COLLABORATIONS

Pieces in which Minako is/has been taking part

ZERO

Collaboration with Yumiko Yoshioka, Wolfgang Piontek, Peter Piontek and Commedia Futura – Eisfabrik.

 

At the still point of the turning world … there the dance is, says T.S Eliot.

ZERO, crisis, turning point. We don’t start with answers, but with questions – and, as it is often the case, we end up in the midst of the upheavals of the present. ZERO is a journey to shutdown – a journey to personal zero points and crises, as well as to the great threats of our time, which can be the end, but also a new beginning.

Commedia Futura had the first idea for this new project with Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka, a year before the corona crisis. So it was not this virus that formed the main plot of our work, but the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, the two dancers are Japanese. The atomic bombs have literally burned out the Japanese collective soul and shaped their childhood, as the shadows of World War II hovered over the childhood of those born in Germany in the 1950s.

But that is only one pole of this work. ZERO in the sense of Japanese Ku stands for the idea of ​​nothing, of emptiness as possibility and potency. Our piece oscillates between these poles and develops in a circle, like the dance of life cycle.

With ZERO, COMMEDIA FUTURA is continuing its artistic collaboration with the dancers and choreographers Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka, which began in 2017 with the successful production TWO, which caused sold-out performances in the EISFABRIK Hannover and Dock 11 in Berlin and among others at the TANZtheater INTERNATIONAL festival in Hanover and tanztausch Cologne.

 
Choreography / Dance: Minako Seki, Yumiko Yoshioka
Live music: Benjamin Kövener
Regie: Wolfgang A. Piontek
Regie assistant: Sina Thomas, Tabea Below
Dramaturgy: Peter Piontek
Videos: Volker Schreiner
Light design: Wolfgang Denker
Costumes: Mido Kawamura
Administration: Judith Elbeshausen, Deniz Maschmann
Organisation: Achim Bernsee

WE WOMEN

Collaboration with Sol Picó (director), Shantala Shivalingappam, Marta Robles, AdeleMadau, Lina León, and Julie Dassovi

Sol Picó presents a collaborative project on contemporary women, asking herself about the condition of women.It is a collective view of women together with other choreographers: artists with whom they share their profession and concerns and with whom the role of women within the current social structure will be reconsidered. These artists, all with perspectives that come from diametrically opposite cultures but with important points in common, have been crossed through casual encounters that have ended up converging in this project.

These artists, some of which have had to break the prevailing schemes in their cultures of origin, have different styles, techniques and languages, that can even be unknown to her companions, but they all raise the same questions and seek the same answers.

Ways of dancing that combine different techniques and languages ​​unknown among them but united will seek to deepen in a theme that continues in force despite the passage of time: the situation of women in today’s world. A complex subject that opens doors to many questions: What is the historical neglect of a fundamental part of the artistic contribution of women? Why does your legacy disappear ?, Why roads already covered have to be opened again? And perhaps the fundamental question: Why, in times of political correctness in which Western women are constantly reminded that we have equal opportunities, do these questions still arise?
(Source: www.solpico.com)

 

EQUILIBRIO ARCAICO

 

Commissioned by Israel Galván

 

En mi performance uso el equilibrio entre fortaleza y debilidad, tomo el frenético ritmo del flamenco para traerlo a mi terreno, a mi zona cultural y temporal, para dar una interpretación personal y íntima de un lenguaje que admiro.
Inspirada por una poderosa mujer, después de la cual el término mujer tendría que haber cambiado, me siento orgullosa de seguir sus pasos y el fuerte rastro que deja su estrella; un tipo de energía divina que derrama inspiración directamente a mi estómago.
La esencia de su movimiento ancestral se encuentra en el origen; tiene que haber sido formado en un terremoto vibrante. Ira y violencia mezclados en la bateadora. Mientras presiono a máxima velocidad y extrema potencia, empiezo a levitar en un tipo de nueva gravedad.
El peso ya no existe y somos libres en nuestro movimiento, seres transparentes y desnudos.
La carga de nuestra carne y huesos es universal y tu dolor es mi dolor. Puedo sentir tu fiebre, tu mareo, tu fragilidad; pero esto no me impide seguir presionando, es más, me hace fuerte y me convence que estoy en el camino correcto

         Minako Seki.

Regie assistant: Rosabel Huguet

TWO

Collaboration with Yumiko Yoshioka, Wolfgang Piontek, Peter Piontek and Commedia Futura – Eisfabrik.

 

The new creation of Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka follows the traces of the historical development of the Butoh dance in Germany.

In 1987 both dancers came together in Berlin and joined the German dancer delta RA’i to create the first German-Japanese Butoh company called “Tatoeba – Théâtre Danse Grotesque”.

