Nanako Nakajima in Conversation with Yvonne Rainer

Abstract

‘Nanako Nakajima in Conversation with Yvonne Rainer’ was the document used during the lecture-conversation event that was held on 28 January 2019. Nakajima's innovative project ‘Performative Exhibition of Yvonne Rainer's Work’ was held at the Kyoto Art Theater (Shunjuza) from 11 - 15 October 2017 in collaboration with the postmodern choreographer and filmmaker, Yvonne Rainer, a co-founding member of the Judson Dance Theater in New York. Nakajima examines how various dramaturgies related to ageing and dance were interwoven into this exhibition in order to go beyond the typical dance presentation in a museum. Moreover, to reverse the current ‘dancing museum’ trend, this project revived the postmodern works of Rainer and combined their dramaturgical qualities with those of the traditional Japanese theatre for the purpose of connecting the past with the present. Nakajima explained her attempt to utilise archival materials to represent the postmodern oeuvre to the audience in Kyoto. She reconstructed stage sets and props of Rainer's legendary piece to demonstrate the working process on stage. Professional dancers of different ages and with varied training backgrounds were also employed to re-perform Rainer's seminal work of Trio A, including a Noh performer in his 80s. Inspired by the Noh performer in Trio A and Yvonne Rainer's Trio A Geriatric Version, Nakajima built up a dance dramaturgy and spectatorship of ageing, engaging with the premise of Trio A and the aesthetics of the Noh theatre. Nakajima's lecture was followed by a conversation with Yvonne Rainer, which revealed the condition and aesthetic prejudice of dancers regarding ageing in the American postmodern dance context that Rainer had been confronting. Rainer also discussed her private stories with the legends of American modern dance such as Ruth St Denis and Martha Graham by continuously returning to her own past and allowing her past to return to her.