DANCE NEW AIR 2020

　In Japan, dance is taught as part of physical education in schools. For the purpose of good health, students dance to music with purity, correctness, and beauty. In Volume One of the current series, I dealt with the history of women’s physical education since the Meiji era and Kazuo Ohno, while in Volume Two I dealt with the phantom Tokyo Olympics of 1940 and the craze for physical exercise. It is undeniable that the Japanese tend to cultivate a collective nature in their education and pretend not to see the free expression of the individual. Physical education in-particular has come to have an influence on the body, through to the whole of thought. As the sportification of dance advances alongside sport-centered physical education, and as the division between those who pursue an outstanding physique and those who watch on as spectators continues to grow, I think it is time for each of us to once again face our own bodies. Dance will finally be an official event at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but it was never supposed to be about competition; dance should be a means to mutually recognize the differences between us. Never intended as something to be judged on the basis of merit, since when did dance become the pursuit of a select few? And who can determine superiority or inferiority, and based on what standard? A jury? The market? The media? The world? Who exactly is that?

　In this, the third installment of the series, I examine the future of humanity, which is abandoning not only dance but also the body itself. From plastic surgery and other forms of bodily transformation to the rise of 2.5-dimensional musicals and cosplay, we see a modern culture that desires to transform itself into something else and deny its true self as a result. Is that really something to be happy about? There is certainly potential in avatars and virtual reality, but doesn’t anyone think it is all something we, or humans, have created? Each of our bodies is connected to the stars in the universe, and that is precisely why life is irreplaceable in all its iridescence. 13.8 billion years of memories lie dormant in our cells and DNA, and dance was originally something like the act of tracing those memories and bringing them back into existence. That is why dance has persisted without interruption since before the birth of letters. Thought is only possible in this body. Let’s think together starting from our own bodies. What can only be achieved in a live setting, using this body? Where is dance heading? This special edition takes you on a cosmic journey in a planetarium.