In the Tatoeba group they merged the styles of Dance-Love-Machine and Ariadone, with the influences of the German contemporary dance and the impulse of the creative and wild culture of Berlin. In this way, the Butoh technique was further developed in an intensive exchange with the contemporary expressive forms but without loosing its original intention.

In 1996 the group dissolved to continue their own trajectories. Yumiko Yoshioka and Minako Seki developed their very individual performance aesthetics, which can be identified with the neo and post-butoh practice.

In this year 2017 Yumiko and Minako come together again, to create a new piece. This revival responds to the initiative of the theatre director of the Eis Fabrik Theater in Hannover, Wolfgang Piontek, who wanted to connect the two dancers again. He wants to bring them again into a conversation and contrast their developments of so many years of butoh dance practice.

In their creative research, they worked on ideas like body memory, transformation or aging.

Furthermore, they wanted to analyse their personal relationship, their attachment to their cultural origin and the experience as long career dancers.

On this process, they re-enact old pieces, that they were playing 20 years ago within Tatobea group such as “June hitoe”, “All Moonshine” or “T for Three”.


Choregraphy and dance: Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka

Direction: Wolfgang A. Piontek

Coproduction: Commedia Futura – Eisfabrik

EXISTENCE

Collaboration with Willem Schulz

The human kind fights between two poles:
The instinct to survive and the ability to achieve a peaceful state of being.
Minako Seki’s “Owl” is dedicated to life-determining issues: fear, hope, love, illness and death.

The origin of the piece is a hommage to her early deceased brother, and to her sister who endured a long time fatal disease. Drawing on these experiences Minako Seki (choreography & dance) develops together with Willem Schulz (cello-performance) an equally humorous as profound dance investigation of the vast landscape between life and death, heaven and earth.

The metaphorical imagery of the piece was inspired by an encounter in an abandoned village:

Five young owls, short after they hatched, are crouching on the ground, one on top of the other. They have small, naked bodies, and enormous heads with big dusty eyes, the color of their skin bright pink. The one on the very top instinctively screams in a horrible raspy and piercing tone to be fed: The power of survival and the extreme vulnerability of existence manifest themselves at the same time.

This piece is a walk on the sharp edge between the extremes of life and human condition.
The journey takes us to an insight of existence, which shimmers between consciousness
and the unconscious.

Direction and choregraphy: Minako Seki

Cello and performance: Willem Schulz

Photo credit: Helmut Hergaten

DORO DORO QUARKS

 

Collaboration with Yuko Kaseki

 

An experiment of searching
Atom of word, sound, movement and body
to boil a genesis soup.
Spices of Onomatopée,
Slice of Micro-Copy the Body
Source with Motion and Emotion
Desert in Black hole
Children of Physics, we scream
Re-birth the Words of UR
Hear the Noise of Quarks
Dig the Roots of Sound
Eternal Spinning

In DORODORO Quarks Yuko Kaseki and Minako Seki researching the origin of body, language and dance in their individual history. Since twenty years both dancers from Japan found fruitful ground in Berlin for their passionate works based on avant-garde japanese Butoh and contemporary dance. Worldwide individually recognised for performances, collaborations and workshops both virtuoso artists do refine their works far away from Berlin dance mainstream and secured funding. Now Minako Seki and Yuko Kaseki created their first mutual piece.

Direction / Choreography / Dance: Yuko Kaseki, Minako Seki
Music: Zam Johnson
Light Design / Co-Direction: Marc Ates

2010

 Photo credits: Roger Rossell

WAY TO THE HIDDEN GARDEN

 

Collaboration with Dani Karavan, Yael Karavan, Yuko Kaseki, Shinichi Koga, Sten Rudstrom and Tadashi Endo

 

Site-specific performance created on and with the unique environmental sculpture site by Dani Karavan. Created and performed by Yael Karavan with ADAPT- theatre picture collision at the Sapporo Art Park, Japan 2003.

Collaboration with Zam Johnson

Since 1988, the musician and composer creates unique sound composition for Minako’s dance.

They worked together on many pieces, over more than 30 years.

He composed the music , among others, of Ex Oriente Lux, Schicht, Borderless Split Brain, Human Form1, Dorodoro Quarks, 55 pieces in 55 minutes.

 Website: www.zamjohnson.com

Minako collaborated as well with:

Feridun Zaimoglu, Peter Michael Hamel,  Adam Donen, Elias Cohen, Nullo Facchini, Teatro del Oraculo, Ruta de la Memoria, Sven Vänth, Elliot Sharp, N.U. Unruh (Einstürzende Neubauten), Gustav Gisiger, Uwe Renken, Martin-Karl Wagner, Schiller, Bremer Kammerorchester, Chansook Choi, Mi-Kuni, Ming Poon, Showcase Beat le Mot, She She Pop and Mido Kawamura.