YCAM Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media

YCAM offers a broad range of contemporary forms of theatre, dance, and other genre-crossing physical expression. With the latest media-technological facilities encompassing imagery, sound, lighting, computers and others, YCAM is one of the best-equipped institutions in Japan. Internationally active artists from various genres produce works "in residence" in collaboration with and supported by the technically trained staff of our "InterLab" production department, making YCAM a place to experience pieces of high-quality performing arts.

Tsuyoshi Shiraishi + YCAM video dance project
"Choreography filmed: 5 days of movement"

Tsuyoshi Shirai (choreographer/dancer)

Date :

2010-08-24 (Tue)–2011-01-31(Thu)

Original video piece co-produced by YCAM
Exploring relevant possibilities of "video and the human body" through live Internet streaming

Continuing our pursuit of new forms of artistic expression focusing on body expression and current film culture, the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] is currently producing the second video (dance) piece since the Center's opening.
Based on the idea behind one of choreographer/dancer Tsuyoshi Shirai's most well-known dance pieces, "mass, slide, &." (first staged in 2004), this project is an attempt to reconstruct the piece into a video in a collaborative process with the YCAM staff and the artist. The half-year-long project includes five days of filming and Internet streaming of all footage, and will culminate in a screening event with the artist, scheduled for January 2011. The idea is to pursue new forms of dance/video expression that emerge in the process from production to presentation from video images of the body, and from the choreographic component in the visual composition. In addition, the project's outline embraces technical aspects of filming and editing, as well as audio-visual environments including issues of distribution and access, with the aim to a examine the relationship between video and dance in the present age.

* The progression of the entire project can be followed via a special website (http://c-filmed.ycam.jp/) that is now open.

Filming & Internet live streaming:
August 24 (Tue) - 28 (Sat) 13:00-20:00
http://c-filmed.ycam.jp/
Performance: Tsuyoshi Shirai(choreographer/dancer)
* Please understand that we might not be able to respond to inquiries on Tuesday, August 24, as YCAM is closed that day.
Screening of a new video piece:
January 23 (Sun) 14:00
Venue: YCAM, Studio C
Guest: Tsuyoshi Shirai Admission free

Megumi Nakamura & Yasuyuki Shuto dance performance

Date/Time :

2010-10-03 (sun)14:00 start

Venue :

Studio A /

Admission :

(Free seating) *Tickets available from July 3
【Advanced tickets】¥3,000
"any" members & special discounts ¥2,700 / Under 26 ¥2,000
【Tickets at the door】 ¥3,500

Buy Ticket(Japanese)

Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Tickets Information［YCAM］: +81-83-920-6111

Artistically and technically distinguished dancers from Japan and abroad provide hints for defining contemporary dance and its fascination

This performance focuses on the technically advanced and artistically diverse skills of physical expression of dancer/choreographer Megumi Nakamura and dancer Yasuyuki Shuto. Building their careers on a solid foundation of Classical ballet under such internationally renowned masters of choreographers as Jirí Kylián and Maurice Béjart respectively, both Nakamura and Shuto have vaulted their acquired techniques into spheres of truly unique art. Their works highlight the beauty of dance itself while hinting at the diversity and potential of artistic expression, inviting the viewer to explore the creative nature of studying and experiencing dance and other forms of body expression, and ponder the meaning of originality, stringency and reality in the realm of dance. Here are two artists who have come to make something as seemingly unintelligible as contemporary dance accessible to a broad audience.
* A talk session with the performers is planned as related event.
Hiroaki Umeda performance (new piece)

Hiroaki Umeda (choreographer/artist)

Date/Time :

2011-02-19 (sat)19:00 start
2011-02-20 (sun)14:00 start

Venue :

Studio A /

Admission :

(Free seating)
【Advanced tickets】¥2,800 / “any” members & special discounts ¥2,500 / Under 26 ¥2,000
【Tickets at the door】 ¥3,300
* Tickets available on December 4

Buy Ticket(Japanese)

Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Tickets Information［YCAM］: +81-83-920-6111

Production and presentation of a new dance piece at YCAM
Designing a stage by means of dance and technology

Featured this time in our performing arts program is Hiroaki Umeda, a choreographer/artist who takes charge of everything from sound to lighting and imagery used in the pieces he performs. Together with YCAM's technical staff, he takes an experimental approach to the process of choreography encompassing the development of ideas and direction, to ultimately complete and unveil a brand new work. Modeled around the style of Europe-based Umeda's worldwide activities, the piece is going to test the mobility of a stage production, and explore the creative potential and portability through media of performances that change with the environment. While basically belonging to the category of performing arts, it will be a comprehensive work that integrates elements of installation and video, and focuses at once on spatial construction and the human body. The result is expected to offer a variety of innovative possibilities for the positions of choreographers, dancers and engineers alike.
(In-residence production period: starting in September 2010)

* In a post-performance talk session on 9/19 (Sat), the artists will talk about the new piece's main points of appeal. On 9/20 (Sun), the "After Hour Cafe" will provide a casual setting for a drink, exchange of opinions, and meeting with the artist after the performance.
New video dance by Tsuyoshi Shirai

Date :

2011-01-22 (sat)–2011-01-23 (sun)

Focusing on dance and other forms of body expression by way of video Volume two in YCAM's original video dance production & screening series

In this second installment, choreographer/dancer Tsuyoshi Shirai will make use of YCAM's technology and creative environment to realize a new video dance piece. Through a filmed version of one of his most well-known works, "mass, slide, &." (2004), Shirai redefines dance from a viewpoint that differs from a conventional stage production, while exploring the refined and dynamic movements of the human body.
In addition to this new work, the program of this screening event will also include a video dance piece by Hiroaki Umeda, whose performance is scheduled for February, as well as Saburo Teshigawara's video dance piece Friction of Time - Perspective Study vol.2, which was produced at YCAM back in 2008.
Chelfitsch performance (new piece)

Date :

2011-03-13 (sun)

Time :

14:00 start

Admission :

(Free seating）
【Advanced tickets】¥2,800 / "any" members & special discounts ¥2,500 / Under 26 ¥2,000
【Tickets at the door】 ¥3,300
* Tickets available on January 8

Buy Ticket(Japanese)

Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Tickets Information［YCAM］: +81-83-920-6111

The company presents their newest piece at YCAM
Beyond the "real" connection between language and body

Having received among others the Kishida Kunio Drama Award for "Five Days in March", a theatre piece that was staged at YCAM in 2007, Toshiki Okada keeps exerting an immeasurable influence on the current performing arts scene as a playwright and stage director. His pieces combining dialogues symbolic of today's youth culture with somewhat noisy physical exaggerations of daily routine are highly regarded in theatre circles and various other fields. With the performance of this long-awaited new piece, Okada considers a further development beyond the "real" kind of artistic expression he has established as a means to examine the contemporary relationship between body and language. * After the performance, the artist will appear in a talk session introducing the piece's main points of appeal.
* In conjunction with the performance, a workshop with playwright and director Toshiki Okada is scheduled for 3/6 (Sun).