Min Tanaka: body dances the dance

This paper was presented at the Symosium for "Where the Image meets the body : performing images in Butoh and other dance forms" held at the Centre for Theatre and Performance Studies, Monash University, Clayton Campus, 3-4 November 2011.

In January 2010, Japanese dancer Min Tanaka performed a dance act at the National School of Drama, New Delhi, India during its annual International Theatre Festival. Tanaka’s site specific performance triggered this researcher’s enthusiasm towards the notion of “body image” and “intercorporeality” (Scheilder 1970, Tiemersma 1989, Merleau-Ponty 1962) in dance and other corporeal disciplines. As Tanaka explains, his body dances as he moves. It is a series of body movements and images he executes throughout his performance. These bodily images are not pre-arranged or choreographed and cannot be repeated as conventional dance performance. Thus Tanaka’s work should be understood and interpreted through phenomenological inquiries conducted in dance theory (Fraleigh 1986, Sheets-Johnston 1966, Parviainan 1998, 2003, Klemola 1991). These epistemologies of dance theories illuminate the value of pre-rational levels of dance experience in the body. This presentation of Min Tanaka’s interview explores the importance of the body images and their relationship with the lived experience of the performer.

['Where the Image meets the body : performing images in Butoh and other dance forms (2011 : Monash University, Clayton.)']