Interview with Adachi Tomomi

INTERVIEW WITH ADACHI TOMOMI

SCOTT GLEASON

HIS INTERVIEW took place on April 8, 2007 in Greenwich Village, after two performances (at Experimental Intermedia Foundation and

the now defunct Tonic), and before Adachi’s concerts at Wesleyan Univer-sity and Anthology Film Archives.

Scott Gleason (SG): I enjoyed very much your concert at Tonic, and I look forward to your concert at Anthology.

Adachi Tomomi (AT): Thank you very much.

SG: At Wesleyan and Anthology, you will perform with Butoh films by Takahiko Iimura. I’d like to ask you about Butoh.

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76 Perspectives of New Music

AT: So it’s my first trial with dance film. Sometimes I have worked with film, but not so much because in most cases it’s not easy. I impro-vise something, but film does not improvise.

SG: How then does interaction occur?

AT: Yes, it’s a problem. In this case, Takahiko Iimura is a very interest-ing filmmaker, and he is really a pioneer of Japanese experimental film. When I was younger [laughs], I was highly influenced by his films, as concepts, so I thought, “This is a very good chance to work with him.” Also, dance is one of my main interests.

Though it’s not easy to talk about the history of Butoh, at the beginning it was very interesting. We know about the early days of Butoh only through these films. Butoh has changed its ideas and of course technique, and now, it’s quite congealed already, so it’s not so interesting for me. It is also a good chance to think, “What can I do with the recordings of interesting early Butoh?”

SG: What do you think about Butoh-fu, by Yukio Waguri?

AT: Yukio Waguri is one of the second generation; he’s not bad as a dancer, not bad. But I cannot talk about his Butoh-fu because it’s oracular. We cannot find orthodox Butoh through Butoh-fu. I can-not imagine an answer for the question, “What is precise Butoh?,” through his work.

Butoh still exists in personal thought. It is difficult to manifest the essence of Butoh. As you know, a typical image of Butoh for Western people is as something very dark, and sometimes very dirty, with slow movements. I think these kinds of public images are not correct. It had fast changing movements. At least, at the beginning of Butoh they were highly influenced by, first, German Expressionism, and second, Neo-Dadaism, though there are many objections by some people. These kinds of radical mixtures were very interesting for me. At the beginning of Butoh, they knew John Cage, and it’s the same generation as Japanese Fluxus. The Butoh group had a very good and deep relationship with Japanese Fluxus, but this aspect was lost after the 1970s.

SG: How does this relate to Hijikata Tatsumi’s work?

AT: Hijikata also changed his ideas after the end of the 1960s.

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SG: How do you interact musically, electronically, physically with the Butoh films? What have your preparations been like?

AT: Sorry, it’s better to ask me after the performance [laughs]. We [Adachi and Iimura] had just one rehearsal, but we exchanged our ideas many times. We will not create a direct relationship between sound and image: a kind of simultaneous performance. But we share concepts and maybe I will react to the movements of dancers in some situations. We will try to be a kind of representation of the idea of the beginning of Butoh and Neo-Dadaism.

* * *

SG: Giacinto Scelsi once said he didn’t like the word “improvisation,” because it implied too much back and forth (Randall 2007). You do something, I do something in response.

AT: But in some cases I really like improvisation.

SG: Of course. In relation to your solo performances, with your Infrared Sensor Shirt and Tomoring, you have spoken of the bor-ders between pure vocal sounds and words, but I’m wondering also about the relationships between the borders of the body because you’re a very physical performer, very intense. But your voice has an intimacy (shinmitsusei) to it. I’m interested in your thoughts about the notion of improvisation between the body and perfor-mance.

AT: In the case of the performance at Tonic, it was almost improvisa-tion. I emphasized one aspect of my music, improvisation. But in the performance at Experimental Intermedia, it was more in a con-text of sound poetry or conceptual art. I like to change what aspect I emphasize depending on the situation—for example, venue, time or the audience.

SG: So improvisation is a broader idea, with more possible relations, than simply one-to-one.

AT: Yes, that’s right. But of course as you say, the relationship with the body and voice is one of my main interests. As you said the voice has intimacy, but also we are using the voice for conversation and I can talk for myself also . . . so it has a very private aspect, and pub-lic aspects, many layers. If you use a microphone it becomes more public, “Public Address” [laughs]. But if I don’t use a microphone,


it seems more private. This kind of distance, and the relationship between the public and private senses, I am very interested in this border. I want to change this border, not cross the border.

