Big In Japan! — Dancing About Architecture

5/9/11 9:56 AM

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DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE architecture, dance, photography

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Yuko Kamei’s images provide a meeting point for the motion and temporality of dance and thefreezing of movement and time that characterizes photography. Focusing on release-based
techniques and contact improvisation, she had spent many years training in classical ballet,
martial arts including aikido and capoeira, and modern dance schools of Limón andCunningham before she moved into photography.
“Initially I was working with video,” she says, “but my works gradually became short andlooped, and finally settled in a photographic space.” This photographic space she conceives offunctions as a stage for exploring the interaction between bodies and built environments. In
2009 she took to the new ‘burbs of Tokyo for her Brand New Town series (above), intervening
the excessively paved and planned lifeless streets by walking through them, armed (legged?)with wooden stilts.
Prior to that her in the grid project (below) focused on the ubiquitous straight lines of urban
spaces with the lines of the human body. “I think both human body and architecture areintentional constructions which reflect our ideals,” she says. “The built environment regulates
how we move and behave, but at the same time we can be active and creative in utilising thestructure. The simple presence of a human body can bring up numerous unexpected aspects ofany given space.”

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Big In Japan! — Dancing About Architecture

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Yuko’s most recent series (below) has focused on the movement of balance, which she defines
as a continuous adjustment between structure and gravity. The act of balancing requires you toget the right alignment and then settle on it, allowing your attention to travel outwards. “Youcan see what is out there while the body anchors you where you are,” she says, “and I think
the experience of looking at the photographs is similar – you see what the body does, then lookat the space around it and come back to the body again, making connections in between. Thebody continues to balance in the same position while the viewer’s eyes travel across thesurface, and the brief moment of performative action expands as long as the viewer’s attention
exists.”Yuko is currently completing a one-year residency at Tokyo Wonder Site.
All images copyright Yuko Kamei:
1. Brand New Town, Mogusaen, Japan, c-type print, 2009.
2. Brand New Town, Higashimurayama 2, Japan, c-type print, 2009.

http://biginjapan.com.au/2010/08/dancing-about-architecture/

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Big In Japan! — Dancing About Architecture

5/9/11 9:56 AM

3. in the grid_#2, silver gelatin print, 2008.
4. in the grid_#3, silver gelatin print, 2008
5. in the grid_#4, silver gelatin print, 2008.
6. Untitled, c-type print, 2009.
7. Untitled, c-type print, 2009.
Posted by amelia groom 5:58 PM, August 9th, 2010 0 comments

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