“Japanese Contemporary Dance Media 2005” Exhibition

Oct. 1—Nov. 13, 2005

• Oct. 1—Nov. 13, 2005
• Closed Monday(if Monday is a national holiday or a substitute holiday, it is the next day)
• Admission：Adults ￥800／College Students ￥700／High School and Junior High School Students,Over 65 ￥600

The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography marks its tenth anniversary in 2005 with a variety of large-scale exhibitions drawn together under the banner of the 10th Anniversary Commemorative Season. This exhibition examines the body, that most familiar object, as an important medium of modern expression and focuses on the hot topic of contemporary dance in the first such exhibition to be held by an art museum in Japan.
The contemporary dance movement first materialized in the 1980s and continued to develop through the 90s to the present, expanding its territory as it crisscrossed the boundaries of drama, art and subculture. Contemporary dance pieces with their distinctive physiques and profusion of expressive techniques demonstrate an amazing breadth of content, from the relaxed laughter and banality of the daily routine to the accumulated stresses and unavoidable questions of life, death and love. Indeed, the contemporary dance repertoire is broad enough for us to consider it a kind of documentary with the body as its subject.
The Exhibition Gallery features installations designed to stimulate the body, the senses and eisthesis produced by three major contemporary dance companies in Japan. The fierce individuality that characterizes these groups is amply demonstrated by their members in organic group work which, together with pieces designed to provoke interaction between the audience and the performer, promises to deliver innovative and intriguing angles on the relationship between self and other, individual and society.
The exhibition period will feature live performances, visual media displays, talks and other events in various locations throughout the museum: disparate activities linked by the common theme of the body. The body resonates or recoils of its own accord, the quickening heartbeat resounding and remaining as an echo within these walls, by turns an enriching soundtrack to everyday life and a striking chord that pierces through to the very bones. Forging our way through slippery realities, this heartbeat is a vital source of strength.