SG: How?

AT: How?, hmm [laughs]. A very simple example: If I change the dis-tance between the microphone and my mouth, it means I am changing the border between public and private. I feel the border between my real vocal sound and the speakers.

Everywhere I do so, I change the border. But how the audience sees it and how I want to show it, that depends on the situation and performance.

SG: So you decide that while rehearsing in the particular space and for the particular audience you expect?

AT: Yes, that’s right, but sometimes I want to be opposite them.

SG: When you perform on stage, there’s very little flair (saino) or show-manship. You just kind of come on stage and start performing. It’s very inviting to the audience. Especially at the end of your Tonic concert, with the Infrared Sensor Shirt. You fold it, but not too carefully, place it down, and you say thank you. It’s staged, but not. It’s very inviting.

It produces an odd experience because listeners expect the con-cert to be avant-garde, and so they’re very attentive, very quiet, and very still.

AT: I don’t like showmanship. And also I don’t like, “Avant-garde looks like avant-garde.” I don’t like it.

SG: What kind of listening do you like from the audience?

AT: Intimate [laughs]. A sense of humor is important. The sense of humor happens between the audience and me; I don’t give it. Sometimes it’s very objective. To laugh is a very intellectual activ-ity. I don’t like romantics or attentive attitudes. Objective but intimate, I hope for this kind of situation.

SG: It comes through, people do laugh, and it’s something I appreciate about your performances.

AT: Thank you. I hope for it.

-


* * *

SG: When outside of Japan, you are, “Adachi Tomomi: Japanese per-formance artist, composer,” or the like. How do you feel about being known as a specifically Japanese artist?

AT: That’s a very good question, a very good question. They expect a Japanese artist; they expect something, yes, a special thing.

SG: Really?

AT: Yes, I think so. I don’t know about New York, because in New York there are already many different kinds of people, already mixed. But for example in Germany (not Berlin, not Cologne, more in the countryside), people want to find a particular Japanese thing from my music. “What was the Japanese aspect in your music?,” they ask me. But, I cannot answer, because although I was born in Japan and maybe I am a part of Japanese culture, I think I want to be opposite Japanese culture. Yes, of course I was very highly influenced by it, but I want to change it.

The typical question is, “What is the traditional aspect of Japanese music in your music?” Maybe I think there is no relation-ship. My father listened to Western classical music, but he also listened to Japanese popular music. Sometimes Japanese popular music sounds like an Eastern flavor for Western people, but for Japanese it is not traditional Japanese music. Gagaku and Noh are very far from our usual lives. It is difficult to answer, “What is the aspect of Japanese music in my music?” Yes, it’s difficult, but I hope that Western people don’t expect it from me.

But actually, I could be convinced that Western people expect something from me. I can understand their expectations.

SG: Do you find those expectations unfair?

AT: Unfair, yes. “Unfair” means, I can understand why they expect it, it’s possible, but don’t expect it from me.

* * *

SG: Last June you performed at IRCAM. How was that experience? Was it enjoyable?

AT: It was a concert at NIME06, a conference for new experimental music interfaces. That conference was a bit too academic for me.


Some of them were very interesting, but some of them were quite boring for me.

SG: Why?

AT: Some of them were thinking just about technical things, so it was less interesting as music or art. For example, they developed a sen-sor to capture the motion of a dancer, but the dancer was very bad. I thought, “They don’t need to capture that movement.” I under-stand they are developing techniques, but I hope they also develop and regard art itself.

Paris is a difficult city for experimental music, so sometimes I performed at Les Voutes: almost the only Squat Space in Paris, an awful underground space. It was the only place I could perform in Paris, but then next I performed at IRCAM, undoubtedly a highly authorized place. So Paris has two kinds, only two kinds of scenes; it is a difficult city. It was a very good experience; I had known about two edges, those two places. And of course it’s a very good thing: I can write, “I performed in IRCAM” [laughs].

SG: That raises the question between experimental Downtown, and Uptown avant-garde, in New York, like Paris, and other places. Do you find yourself moving back and forth between the two?

