Our festival is NOT dedicated exclusively to dance. Dance for
us is an example, and it represents the vibrant spirit of Artcamp.
That our inside is dancing, our spirit young, and our belief in
communal relations intact--that's what dance represents. We don't
idealize individual originality. Rather, we want to see synergetic
interaction arise between individual volition and his/her activities,
and that it evolve into functional and heuristic organism of the whole group.
We set forth an initial break-through. This year it is multi-national: with Serbian
artist friends trying to overcome national conflicts, wisdom and dexterity of
Japanese craftsmen, the community of traditional folk artists. Rather than accomplished
forms, we look for confused trials. We invest ourselves into the sky, land, and
other people. Open up our bodies in omni-directions. Under the sun we dance with
good rivalry, make roofs and floors for community ritual dancers, paint, play
music, project images, act out dramatic roles, narrate, play games.... Past
and the present, the infinite exchange between people and the earth. If this
is <nature>, then, something before the form, or above the form, is what
we want to achieve. Substantial beauty--the dictionary says it is " the
beauty associated with the content such as idea, emotion, life and the feeling
of satisfaction!." Be it beautiful or not, we want to make everything by
hand as much as possible, and make ourselves operative with all our organs--to
become "body without organs." It is 4 years since we renamed our
summer festival as Dance Hakushu. And 16 years since we initiated this activity
as ARTCAMP Hakushu (1988). We have no doors nor fence, and you can come in
from any direction.
