December 18–25, 1997

dance

Tokoro

Roko Kawai at Philadelphia Arts Bank, Dec. 12-13

With the premiere of Tokoro: Territorial Imperative dancer/choreographer Roko Kawai set up formidable challenges for herself. The piece, her first full-length work, was larger in scope than anything she'd done before, an attempt, she said, to move away from a specific focus on the experience of being Japanese in America to a more abstract exploration of place and boundaries. She brought together a sophisticated design team for an ambitious production incorporating video, a backstage balcony and lights as both architectural elements and points of interaction.

The piece spun off the meaning of "tokoro," the Japanese word for place. The program notes pondered the implications of the word: "Territory, sanctuary, prison, landmark, fortress, playground or frontier. Cell membrane of barbed wire. What drives us into a cycle of demarcation?"

Tokoro opens with a video of a hand digging lines in the sand, with fingers eventually replaced by a rope. On-stage a cocoon-like structure drops from the ceiling to hover above a two-toned square of white sand and peat moss. There's a buzzing sound and the music of a Mister Softee truck. The cocoon is lowered to the floor and David Forlano, dressed in a suit, enters to rip it open and reveal the contents: Kawai dressed in a kimono. At first she's limp, but slowly grows animated, shuffling and kicking, gracefully suggesting both freedom and restraint. She takes handfuls from the sand and moss flanking her and drops them onto the opposite sides to create small marks of integration. She falls to the floor and swishes the two sides together, further blurring the boundaries.

In the second section Kawai, in a party dress, glides in on roller skates. Four others—Bing Mark, Sean O'Donnell, Diane Rollins and Shivani Selvaraj—enter. Kawai calls out "I see you" and proceeds to interact with the quartet. The four push her around playfully at first, but eventually the friends become foes, and the pushing turns vicious and forceful.

Kawai skates off on her own, opens a trunk full of dirt, and plunks herself down atop the dirt—a brief moment of peace, a short-lived sense of place. Kawai rises and the quartet carts the chest off as if it were a casket. There is another sequence in which Forlano and Kawai dance together, but in the end she strides off alone.

Kawai's imagery strongly evoked "the cycle of demarcation" she wanted to explore—particularly the two extremes of territory suggested by the light/ dark square, and the lighting scheme that shifted from cool blue to red hot. She also showed great range in gesture and expression, from careful to reckless, from determination to befuddlement.

Even so, in certain instances where Kawai wanted to convey the psychological effects of boundaries and obstacles, attempting to indicate how the circumstances ultimately led her to negotiate a next move, the meaning was muddled. And despite a declared broadening of intent, Kawai is still drawing very specifically from her Japanese-American heritage—merging Eastern and Western dance styles and an Asian-flavored score, using the kimono, focusing on an insider/ outsider dichotomy.

Still, she largely succeeded in accomplishing her lofty goals. Credit ought also be given to Roko's collaborators, Forlano for his video and original music, which infused the action with suspense and ambiance; Hiroshi Iwasaki for his lighting and set design and Heather Marg Bracken for her costumes, all artful and well-matched with Kawai's vision.

Compelling and visually stimulating, Kawai's performance was charged with a clear sense of purpose. With this work Roko takes a significant step forward as an artist.

-Deni Kasrel