AT: Yes, if possible I want to do it. Sometimes I cannot be satisfied in Downtown music, nevertheless I think it’s better than the academic world. In Tokyo, there are two kinds, and I think they are more separated than in Paris and New York. There’s really no relation-ship. I like some so-called contemporary classical music. I like Giacinto Scelsi, earlier Stockhausen and so on. I like some of them. But if I belong to the independent music scene in Tokyo, I cannot have a connection with the contemporary music scene.

SG: Very strong borders.

AT: Yes, very strong borders.

SG: Are there ways to change them?

AT: I’m not sure. Especially in Tokyo, I think it’s a bad situation.For example, in the case of John Zorn, he is a typical Downtown musician in New York, but also his works are performed in halls for classical music. Such kind of thing never happens in Japan.


* * *

SG: You mentioned that your father listened to Western classical music. What musics did you listen to that influenced you? You said the earlier Stockhausen. Partially I’m asking because of the relation of improvisation to jazz.

AT: I was not interested in jazz. Recently, I am studying it. But, it was not my interest.

SG: So how did your interest in improvisation come about?

AT: At first, when . . . so I must talk about my history! The beginning was contemporary music; not contemporary music, modern music, Western modern music like Béla Bartók, Anton Webern, and Schoenberg. I still really love them. And next I followed the history of Western modern music and I met John Cage. It was very impor-tant for me. I got the ideas that I am free from music history and conventions, and also that music is philosophy. Music is free, okay, so let’s try other things. After John Cage, I started to listen to rock music, New Wave music like Kraftwerk, Flying Lizards, and so on.

At first I wanted to be a composer. When I was fourteen, I thought, “It’s too late to study piano.” I thought the only way I could be a musician was to become a composer. I was writing some very bad compositions, kind of minimalism with some serial sec-tions. But I found that I like to perform something. I thought, “How can I do it?”

One key person was Cecil Taylor. I got the idea that I can com-pose by improvisation. I listened to his Conquistador! It was a very interesting experience for me. My interest in jazz was almost only Cecil Taylor. The important thing was the idea not to compose structure, but to improvise structure.

* * *

SG: Since we’re meeting in Morgan O’Hara’s studio, I’d like to ask you about these two drawings she performed, two Butoh dancers [Examples 1 and 2].

AT: I don’t know these drawings, but it’s easy to understand how she wrote them if you see her performance. She takes pencils and fol-lows the movement of object or performer. Her performances and


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drawings are very interesting because she could be very positive for all performers. I think it’s a very good idea; I like it.

It is difficult to decide on my opinion for each performance through words, but she does it through her drawings in very posi-tive ways. It’s a kind of equivalence between the performance and the drawing. I think she transcribed essences and differences in the Butoh of Ohno and Tanaka in very precise ways. I can be reminded of their dance through these drawings.

She drew and performed with my performance once; it was in 2003. It was a very interesting experience to see her performance, performing my own things, though I didn’t know what she was doing at that time.

SG: Was it interactive?

AT: Not interactive at that time. She was sitting on an audience seat, but I heard sometimes she draws on stage. So some interactions happen with her.

* * *

SG: Do you think of your music as having noise, as being noisy?

AT: I don’t know, what do you think? [laughs]

SG: Well, for example, “Tsh” from sparkling materialism. It seems a bit noisier than other pieces, but what I heard at Tonic didn’t sound very noisy.

AT: What does “noisy” mean? So, you separate sound and noise.

SG: Some people do, but I’m trying to understand how you view it. Noise is not a separate category?

AT: I don’t separate sound and noise, like John Cage didn’t. It is a dif-ference in my physical sense, the physical expression in my mouth. Yes exactly, to make the sound, “aaaahh” [throat but round, gath-ering then lifting, moderate, dipping a quarter-tone below A2]:

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is different from “sstswpeeakkh” [lips to cheeks, lifting, tightening, much faster]:

P different muscles, different senses for me. Sometimes I like to listen to large noises, yes I like it, but not all the time.

Basically, I am not interested in materials themselves. I want to make a relationship between one material and another material. My interest is relationships, not the material itself. Some materials fasci-nate me, I like them, but they’re not the main purpose of my music.

SG: In your interpretation of Schwitters’ Die Sonata im Urlauten, there are a tremendous variety of sounds. How do you mediate the rela-tionships; how do you work with them?

AT: How do I make relationships? Sometimes I work with limited material. My Composition for Classical Pianist has very limited mate-rials, just four sounds. I can make structure, relationships, with just these four materials, but I can also do it with many materials.

