Caught in the Air, Tracing the 'Fall'
inkBoat brings brutal physical theater to UCR
Phinn Sriployrung
Issue date: 2/2/10 Section: Entertainment
The sound of crickets chirping in the night grows louder as a spotlight opens up upon a single figure rocking in a chair. Attached to a long sinewy red rope hung from above, he moves slowly with the inhale and exhale of his breath.
He continues in this manner; his limbs reaching, hands clutching the space above him. As time stretches and attentions lapse-
BANG! The chair and the figure fall to the floor. Still attached to the tendon of twisted tied pieces of fabric he feels his way about the floor.
With his quick sporadic clawing of the ground he is more insect than man. He then twists himself around, slowing turning into an amorphous creature; arms and legs stretching up into the air like tentacles.
This is what audiences were treated to in the University Theater this past Friday in a performance by Shinichi Iova-Koga's inkBoat in a piece titled "Milk Traces the Fall." This performance utilized the conventions of Butoh, physical theater, and film to explore the underlying psyche of the body.
The stage is laid out with kimonos hanging above the right of the stage. Beneath them is a chalkboard with lines scratched on them. Bells hang from the chalkboard. To the left is another large coat. In the midst of all this, is a chair, and Iova-Koga tethered to a chord.
Iova-Koga moves about the stage freely, yet never unattached. He hangs, jumps and runs from his entanglement but it always springs him back, slamming and skidding against the floor. Iova-Koga's movements are brutal and concentrated.
The silence punctuated by utterances of noise, of crickets chirping, of disparate chimes, bells, and small gongs ringing, the amplified chalk etching across the board- the creation of alternating soundscapes locate and relocate Iova-Koga's body and positionality.
He moves amongst this cast of "absent" figures of sound and stage, engaged in dialogue with them. As light and sound change, Iova-Koga is transported to the different locations of his inner self.
Iova-Koga moves in and out and around himself; his shifting positionality leaving us transfixed in the moment.
Wherever he goes, wherever he went, in the end it brought him back to the center like a child being cradled by the unknown.
If in the beginning he fell, in the end he has yet to reach the ground. There, hanging by the vine we are caught in unresolved but comforting suspension.
He continues in this manner; his limbs reaching, hands clutching the space above him. As time stretches and attentions lapse-
BANG! The chair and the figure fall to the floor. Still attached to the tendon of twisted tied pieces of fabric he feels his way about the floor.
With his quick sporadic clawing of the ground he is more insect than man. He then twists himself around, slowing turning into an amorphous creature; arms and legs stretching up into the air like tentacles.
This is what audiences were treated to in the University Theater this past Friday in a performance by Shinichi Iova-Koga's inkBoat in a piece titled "Milk Traces the Fall." This performance utilized the conventions of Butoh, physical theater, and film to explore the underlying psyche of the body.
The stage is laid out with kimonos hanging above the right of the stage. Beneath them is a chalkboard with lines scratched on them. Bells hang from the chalkboard. To the left is another large coat. In the midst of all this, is a chair, and Iova-Koga tethered to a chord.
Iova-Koga moves about the stage freely, yet never unattached. He hangs, jumps and runs from his entanglement but it always springs him back, slamming and skidding against the floor. Iova-Koga's movements are brutal and concentrated.
The silence punctuated by utterances of noise, of crickets chirping, of disparate chimes, bells, and small gongs ringing, the amplified chalk etching across the board- the creation of alternating soundscapes locate and relocate Iova-Koga's body and positionality.
He moves amongst this cast of "absent" figures of sound and stage, engaged in dialogue with them. As light and sound change, Iova-Koga is transported to the different locations of his inner self.
Iova-Koga moves in and out and around himself; his shifting positionality leaving us transfixed in the moment.
Wherever he goes, wherever he went, in the end it brought him back to the center like a child being cradled by the unknown.
If in the beginning he fell, in the end he has yet to reach the ground. There, hanging by the vine we are caught in unresolved but comforting suspension.
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