Hajime Fujita

From Sweet and Tender

<Short Bio>
  Hajime Fujita is choreographer and dancer. He was born in 1982 in Yokohama, Japan. He holds a BA in Peforming Arts from the Kyoto University of Arts and Design. He has received the danceWEB scholarship 2006 led by Mathilde Monnier and Loic Touze to participate in ImpulsTanz Festival in Vienna, and the Pointe to Point of the Asian Europe Foundation led by Simon Dove in Warsaw. In 2008, he is nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative program. Currently attending PEPCC programme in Forum Dança(Lisbon).

  He has been working in Japan and Europe. Recently He choreographed two big projects; "Parole" & "This is my kindness. The former that was presented in 2006, received very positive reviews in the Japanese dance magazine. Since last year, He is working also in the European dance scene sharing a residency in Oporto, Portugal to create and perform pieces in 2006 and 2007 supported by local associations, Maus Habitos and 555. In 2007 he was in the Performing Arts Forum of Jan Ritsema in Reims participating in the SKITe/Sweet and Tender Project, a one month collaboration programme. And in the presentation of that program in la Comedy Reims, he presented video installation piece called "visible/invsible" with Thelma Boavita from Brazil.

  He loves very sensitive and poetic movements. He has strong intention to research around social and political issues rather than thinking only movements. He is motivated by the analytical thinking way, because of his study of the Phenomenology.

Official Web Site - profile, works(videos), texts, etc

<Basic Philosophy>
  I chose art as my work, because I would like to affect general people on our primitive level of sense and thought. I would like to provoke people to confront or even just think about our social problems on their each own perspective, especially with focusing our communication.

  Speciality of art is that it can connect directly and profoundly people's mind at a moment. For instance, when we confront a great picture, it grabs our mind immediately; then often that great pictures also provokes us into thinking something about/around/beyond it. Dance has also the same effect, but dance has a "corpo". On the level of provoking people into thinking of a dance work, people can see the things through the dancers' body.

  Of course in our daily life, everyday we are seeing somebody's body. Although, under the certain structure or the frame of dance, I found that we can find a primitive level of human's activities: intension, personal history, cultural background, social behavior, etc. Those things are very subtle and rarely to be conscious about it, more than obvious characters such as race, language, religious and economical situation. Yet those human's primitive activities are important keys to realize our communication in terms of understanding(or at least being aware of) the other just as he/she is.

  In 2006 and 2007, I was traveling around western Europe. As an artist, I was working and studying in several places. But not only artistic experiences, also I could have experiences to see a lot of social problems on the very basic level. Most impressive experience is that, once I had to sleep on the street in London. I understood physically how the homeless people were feeling. How complex the problem of the poverty is. Clearly I could feel there is a certain gap between the mind of the politic and reality.

  Anyhow the politic is always assuming the center area(which often called "normal") in our society(community) even unconsciously, and excluding things out of its limit. This is a very first motivation of a mind to exclude homelessness, immigrants, aliens, different race... That means, in this process, the politic projecting its own perspective and ignore the personality/thought/philosophy/emotion/reason of each own excluded person. The war is good example of this, we assume some people as enemy and stop a effort to understand them just as they are, then start to exclude them physically.

  With a speciality of art and dance, letting people think about/around/beyond the art work and notice human's primitive activities(intension, personal history, cultural background, social behavior, etc), I would like to provoke people into re-thinking about our communication —re-looking the other just as he/she is before putting him/her into a particular context. Performance is a place where artists expose their work. At the same time, performance can be a place where people "experience" something through the art work. As a dance artist, again, in this way I would like to stimulate general people to confront or at least be aware of our social problems on their each own perspective.