I don’t like, “Avant-garde looks like avant-garde,” which means a trend in experimental music that uses extremely limited materials. It’s much too limited and stoic. I don’t like it. It seems like fetishism for materials. They speak many concepts about it, but for me it’s just fetishism for sound. That is one reason I use many materials in my performances: to avoid fetishism and to allow mate-rials to generate relationships by themselves.

In my “Schwitters Variations,” I tried to understand how over-flowed materials work in a systematic method of original poetry. It was a rare case in which I used an artificial structure. I used many many kinds of materials and systematic methods to construct it. If I use fewer materials in my transcription, listeners find these methods easier. But because I used many materials, it might be more diffi-cult to understand the method and structure. My intention was to make a strong tension (in some meanings, it is a contradiction) between methods and materials.


SG: How does this relate to your experiences with John Cage? Do you sometimes set up some predetermined relationships, like his I Ching?

AT: I especially like his works in the 1950s and ’60s: he used many, many mixed materials. And his idea is that he makes structure by I Ching or chance operations, but I think I can do it through my body, not by a system outside of music. The essential thing is that music is performed by a performer, and performers themselves can make such kinds of systems by their bodies and brains, not outside of music. John Cage’s idea was still how to control music by a composer, not total control, but in some meanings it is control from outside of music, and so he used systems like I Ching. But, my trial is different from his. I want to control my music by physi-cal logic inside music; it is not exactly subjective.

SG: In the West John Cage is sometimes thought of as being represen-tative of Eastern meditative practices and philosophies. Do you understand his work as being particularly Eastern or Asian?

AT: Maybe not. That is, for me, and maybe for many Asian people. It is easier to understand John Cage’s ideas as quite an American style, like Henry David Thoreau. So it’s not easy to find Eastern philoso-phy itself from his music. Japanese and Chinese never use I Ching to compose music. It is a nice idea, but Asian people never imag-ined that I Ching works as a tool for making art. If Mozart knew I Ching, he might get an idea to use it for his “Musical Game.” I Ching is an Asian idea, but to use it for composition is a Western idea. We should not confuse them.

For example, there is no relationship between I Ching and Zen. Eastern philosophy is not so free as John Cage understood it to be. In fact, there are many sects. He idealized it and maybe mixed it. His philosophy is very important as a particular individual, but I don’t agree that John Cage’s thought is a part of Eastern philoso-phy, even though he may be influenced by it.

I feel a kind of mysticism from John Cage, and it’s the same with Henry David Thoreau. It’s a kind of Neo-Platonism. I think I understand them precisely [laughs].

* * *

SG: You invent instruments, such as the Tomomin and others housed in Tupperware, one using circuit-bending. Is there a sense of trying


to salvage or maintain an old instrument, found objects, or older technologies?

AT: Yes, but the basic idea to make my own instruments is that I don’t want to refer to traditional techniques in music.

If I performed on violin (I don’t have any technique on violin), audiences would see some relationship and distance from tradi-tional technique. Yes, there might be other possibilities, but I wanted to refuse to make a relationship with traditional techniques; I am only talking about technique. If I perform with my Tomor-ing, people don’t care what is good technique. There are many good violinists already, I don’t like to be compared with them; it’s not interesting. That’s the reason I use only my own instruments, and my voice.

My voice is not singing. Sometimes I sing, but I am taking care that no one imagines Western bel canto. Sometimes maybe Western people feel there is an Asian traditional aspect of my voice, but there is no relationship, just a kind of imitation, cheap imitation. Also, I can imitate bel canto in the same way.

SG: How did your vocal abilities come about?

AT: Just self-training. Yes, it was trained, but it’s perfectly my own technique. In Japan it’s very difficult to practice voice. Very thin walls, so I practiced on busy traffic roads, in very noisy places.

* * *

SG: You studied philosophy and aesthetics at Waseda University. Are there particular kinds you were interested in?

AT: Yes. When I entered University in 1990, it was almost the end of the trend of postmodernism in Tokyo. At that time I was interested in Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze.

SG: But not so much any more?

AT: No.

SG: Do philosophies have a kind of relationship with your music? Indirect?


AT: Yes, I think, indirect. In some meanings, my music is a statement about my philosophy. But, music is . . . well yes, every time . . . Art is always a statement of artists’ principles.

