ASOBI is a Japanese term that refers to what we do outside the obligations of our life:  trivial things, passing activities, minor obsessions.

ASOBI also means ‘game’ in an adult, sensual context. Humans and certain animals with complex brains understand this aspect of life, this amusement in creating actions and tasks distinct from those we have to accomplish in order to survive.

The word also refers to prevarication, a loss of concentration, letting go, and the drunkenness it induces. By extension, it also evokes the game of chance, competition, combat and vertigo caused by fairground rides and childhood games. In contemporary Japanese society, it also has an erotic connotation that strongly evokes the adult games that are staged as childhood ones. It is especially used by men, as even today Japanese women are not expected to indulge in such practices.

What would happen if they did? Exploring the idea of fetishism and so-called ASOBI practices, some aspects of which magnify certain parts of the body, the show will tackle this question through games between women. An obsession with the body and its reflection, as well as voyeurism, feature on a set that evokes 'Magic Mirrors', with a large transparent mirror on the ceiling. The idea was inspired by the Japanese 'love hotels', where couples can watch themselves make love in the mirror on the ceiling. This game of voyeurism incites us to be observed, to not be observed, to realise that we are being observed, to not realise that we are being observed, etc.

It is also about creating a portrait of three women and two men; five different ways to possess a part of their body, five personalities, two sensualities. Materials such as leather, corsets and high heels contribute to this research into female animality, the deformation of movement, the body and its reflection. The men observe the animal, sensual part of the women. The two dancers represent the gaze of the public.

Credits

Choregraphy and staging : Kaori Ito 
Danced and created by : Csaba Varga Jann Gallois Kaori Ito Laura Neyskens Peter Juhasz 
Music : Guillaume Perret 
Played by : Guillaume Perret, SPECTRA Ensemble (Jan Ver- cruysse, Kris Deprey, Pieter Jansen, Bram Bossier, violoncello (NN), Luc Van Loo en Frank Van Eycken) sous la direction de Filip Rathé 
Dramaturgy : Bauke Lievens 
Choregraphy assistant : Gabriel Wong Coaching Alain Platel 
Lights : Carlo Bourguignon 
Setting creation : Wim Van de Cappelle 
Costumes : Mina Ly 
Photography : Chris Van der Burght 
Production : les ballets C de la B 

Co-production : Muziekcentrum De Bijloke (Gent), SPECTRA Ensemble, TorinoDanza, Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris), Theater im Pfalzbau (Ludwigshafen), La Rose des Vents (Villeneuve d’Ascq)

Video direction : Philippe Gasnier
Production : 24 images

Steeped in Japanese culture and trained in Western dance, Kaori Ito has developed a singular hybrid vocabulary that is very much her own. At the crossroads of cultures and languages, she is interested in the unspoken and the invisible. Close to dance theatre, she draws on her own experience and that of the performers to bring out an intimate need to be on stage. Relying on bodily intelligence, she seeks immediacy and instinct as the driving force behind the act. From essential themes such as taboos, the end of the world, death, love and solitude, she creates raw, spontaneous texts. From these raw, vivid words springs the necessary, dazzling, wild movement she is looking for. She works with a body that empties itself to welcome the spectator's emotion. This gives her access to a textual and choreographic vocabulary that starts from the inside and asks us questions about our animality and our humanity.

‘What I'm looking for above all in my work is to make space move. I try to make the empty space around me exist. It's a bit like being a puppeteer. There's something interesting in this idea of manipulation. I'm trying to work out who's pulling the strings, what element is attracting the other... There's a kind of continuous spiral where you don't know who's doing what and that's what's interesting. I try to create a complete vacuum, so that people can project things. I'm not trying to guide them. I don't think it's my brain that's thinking when I'm dancing, it's my body that's expressing itself. So I'm going to try not to get across a message that's too cerebral.’ 

‘Theatre is a confession, every night it's life beginning and ending.’

In 2023, eight years after bringing her projects to fruition within her own company, Kaori Ito is taking over as director of the TJP, Centre dramatique national de Strasbourg - Grand Est. Her aim is to make the TJP a transdisciplinary, intercultural and intergenerational theatre centre that promotes the cross-disciplinary nature of art, the importance of the questions that children ask and their involvement in the creative process.

Source and more information: https://www.kaoriito.com/