Zentai Dance
for
[Future of imagination 10]
https://www.facebook.com/events/1643071152599281/

Location:Zarch Collaboratives
No 6001 Beach Road, #04-00, Golden Mile Tower, Singapore 199589

Photo: Wu Gang Ng

Still shots from the video

Future Of Imagination 10
21st to 28th November 2015
Zarch Collabiratives, Golden Mile Tower, Singapore
Day 2
Reviewed by Jennie Klein 

​
The Singaporean/Japanese artist Yzuru Maeda’s Perfect was also about bodies, albeit less politically charged bodies than that of Lai Thi Dieu Ha. For the past several years, Maeda, who was trained as an experimental musician at Singapore’s LaSalle College of Arts has been experimenting with Zentai, short for Zenshin taitu, a lycra full body suit that covers the entire body, including the head, hands and feet. Maeda has made over 100 Zentai videos, of herself and of others, that she posts on youtube in order to receive feedback. For Maeda, donning Zentai becomes a way to erase superficial yet significant markers of difference in order to focus on what is before you. She writes on her website that:
A group of zentai people look like they are merging into one another as if they are one whole energy. Zentai not only takes away the identity but also the individuality. It is no longer 20 people standing together but one big energy standing. And I think this is what we really are. We are not separate from each other. We are actually just one energy. What makes us think we are different from other person is the 'identity'. Identifying 'my' hair, 'my' skin, and 'my' thought, which makes everything complicated.So zentai reminds me to be a simple being. http://yuzuru.weebly.com/about-me.html
For Perfect, Maeda choreographed an entire group of black-clad Zentai performers who shuffled around the space several times, often pausing to carry one another piggyback. The piece concluded by piling up next to a column while one of the performers (probably Maeda, but it was impossible to tell) climbed a ladder and threw white flour on the heads of the performers. Perfect was very camera friendly,

with the black Zentai performers contrasting nicely with the white walls and grey floor of the space. The music, which was quite contemporary although was possibly played on a traditional instrument (Maeda plays her own compositions on a Sarod, a classical Indian instrument), added an air of strangeness and otherness to the shuffling, rolling movement of the Zentai performers. Ultimately though, what was most striking about the performance was the point that Maeda herself has stressed: with the suits on, the performers became vulnerable bodies, their external identities erased by the presence of the lycra head. They were a lot like the Power Rangers, who also have no features. Unlike the Power Rangers, these bodies had unique shapes, most of which did not conform to the standard slim, physically fit body. What was most striking about Perfect was that the bodies were anything but. All were perfectly imperfect. 

Time and date
22 November 2015 (Sun)
Rehearsal (4:30-6:30pm)
Performance (6:30-7:30pm)
Everything finished by 8pm

Music Download

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bycbb97Pe2hTdnltU3oxZ1pjWUE&usp=sharing
​0:00- Beat
​9:00-Wind sounds
15:00- Singing bowl
19:00- Water
26:00-Water end
30:00 Music end

Movement (Everyone wear Black zentai suits)

0:00-9:00- Walk around the gallery space in line continuously

9:00-15:00  Zentai in one line across the gallery space and move together and go back

15:00-19:00 slowly gather around piller to create this image

19:00-23:00
​Create a cluster that all the body is together into one energy

I want to create this 'many body but one energy' image

23:00-25:00
Pull one audience (actually not a real audience but part of dancer)
Zentai surround the audience
Audience change into zentai and kind of 'disapper'

25:00-30:00
Yuzuru in the middle of zentai 
Splash flour to zentai body
Black zentai change partially white

Splash flour