Nanako Matsumoto, Kengo Nishimoto / team chiipro

Dancing the waltz with imaginary others

Team Chiipro is a performance duo that engages in meticulous research to reconstruct individual and collective memories through the medium of the body. The pair comprises co-directors Nanako Matsumoto, a performer whose experience dancing ballet from the ages of three to twenty led to her reexamining the nature of her own body, and Kengo Nishimoto, who mainly serves as dramaturg. Their project was selected through Kyoto Experiment’s first open call for proposals, and will be staged over two years in 2021 and 2022.

The theme of the first year’s production is the waltz. The performance is a Kyoto-specific iteration of a project titled Imaginary Waltz that Matsumoto initiated after the declaration of the state of emergency in 2020, in which she dances with imaginary objects, people, and landscapes. The waltz, which has been danced in Japan since the Meiji Era, was repeatedly the subject of moral scrutiny as it involves men and women dancing with their bodies closely touching. Taking this as a starting point, the work raises questions about the nature of touch and joining hands today, in a time where physical contact is restricted for reasons different from the past. The text for the performance draws from Matsumoto’s personal history, as well as research and interviews conducted in Kyoto. Through the narration, a waltz danced with imaginary others takes shape, alongside an interplay between text and body that will incubate over two years.