Review
Under an Unnamed Flower at the Venice Biennale
Les mémoires enfouies dans les pierres de Aine E. Nakamura à la Biennale de Venise by AMÉLIE BLAUSTEIN NIDDAM was published on Toute La Culture. The following is a translation of the parts of the review.
"We find ourselves, happy few concerned and curious passers-by, sitting on the stone scorched by the day's heat wave – and under the threat of a storm that refuses to burst – around a stage frame. She arrives in a pink kimono and begins by making us laugh with her little steps and her funny voice. But quickly, laughter gives way to astonishment. In this performance that mixes theatre, dance and voice, the artist brings back forgotten stories, melted into wars that have no other name than "the war" "another war."
The performance weaves a silken thread between generations, between families who have lost soldiers or civilians, between ancient and current systems of occupation. Equipped with a military parachute canvas and a few pebbles for decor, the actress slips into an increasingly strange body that nevertheless remains soft. Strange and attractive. She is invaded by voices that possess her, that order her to speak, to tell.
Language is an act that loses all narrative thread. Only she can put the words together to try to make sense of them. Under an Unnamed Flower appears as a manifesto for non-violence. In these quotes and in her movements that take her out of the frame, Aine E. Nakamura comes to seek the gaze of the spectators, she comes to attack us in our good feelings.
Aine E. Nakamura in her ancestral kimono carries, in every strand of silk, someone's memory, and it doesn't matter that she knows their name."
Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia / © Andrea Avezzù
Review
Biennale Teatro 2022
A review Milo Rau e Aine E. Nakamura e il loro manifesto per un teatro democratico e di pace was written by LILIANA TANGORRA on Pane Acqua Culture.net. The following is a translation of the review.
"...From this utopian assumption wanted by Japan after the Second World War, the performer Aine E. Nakamura sets out to define her concept of peace, which does not pertain in a definitive and peremptory phase either to the Japanese nation or to the United States... but to the whole world.
One of the Venetian fields, in this case Campo Santo Stefano, becomes the stage of the delicate hymn that the artist makes to her peace. Aine tells simple stories: a young woman descended from a silk-producing family who loses all her belongings and loved ones to the war, echoed by a voiceover of an elderly Italian woman, who remembers the economic hardships caused from the war. Two women, one oriental and one western, two threads connected by a tradition, that of weaving, a production dear to both Venice and Japan. A site-specific and time-specific performance in which two universal destinies intertwine under a single hymn, a political cry against war and discrimination. Two stories that weave the will for peace in this world. ... A performance that enchanted the casual patrons of an ever-hectic Venice."
paneacquaculture.net
News
Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale - The 50th International Theatre Festival: The Winners of the Call for a site-specific performance. Performances from June 26 until July 3 at 6pm at Campo S. Stefano in Venice.
The Japanese-American performer, singer and composer Aine E. Nakamura and the French performer, dramaturge and photographer Antoine Neufmars are the winners of the Biennale College Teatro grants for site-specific performances. Their projects, conceived for the outdoor spaces of Venice, will be presented at the 50th International Theatre Festival. Aine E. Nakamura's Under an Unnamed Flower is a transborder project - in the words of Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte - "by virtue of a melodic use of the voice, of an original process of deconstructing and reconstructing language, of freeform figurations and three-dimensional words that without prejudice reach across the boundaries of Theatre, Dance and Music, bouncing us within a poetic vortex of light, that spills forth visions, dreams, memories, colours and feelings, catapults us..."
News
New York Public Library Short-Term Fellowship
I will engage in a short-term research, poetics of peace, to inspire my art-making at New York Public Library thanks to its short-term fellowship grant in the year of 2022-2023.
Performance
Festival Anarchy in the Garden at Kühlspot Social Club
I will perform at the festival Anarchy in the Garden for women artists at Kühlspot Social Club organized by Elo Masing, funded by Musikfonds e.V., the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, and co-funded by BA Pankow, inviting pianist Ilona Perger. 7.9.2022
Performances
Ohajiki and pink shoes
I will present my Fulbright project at Medientheater of Humboldt University of Berlin and in front of Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum Library.
I have focused on creating my anti-war and peace-promoting art through my transnational identity for my Fulbright project since September 2021.
I will present my main performance on July 7th at 6:15pm at the Medientheater (Georgenstraße 47 10117 Berlin), lecture on June 2nd at 6:15pm at the same place at the joint colloquium of Kolloquium Medien und Wissen & Kolloquium Mediendramaturgie at the Institute for Musicology and Media Studies of Humboldt University of Berlin, short performances in front of the Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum Library (Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3 10117 Berlin) on July 8th and 12th at 2pm.
design by Sayuri Minato,
photo by Ayaka Fujii