相舞または能の舞が時空間に創り出す明暗から取り出される音楽 演出・演者:三輪万葉 メディア&プログラミング:小島健治

相舞 [I-MY] / Dual Noh Dancing of Vision and Reality
show Japanese | 日本語

概要:『相舞 [I-MY] 』は、日本の古典舞台芸術の能楽「二人静」の舞が作り出す、明暗の視覚データをコンピュータ・アルゴリズムで音楽に変換し、視覚から聴覚の領域に踏み込む実験的なメディア・パフォーマンスを作りだして、「能」の創造性の現代への再現を試みています。

能楽「二人静」あらすじ:正月七日に吉野山の勝手明神の女が、神事のため若菜摘みを命じられ野に出た際に、自分を供養して欲しいという怪しげな女に会います。若菜摘み女は恐ろしさに信じられない思いで神宮に戻ってその話を神職にすると、源義経の愛人だった静御前の霊が若菜摘みの女に取り憑き、女は静御前が勝手明神に奉納した装束をつけて、静御前の過去の思いを語りながら舞い始めます。すると同じ姿の静御前の霊が現れ女と沿うように同じ舞を舞い、二人は舞終わって霊の魂は供養されて消えてゆきます。

技術的な説明:「相舞」は能の舞に使われる言葉で、二人の舞い手がほぼ同じ舞を笛と太鼓と謡のバックで舞います。メディア・パフォーマンス『相舞 [I-MY] 』では、能楽で使われる装束、楽器、音楽、謡は使わず、「二人静」の相舞の部分だけを取り上げ、舞によってつくられる明暗のデジタルデータを、小島健治が開発した「RGB Music」のアルゴリズムで音楽に変換して演奏します。『相舞 [I-MY] 』の舞と音楽は、ビジョンとリアリティの2層で構成されます。第1層のビジョン(幻影)である静御前の霊の舞は、あらかじめ撮影されたビデオ画像のデータから音楽が作られ、バックドロップとして背景に投影されます。これは見える存在ですが、実体はありません。第2層のリアリティ(現実)の若菜摘みの女は、ビジョン(静御前の霊)と同一の舞い手が背景に投影された前面で舞います。こちらは実体のある生きている存在ですが、憑依された人格です。これらは「見える聴覚」「聞こえる視覚」のメタファーとしての表現とも重なる役割を果たしています。第1層と第2層の視覚データはさらにビデオカムを通して、ライブでその場の双方の舞の音楽を全体に重ねて演奏します。背景にプロジェクトされる静御前の霊の舞のビデオには、ビデオの視覚データから作られた音楽と、二人の舞を合わせるための符牒となる意味を持たない言葉が同時に謡われます。また背景のプロジェクションには、能舞台の「松」をシンボル化した表意文字を映し、慶長年間に作られた「二人静」の謡曲本を左から右に流し、「二人静」の能舞台と語りとを象徴化しています。

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Two identical characters, a woman possessed by a spirit and the spirit itself. Two dancers, actually one dancer, "I" and "MY" dance synchronously to the music accompanied by the performer's movements. The performer not only performs dances but also creates music through her movements. Kenji Kojima's program converts music from digital data on the changing light and shadow captured by the performer's movement by the computer algorithm. The rear screen plays algorithmic music and dubs a vocal already created from the video. In the final performance, Kojima's software adds live music from the entire stage through a video camera.

The dance technique is based on the Japanese Noh theater. [I-MY] means dual dancing in Japanese. Noh is a classical Japanese masked drama with dance and music performed since the 14th century. The Noh expression is very slow and quiet. Emotions are conveyed through stylized gestures and sounds of instruments. The gestures and music have a strong sense of unity. This performance explores a strong sense of unity of gestures and music by the performer.

Technical Statement: Two dancers who are vision and reality dance synchronously with the recorded vocal. The music of the performance is created by the performer's motion. The rear screen video and live music (using a live video camera) are composed of digital data by the computer algorithm. The computer program captures the data from 84 divided grids of video images. The program compares the differences in the brightness of the grids, selects the appropriate data by the algorithm, then converts them to musical notes, and plays the notes with MIDI musical instruments. The screening video shows binaries in white squares that indicate the positions of the data of the musical source. Kenji Kojima developed two algorithmic composition applications for a back screening and a live performance (the bottom of this page).

Cultural Statement: The dance technique and the plot are based on the classical Japanese Noh theater. Most of all Noh dramas are ghost stories. A man, a woman, or another creature who died whose spirit is still hanging around in this world, appears and tells his/her sad and regrettable story to a traveling Buddhist monk or a passenger of the country. The [I-MY] was adapted from Noh drama "Futari Shizuka" which was about a village woman possessed by the spirit of "Shizuka" who was a dancer and a lady of the tragic warrior "Yoshitsune".

Performance: Mayo Miwa is a Japanese actress of the classical mask theatre called “Noh”. Noh is a theatrical art form from the 14th century that has been handed down for 650 years and one of the oldest performing arts in Japan. Mayo Miwa majored in Noh theatre at Tokyo University of the Arts, trained at Kanze School and performed as a member of the Kanze theatre troop in Japan. Since moving to New York she has been collaborating with artists from different media, such as contemporary composers, jazz musicians, and video artists, to develop the art of Noh in contemporary forms.

Media & Programming: Kenji Kojima is a media artist. He has been experimenting with the relationships between perception and cognition, technology, music and visual art since early 90’s. He was born in Japan, studied Kita school of Noh singing and dancing when he was adolescence. He moved to New York City in 1980. He painted egg tempera paintings that were medieval art materials and techniques for the first 10 years. His paintings were collected by Citibank, Hess Oil, and others. A personal computer was improved rapidly during the 80's. He switches his artwork to digital. His early digital works were archived in the New Museum - Rhizome, New York. He created RGB Music series, an interdisciplinary work exploring the relation between images and music. His digital art series has exhibited in New York, media art festivals worldwide, including Europe, Brazil, and the online exhibitions by ACM SIGGRAPH and FILE.
Kenji Kojima Resume


Luce I-MY for Live Performance. It distills a music through a videocam.