Sometime during the autumn of 2019, I was contacted by Björn Säfsten who asked if I would be interested in coming to Stockholm to share my practice within the framework of “Within Practice”. My immediate response was: “Of course!”. Little did we know what was about to happen in the spring of 2020 …
Travel restrictions due to COVID-19, and the thought of not being able to travel to Stockholm, made me pivot. I was trying to figure out a way to do distance-based work with the workshop participants, and to be able to provide them with tasks that they could do on their own. So, I developed a concept based on a series of task-cards.
I call this project For Instance – since the tasks can be executed instantly. They enable immediate interpretation, and a variety of possible outcomes. The aim is not to master or finish the work. It stays flexible, adjustable, and open-ended.
I was finally able to travel to Stockholm in the autumn of 2020 and had the opportunity of working directly with the students and participants in the workshop, which made me very happy! The concept will however remain as a shared tool and do-it-yourself-work.
Michikazu Matsune
June 2021
For Instance – Scores is a working method, created like a game that is paired with both performative and choreographic tasks. The workcan be carried out individually or by a group. For Instance consists of approximately 50 cards and the users of this work can perform each idea as is, as well as create and explore their own spontaneous combinations and variations. The process plays with the dynamics that emerge in the gap between ideas and interpretation, expectation and realization. Poetical, absurd, simple, fun, realistic, impossible!
Preparation:
Print the cards.
(Suggested size is A5)
Option 1:
Shuffle the cards and pick one randomly.
Perform the task.
Option 2:
Read the tasks.
Place cards together and create a composition.
Perform the composition.
Variations:
Make variations.
You are also able to add your own tasks.
Download Cards: www.michikazumatsune.info/images/forinstancecards.pdf
Web link: www.michikazumatsune.info/works/forinstancecards.htm
Michikazu Matsune utilizes diverse approaches in his artistic work, ranging between stage-performances, interventions in public spaces, and fabricating artefacts for Performative Action. Matsune’s work, often containing elements of poetic absurdity and a subtle sense of humour, reflects on current themes in our globalized society – in a playful yet critical way. His recent stage-work, including All Together (2018), consists of a trio, joined on stage by Elizabeth Ward and Frans Poelstra. The performance is based on stories of the people who are unable to attend and see the actual performance. In reaction to the COVID-19 crisis, Michikazu Matsune has initiated a project called Performance Homework (2020), which features works by over 25 artists and ideas that can be carried out independently at home. Matsune’s solo-works have toured extensively, to international festivals and institutions. For example Goodbye (2016) which is based on farewell-letters written by various people, and for various reasons. Dance, if you want to enter my country! (2015) is focused on a bizarre, yet true, story of an African-American dancer who was forced to dance at an airport passport control in order to prove that he was a professional dancer. This was to eliminate suspicions directed at him, caused by his Muslim first name.
Matsune has been teaching performance practice since 2012, and has been a guest tutor at Iceland University of the Arts (Master in Performing Arts), University of Agdar in Norway, Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz (HZT) / Universität der Künste Berlin, as well as Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. Michikazu Matsune is originally from the seaside town of Kobe and has been based in Vienna since the 1990’s.
www.michikazumatsune.info