SODA WORKS 2018

mentation shows a bird’s funeral where they make a circle
around a dead body for a long time. Though no one is sure if
the action is recalled by the emotion of grief yet, it should be
recalled by death at least. Even if humans and some animals
are taking different ways of mourning, what is very important
is the fact that such as universal sense is shared across
different attributes.
I personally felt a fact about separation by death through my
father’s funeral. That was “It’s extremely hard to feel reality of
absence as compared to feel existence”. That’s why lives are
at a loss and can’t look at the fact come together, and make
a ritual in order to share the fact “This body is already dead
and he/she is not here any longer”. Then live bodies surround
the dead body, look at the dead face, offering flowers,
and check the bones before/after burned. They try to make
sure of one’s death by pointing out step by step. It’s rather
impossible to keep our minds on the thought of absence.
I also realised that ”sharing absence” needs a thorough
contextualisation as I was researching that with 15 people.
We have to share the fact of existence before we share
the sense of absence. Otherwise no one could recognize
this loss. But this absence could be a very strong motive
when we would consider it as one of the elements in the
environment, however, that is not an easy task. The nature
of absence means that it is much harder to share, show, or
claim it. Being is much simpler.”
If I could say that the actions of mourning by humans and
some animals are reaction to the sense of absence, I could
say also that this phenomenon is related to affordance, as
one of possibilities of the actions are recalled by “absence”
as part of environment.
5 “Affordance” as the perspective to look at the world
I tried to divert this thought “Affordance” as also motive to
create this piece. I view human life, also Ken Hara’s personal
life, as the collectivity of action and choice that stems from
the concrete. It means that personal history comes with
a background - be it cultural, social, familial, personal, or
instinctive. I analysed my father’s life through its different
contexts as it appeared under my lens. As stated previously,
I realised that this particular temporal context would be a
defining element in my research as it was the golden age
of my father’s career in the thick of Japan’s recovery from
damages suffered in World War II. It was a greedy, joyful
and energetic age. Also, a great flood of American culture
happened and the cultural situation was changed a lot. At
the beginning, those creations were just like imitation or
homage, but it was getting originality towards 1980’s.
The film “Asphalt girl” that my father appeared was one
of example of that and it’s like a fossilized remains of the
age that Japan was a country influenced by America . As
he testified, this was created as a homage to “West Side
Story”. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good quality film and failed
at the box office. However, this is very important evidence
to show the situation of the specific age. Even though my
father was one of many easily replaceable chorus dancers in
a commercial film, he held great value in his experience that
would be deeply valued during those times as the evidence
of the age.
As I followed the Japanese situation behind my father’s
personal life and this line of research to Europe, I was uncovering
another layer, one greater than him and the sociopolitical
situation in Japan: a sensational age worldwide. For
example, the start of Vietnam War in 1960, the installation
of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the first manned space flight by
the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the
assassination of JFK in 1963, NASA’s first moon landing
in 1969...the continuing impact of The Beatles and the
rising cultural phenomenons of Bob Dylan and The Rolling
Stones...all years during The Cold War. Those political,
cultural, historical happenings should affect personal being
and its life in various ways. Simultaneously, we are then also
covered in an even larger layer, beyond the sociopolitical
and cultural, one related to the “mission” and “purpose” of
existence, such as life and death, age, legacy, to name a few.
Each country has its own culture and history but each of
those small contexts are always covered with a bigger layer.
Exploring the personal allows me entry into multiple layers
and those different levels.
Thus in the world that has multiple layers, various narratives
were born day by day, those elements make thinner layers,
and personal beings and its lives are composed. And each
personal beings are giving effect, and those activities make
the world over and over. The presence of the world has no
identity, or motive.
6 Conclusion
The thought of “affordance” proposed by Gibson, means all
possibilities of animal’s action is recalled by an object(environment)
worked as one of perspective to understand the
world for me, and helped the research of examining my father’s
personal life and the relationship between he and I. And
I developed my study of body motion through using “affordance”
as an axis, from the perspective as a dancer who has
a background in design. This “Da Dad Dada” is not a theater
piece, it’s the result of study and viewing the structure of the
world and body motion. I also believe that to create and play
this piece is my reaction to my father’s death, which means
bemusement from absence, and action to keep the fact in my
mind. So I am just like one of birds that was making a circle
around a dead body in the documentation.
be kind to yourself