At the University, I studied more traditional philosophers like Kant and Hegel. It was an interesting experience. I was fascinated by their very complicated discussions about subjectivity and objec-tivity. I got many ideas from them.

* * *

SG: Do you think of the linguistic borders, between voice, language, words?

AT: But those are a particular explanation for “Kana.” They [the edi-tors of Leonardo Music Journal] asked me to think about language and technology.

SG: Yes, okay, but borders as a metaphor, a broader idea, as a concept. Do you think of your body during performance and listening as having political or ethical borders? If a piece is a statement of a composer’s philosophy, is it a statement of a sense of ethical space between you and other people?

AT: Yes, if you want to say it’s political, social, yes that’s correct. But I don’t say I am a political artist. I’m afraid that if I say that my music is political, it may be a cause of misunderstanding.

It’s a quite private thing. I don’t want to say how the world should be. I don’t like to decide something and don’t want to force my opinion. If you know a good solution for the world, please tell me, because I can’t say it [laughs]. My music is not per-fectly private, but not perfectly public.

* * *

SG: You’re in between a number of performances in New York, before you return to Japan. Have you performed here before?

AT: Yes, I toured with Butch Morris, about ten years ago. We had some shows in New York.

SG: I ask because many Japanese composer/performers go frequently to Europe, less frequently to North America.


AT: There are many organizations for experimental art in Europe. Of course, if we can do it, we want to go to China, Korea, Thailand too. I want to do it, but it’s difficult because there are few venues to perform in. The situation in Korea is changing, I think, but I have never been there. I have had chances to perform in Hong Kong; it has an interesting culture, but experimental art in Hong Kong is still a small community. I heard China has a noise music community though I don’t have any contact with them. And it’s very difficult to get money there: we cannot even get a flight fee. New York is also difficult, and yes, Europe is the best place.

* * *

SG: Do you have any closing thoughts?

AT: Hmm, I have no idea; please don’t ask me [laughs]. Thank you very much.

SG: Thank you very much.

AT: I enjoyed it.

* * *

POSTSCRIPT

Question and answer with audience at the Anthology Film Archives: April 10, 2007

Audience: Did you improvise with the films?

AT: Yes, mainly improvisation, but it wasn’t interesting to accompany or interact with the film. I read from yesterday’s newspaper [during the performance], so there is some distance from the films.

In Rose Colored Dance I transported the intensity from the film, but it was not just improvisation, also composed. I composed the melody.


REFERENCES

Adachi Tomomi. 2000. “Tsh.” On sparkling materialism. Naya compact disk 0001.

—————. 2001. Schwitters Variations. Ubuweb, http://www.ubu.com/sound/tomomi.html.

—————. 2005. “Vox ex Machina: Contributor’s Notes.” Leonardo Music Journal 15, no. 79 (May).

—————. 2006. “Voice and Infrared Sensor Shirt.” Performance notes, Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME06), Paris.

—————. 2007. “Voice and Infrared Sensor Shirt”. Performance at Tonic, New York City, April 8.

Iimura, Takahiko. 2005. Anma (The Masseurs) & Rose Colored Dance: Butoh Dance of Tasumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. DVD.

Iimura, Takahiko and Adachi Tomomi. 2007. “Cine Dance: The Butoh of Tatsumi Hijikata.” Film/music performance at The Anthology Film Archives, April 10.

O’Hara, Morgan. 1994. LIVE TRANSMISSION: Movement of the Hands of Butoh Dancer Min Tanaka while Dancing at the Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York City, September 12.

—————. 1999. LIVE TRANSMISSION: Movement of the Hands of Kazuo Ohno while Performing His 1999 Work “Self-Portrait.” Part of “Requiem for the Twentieth Century” at the Japan Society Auditorium, New York City, September 12.

O’Hara, Morgan. 2008. “LIVE TRANSMISSION: Attention and Drawing as Time-Based Performance.” Available at http://www.morganohara.com/about.html.

Randall, J. K. 2007. “Interview (Notes after Meeting with Giacinto Scelsi, Mon 17 Nov 1980, c. 19:30–21:15).” The Open Space Magazine 8/9: 332–3.

Taylor, Cecil. 2004. Conquistador! Blue Note compact disk 5767492.

Waguri, Yukio. 1998. Butoh Kaden. Tokushima, Japan: Justsystem. Book and CDRom.

Interview with Adachi Tomomi

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