The Japanese artist Tastuo Uemon Ikeda said about his performance with Janet Park: “I dreamt to be a butterfly, and fly away without the cares of daily life…”
Text by: Annarosa Laureti
Starting from an anecdote by Zhuāngzǐ – a Chinese philosopher and mystic existentialist, born in 369 BC and died in 286 BC circa – and remembering a recurring dream, Tastuo Uemon Ikeda, alongside the American performer and dancer Janet Park, creates the live performance “The Butterfly Dream in the Web”.
The appointment is tomorrow at Macro Asilo in Rome, the artist’s adopted city, where, for the very first time the performance will take place on a multipurpose-built stage. Conceived as a jazz improvisation, inside the installation that Ikeda will create knotting a fil rouge of wool and silk, the dancer will convert herself in a real butterfly… and this new creature, following the steps of an ancient dance, will look for its freedom from the spider’s web. (These are some archive photos to get an idea of this not-to-miss event!)
As Ikeda said, with this show, he wants to “wake up our memories of a common childhood” and that is why the web installation is conceived as something to interact with during the performance itself, also if you are “simply” spectators or visitors in the museum.
The performance spins more than one “web”, intertwining together the Japanese, Italian and British cultural threads at social and institutional level. Curated by InEvoluzionet and studio Elena Francia Gabriele EFG Art Ltd (London), indeed, it has been designed under the patronage of the Italy Japan Foundation and the Japanese Cultural Institute.
“The Butterfly Dream in the Web”
Museum of Contemporary Art Rome, Macro Asilo
Via Nizza 138, Rome
November 16, 4pm – 6pm
