FRAGMENTS (2008- current)                        >>>Watch the video

A collaborative work between Katsura Isobe, a dance artist, and Jairo Zaldua and Nicola Green, experimental printmakers. Originating from two short stories: 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and 'The Diary of a Madman' by Nikolai Gogol, Jairo and Nicola have created a series of prints that are variations and developments from a single picture of a girl. These are viewed as slide projections during the performance and also as a print out on a large transparent sheet. The artists have also played with the actual text from the stories, which have been taken apart and now deviate away from their original meanings. This is visible on the prints on the cylinder-shaped paper curtain as well as the paper strips worn by the performer. Katsura, the performer, is an inhabitant of the psycho-physical world created by Jairo and Nicola. The performance is about the journey towards an untouchable place, where the viewer sees only fragmentary things.                                       >>>More information

DANS SANS JOUX/ DAP LAB

UKIYO (2009-2010)

Installation performance with interactive technologies, directed by Johannes Birringer and Michele Danjoux. Ukiyo explores the layers of perceptions in an ephemeral aural world that constantly shifts and fragments. The audience is invited to move freely around the space while dancers and musicians interact with projected images and virtual worlds, featuring audiophonic design, live sound processing, animations and 3d digital designs and virtual choreography, 

>>> Read a creative journal

>>> Watch a video of an excerpt

CABINET OF CURIOSITY

YELLOW WALL-PAPER (2005-2006)

The starting point of the work is the fin de siécle novel, The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Under the direction of scenographer Caroline Collinge, the exploration started from the relationship between body movement and costume. Eventually the work evolved into a site-specific installation performance at the Crypt, St Pancras Church. Improvisation performance by two dancers and a cellist

relates to varied artworks: architecture, costumes, printmaking and soundscapes.

MIRANDA ARTS

L’INSTANT DECISIF (2005-2006)

Interactive technology performance directed by Paul Verity Smith. Katsura’s live performance manipulates the projected film through movement sensors attached on her body. The film shows Katsura’s improvised movement that was inspired by each location in an abandoned coal mine. The relationship between the live performer and the one in the film reveals some kind of narrative, which is different every time, as Katsura’s performance is improvised.

FLUVIO RUBESA

AEQUILIBRIUM  (2004-2005)

Photography project by Fluvio Rubesa, exploring aequilibrium- balance with the dancing body, photography technique and printing method.

Photo: Gigi GIannella

Photo: Kibla Arts Centre

Photo: Fulvio Rubesa

Photo: Gigi Giannella

PRACTICE IN PUBLIC series (2011- current)

>>> Watch a video (coming soon)

A series of improvisation performance with little planning in specific public environment.

Practice in Public 4) Queen’s Crescent Market and Parlour Gallery, Kentish Town. Performance by Fumi Tomioka and Katsura Isobe. Part of Space for Change exhibition organised by LOOP. 3rd December 2011.

Practice in Public 3) Hair and Jerome Hairdresser Salon.  Performance by Fumi Tomioka and Katsura Isobe. Part of Spontaneous Combustion Festival organised by ARtCH. 3rd July 2011.

Practice in Public 2) Bethnal Green Gardends. Performance by Fumi Tomioka and Katsura Isobe. Part of Spontaneous Combustion Festival organised by ARtCH. 2nd July 2011.

Practice in Public 1) Dance and music improvisation at ARtCH London, venue under rails in Bethnal Green. Music by Ute Kanngiesser (cello), Guillaume Viltard (double bass). Dance by Lilly Picts, Alenka Herman, Mariana Marquez, Katsura Isobe. 10th March 2011.

I’M HERE (2010- 2011)

Katsura's solo work made in collaboration with sound artist Manabu Shimada. I'M HERE was performed in four occasions with further development each time.            

>>>Watch the video

1. - I’m here at Brunel University
   

2. - I’m Here at Independent Dance Feedback Forum
   

3. - I’m Here at Stranger than Fiction, improvisation version
   

4. - I’m Here at Cafe OTO (premiere)
   

5. 
   

Audience feedback on I'M HERE.

1. • Different mood of presence
   

2. • Dispersed voice, objects in different places makes me think she is not there as paradox.
   

3. • I see identity, cultural shift, shifting between places, east and west...
   

4. • When she says "I'm Here", it tells me where she was in past.
   

Photo: Eleanor Sikorski

Photo: Gigi GIannella

Image: Vera Hochkofler

CROSSINGS (2011- current)

Collaboration with Dance Artist Fumi Tomioka. Structured improvisation inspired by a crossing of road with its speed, patterns, people’s gesture. The work is also site-sensitive and depending a site, the structure is modified. Supported by Big Dance 2012, Space@Clarence Mews. Newington Dance Space and Middlesex University.

>>> Read a blog

>>> Watch a video of an excerpt

© Katsura Isobe 2009-2012