Perspective Emotion - To an Unknown Horizon
By Chie Mukai

Perspective Emotion (hereafter PE) is a mixed media art festival first
proposed by me, Chie Mukai. It's taken place each year since 1998,
always over a two-day period. About 30 artists active in music, dance,
performance, video, fine arts, recitation, etc., are pre-selected by an
executive committee. On the festival day, combinations of artists are
decided by lottery, and the selected artists carry out an improvised
performance in a fixed time period. This is a two-part event: the first
part is the repeated alternation of lottery and performance, and the
second part is a group improvisation with all of the artists.
The current executive committee consists of Chie Mukai (erhu, voice,
dance), Raita Ishikawa (fine arts, sound), Yukie Saegusa (performance),
and Jun Manjome (dance, video). Up to now the festival has been held
nine times at venues like Wenz Studio in Nishiogikubo and the Hosei
University Student Center Hall [both in Tokyo]; and twice at Les Voutes
in Paris.
I thought of starting this festival in summer 1998, on my second visit
to Tokyo. I saw the MMAC Festival (directed by Mixed Media Art
Communications, whose representative is Kyo Hoshino) at Westend Studio
in Nakano, and decided I'd like to put on this kind of festival, too. I
got in touch with Raita Ishikawa and others, and we decided to hold the
first edition that December at Wenz Studio in Nishiogikubo.
The most distinctive aspect of PE is the improvisational process used to
select the combinations of artists. The results are otherwise
unimaginable combinations, and performances that far exceed
expectations. Never knowing who will perform together, or when, keeps
everything unsettled and unpredictable and opens up new possibilities
for the artists.
The subtitle, "To an Unknown Horizon," is the real aim of PE. A horizon
that no one has yet reached--the amplification of energy yielded by
chance combinations and invisible connections between individual
artists' performances--brings about the emergence of a new sort of
time-space. It's psychedelic; it rocks the listener's soul. It becomes a
force that pulls along not just the art scene, but the whole world. And
it's the true mission of the avant-garde artist.
Since 2001, the executive committee has been holding a workshop
(hereafter WS) for improvisational expression, using the same procedure
as for PE. The interesting thing about both the PE performances and WS
is that even people who have never met can easily find a mutual
connection through expression. When people open themselves up and
honestly express what they want to do at that moment in time--even when
several dozen people perform at once--the result is never mere
confusion. What emerges is a naturally harmonious anarchism. The same
could probably be said to happen in society.
The watchword of WS is "No genres! No technique! No borders!" Expression
is possible even without polished technique. People who come to watch
have ended up performing; people who make sound have started dancing;
dancers have vocalized and made sounds. Is it dance or performance?
Music or dance? Expression that isn't categorized is original and
interesting. Genres are transcended effortlessly and borders dissolve
naturally. This is just the kind of expression we have in mind. Come to
WS and PE and experience it for yourself!

The 10th edition of Perspective Emotion will be held on December 29 and
30, 2009, at Westend Studio (http://www.studio-life.com/westend/) in Nakano!

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