Hommage à Georg Büchner

This work is a performance art piece that merges avant-garde dance with contemporary classical music, dedicated to Büchner (Created/Directed by Hiroyuki Oda). Inspired by the concrete poem of the same title by sociologist Masayuki Okahara, this work explores the theme of “emotion”. Büchner’s literature had a strong influence on later German expressionism. This art movement, which emphasized inner emotion, gave rise to German Expressionist dance, which in turn influenced Japanese Butoh, and has further reshaped contemporary dance through Pina and others. Standing on the shoulders of giants from the East and the West, the dancer Akari Takahashi choreographed and starred in this work. The music was composed by Megumi Mori using the vibraphone, which Berg, who composed “Wozzeck”, used for the first time in classical history in “Lulu”, as the keynote instrument, and was composed with both Japanese and Western instruments. Jealousy, fear, anger... Humans are beings that relate to each other and live affects (emotions) in society. The dancers live their emotions through their bodies in a musical space that is emotion itself. Art transcends the cultural boundaries between the East and the West, reaching, connecting and spreading.