Whether We Are

The video work Whether We Are features a classically trained male ballet dancer. The work explores the dance style Butoh, which was created to counter the idea that Japanese culture was still harmonious following the country's devastation and collapse in the Second World War. Or, in other words the dance style and video work offer the important idea – namely that we have the means to shift our perspective.

Butoh is short for Ankoku Butoh, which can be translated into "dance of darkness", a term used by the founder of the style, Tatsumi Hijikata. The term and dance style refer to the limitation of conscious movement and to the subconscious storage of bodily knowledge. Through the dance style, past experiences, which are stored within the body, can be channeled out as they are stimulated through bodily and cognitive movement.

For Whether We Are, Helene Nymann gave the dance no other instructions than the principes of Butoh. Instead the dancer was asked to translate his own past – his own bodily knowledge – into movement.

By incorporating dance and movement the work investigates how bodily memory is stimulated by textures, physical sensations and interaction. Through sound and movement, Whether We Are also explores how memory is created, stored and, crucially, how it can be accessed again.

Whether We Are has been exhibited at New Museum in New York in 2019 as part of their Screen Series alongside Head On My Dear and MOL. The Screen Series was organized by Helga Christoffersen, Associate Curator, and presents new video works by emerging artists. Read more about Whether We Are and the Screen Series at New Museum.