An Upside-Down World

Kaori Ito

Steeped in Japanese culture and trained as a dancer in the West, Kaori Ito developed a hybrid and unique vocabulary that’s very much like her. At the junction of cultures and languages, she’s interested in the unsaid and the invisible. Close to Tanztheater, she grounds her work in her life story and that of the performers to prompt an intimate need to be on stage. Relying on the intelligence of the body, she seeks immediacy and instinct as the mainspring of action. From essential themes such as taboos, the end of the world, death, love, loneliness, she generates raw and spontaneous texts. These blunt, sharp words trigger the necessary, swift and wild movement she’s looking for. She shapes a body that gets empty to receive the emotions of the audience. This allows her to access a textual and choreographic vocabulary emerging from the inside and questioning us about our animality and our humanity.

“What I strive for in my work is to animate space. I try to give life to the empty space around me. It is somehow like the approach of a puppeteer. There is something interesting in the idea of manipulation. I try to discover who is pulling the strings, which element attracts the other… There is a sort of continuous spiral in which we don’t know who does what, and that’s what is interesting. I try to totally empty myself, so that people can project things. I’m not trying to guide them. I believe that it’s not my brain thinking when I dance, it’s my body expressing itself. So I’ll try not to convey a message that’s too intellectual.”

“Theatre is a confession, every night it is life that begins and ends.”

Creations

2020 Dears
with Marvin Clech, Jon Debande, Nicolas Garsault, Louis Gillard, Delphine Lanson, Leonore Zurfluh
Creation at KLAP Maison pour la danse in Marseille
in October 2020

2020 The Silk Drum
With Yoshi Oïda and Makoto Yabuki / Text by Jean-Claude Carrière
Executive production by the Maison de la Culture d’Amiens
Creation for the 2020 Avignon Festival

2019 Wachtraum (Daydream)
Commission from the Chemnitz Ballet as part of France Dance Germany

2018 Is it worth to save us?
Duet with Miraï Moriyama
Creation at KAAT in Kanagawa Japan as part of Japonismes 2018

2018 Robot, eternal love
Solo by Kaori Ito
Creation at KLAP Maison pour la danse in Marseille

2017 Fire me up
Spoken and danced confidences by Kaori Ito and Théo Touvet
Creation for the Antigel festival in Geneva

2016 ¿Puedo Flotar?
Commission from the BANCH Chilean National Ballet

2015 Je danse parce que je me méfie des mots
Duet with her father

2013 Asobi
Commission from the Ballets C de la B – Alain Platel

2010 Island of no memories
Creation for the (Re)connaissance contest, first place.
This show was chosen for the Modul-Dance program by the EDN (European Dance Network)

2009 Solos
Creation at the Théâtre Le Merlan – scène nationale de Marseille
Recreation at the Lyon 2012 biennial

2008 Noctiluque
Creation at the Théâtre de Vidy- Lausanne

COLLABORATIONS

2014 La religieuse à la fraise
with Olivier Martin-Salvan
as part of Sujets à vif of the Avignon Festival

2012 Plexus
by Aurélien Bory for Kaori Ito

FILM DIRECTION

2004 Carbon Monoxide
This film was screened at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and at several festivals in the US.

2006 Niccolini
With James Thiérée, Damien Jalet and Niklas Ek

2006 The sea is calm
with Zaratiana Randriananatenalina

An Upside-Down World

Kaori Ito – création October 2021
from 4 years old

Convinced of the necessity of getting children’s voices and innate creativity heard, Kaori Ito carries out a collection work of their confidences through a cabin of secrets and a Kamishibai theatre she wrote and drew (Japanese travelling theatre). It is the story of an upside-down world where the Earth escaped where the sky used to be in order to stop being trampled on. These secrets are the superpowers of the children, who can re-enchant the world.

On stage, three tragic superheroes struggle to keep standing and get back on their feet. As they keep hitting the ground, their shells break and reveal their childish secrets, a sort of precious fanciness composing their identity. An invitation to nurture your inner child and to cultivate what makes our singularity and our imagination.

Un secret c’est quelque chose qui reste dans la bouche. Et qui va dans l’oreille quand on le dit.

un enfant de 4 ans

Distribution

Duration: approx. 40min
Stage: 7m / 7m

3 performers : Morgane Bonis, Bastien Charmette and Adeline Fontaine

Artistic direction and choreography: Kaori Ito
Artistic collaboration: Gabriel Wong
Aid to dramaturgy : Taïcyr Fadel
Original music: Joan Cambon
Lights & Technical manager: Arno Veyrat
Sound design: Adrien Maury
Prop design (phone): Stéphane Dardet
Costumes and masks collaboration : Aurore Thibout and Erhard Stiefel
Outside look : Michel Ocelot
Lights technician: Arno Veyrat or Carole China
Sound technician: Adrien Maury or Coline Honnons
Production: Améla Alihodzic, Coralie Guibert, Laura Terrieux, Lucila Piffer and Anne Vion
Acknowledgments : Denis Podalydès, Delphine Lanson, Erhard Stiefel, Pierre Dequivre, Justine Sene, Lara Mastrantonio.

Secret : with children’s voices Pia Maury Belin, Abel Bory, Alma Bory, Elio Fabro Perret, Aya Ahbourrou Faure, Lucas Dobigeon, Lubin Dulieu, Sola Touvet Ito
With the support of : elementary school Joliot Curie and Sadi Carnot from Pantin, the kindergarten of Suzanne Lacore from Pré-Saint-Gervais and la Ferme des enfants from Lablachère.

Production: Compagnie Himé
Co-production : KLAP-maison pour la danse MARSEILLE, MAC – maison des arts et de la culture de CRETEIL, Centquatre-Paris, Fontenay en Scènes / Ville de Fontenay-sous-Bois, Théâtre du Fil de l’Eau – Ville de Pantin avec le soutien du Département Seine-Saint-Denis, La Place de la Danse – CDCN Toulouse/Occitanie, MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard, Théâtre du Nord, Centre Dramatique National Lille Tourcoing Hauts-de-France, Festival de danse de Cannes – Côte d’Azur France, Théâtre Massalia – Marseille and Fondation Sasakawa.

This production is supported by Fondation Franco-Japonaise Sasakawa,

Compagnie Himé receives funding from the BNP Paribas Foundation for the entirety of its projects.
Compagnie Himé is supported by the French Culture Ministry – DRAC Ile de France, by the Île-de-France Region and the Val-de-Marne Department.
Kaori Ito is an associate artist with MAC Créteil and CENTQUATRE in Paris.
Compagnie Himé is in artistic companionship with KLAP Maison pour la Danse and in residency at Fontenay en scène and at Théâtre du Fil de l’eau – Ville de Pantin
The Compagnie Himé residency at Théâtre du Fil de l’eau – Ville de Pantin is supported by the Seine-Saint-Denis Departement.