international breakthrough in 1981 at the Jazzfest Berlin. In 1987, the musician moved to Berlin, where she has been significantly co-shaping the music scene ever since with a pronounced international impact.
From the jury statement: “The freedom of the artistic means and tools was and is an essential feature of the many different bands and projects in which Aki Takase is involved. Freedom and form are not opposites for Aki Takase, but interconnected levels of her music, which also captivates with its own sense of humor – beyond any showmanship.”
Some of her recent projects are:
„Klang und Texte “ („Reading and Music“ performance) w/ Yoko Tawada
“CADENZA“ Duo Performance w / Yui Kawaguchi (dance)
„Ensemble Sonne“ Contemporary Dance Company w / Toshiko Oka “Das fliegende Klassenzimmer“
CD „Cherry-Sakura“ with David Murray / „The German Record Critics Award” (2017/2)
„Japanic“ with Daniel Erdmann, DJlllvibe, Johannes Fink, Dag Magnus Naversen
„Da Capo“ Music and Dance Project with Louis Sclavis, DJlllvibe, Yui Kawaguchi, Kofie de Vibe
Ayako Kato is an award-winning Chicago-based dancer, choreographer, improviser, teacher and curator originally from Yokohama, Japan. Influenced by a Japanese view of nature and the philosophy of Tao, Ayako embodies the intangible, the beauty of being as it is, as “The Way” of nature. Since 1998, she has been an artistic director of Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape (AUH) and has presented her works in the United States, Japan, and Europe, including performances with over 60 renowned music improvisers. In winter 2018, as the part of the 20th-anniversary projects of her company, she actualized 30 pages (4 hours) of 4000 page score “stück 1998” written by Swiss Wandelweiser composer Manfred Werder through movement and sound through Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellowship 2017. For her fearless and radical experimentation, she was selected for the Players 2018: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago by Newcity Stage 2018, 3Arts Award 2016 in Dance, a Meier Achievement Award 2016.
Her vision of movement is based on somatic awareness mainly through her studies of dance anatomy under Irene Dowd since 2007 and Chinese meridians. Her freestyle dance/movement and choreographic concept have spirally emerged from the training of classical ballet, multiple modern dance techniques/styles, Tai Chi, Noh Theater, and Butoh with master Kazuo Ohno, one of the founders.
This summer, she will be at Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France as an Artist in Residence to research on her next project Ethos. This performance is a part of her European tour project also in France, Switzerland, and Belgium.
www.artunionhumanscape.net
combi-ticket for both sets: 15€ / 10€
tickets reservation: team (at) impro-per-arts.de
venue:
Studio 2, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenstr. 2, 10997 Berlin
2nd floor
photo above: Ayako Kato by William Frederking