[Performance] Dance, if you want to enter my country!（踊れ、入国したければ！）

5 November 2016

“Dance, if you want to enter my country!（踊れ、入国したければ！）”--- from Kyoto Experiment 2016 Autumn, Part 3

Country: Austria

Performance: Matsune, Michikazu（松根充和）

Location I watched: Auditorium, Kyoto Art Center

MATSUNE Michikazu, an artist, read a small newspaper article in Vienna, 2008 about an African-American dancer, travelling to Israel for a performance. The dancer, Abdur Rahim Jackson, belonged to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, an established and famous dance company. At the Israel airport, the immigration inspector was suspicious of Mr. Jackson because of his Muslim name. Mr. Jackson was taken to a private room and had to dance to prove he was a real dancer. MATSUNE’s solo performance, “Dance, if you want to enter my country!” is inspired by that story.

MATSUNE is holding his old and new passports.

Before the performance, the audience practiced with MATSUNE on how to move our own eyebrows down and transform to become a mustache on our face. Of course, we cannot move freely our eyebrows. What he wanted to practice with the audience is to imagine. When Mr. Jackson was taken to the private room, what did he dance? How long? And what was the reaction of immigration officers? Can we imagine this various situations like MATSUNE? On the other hand, he made removing eyebrows and making a mustache a literal activity. MATSUNE shaved his eyebrows, assembled a mustache from the shaved hair, and put the fake mustache below his nose. He took an ID photo of his face with this new eyebrows-turned mustache and renewed his passport with that photo. The MATSUNE in his new passport is like him and unlike him.

MATSUNE spoke about the profile of Mr. Jackson and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He also even danced one of their famous performances. The more we know about Mr. Jackson and the Dance Theater, the more we feel ridiculousness about the immigration officers’ requirement. But this incident really happened and is just an example of many other similar stories. The world is weird.

MATSUNE also spoke about his memory of childhood when he was longing for overseas. He shared some episodes of his passports after he grew up and started going abroad (including his new eyebrows-turned-mustache passport). He also showed us a series of brave video works taken at the immigration inspection counter of all over the world when he was entering each country.

Personally, when I was a child, I wanted to be a sailor. It does not mean I liked ships. I wanted to go to everywhere over the sea just like little MATSUNE dreaming of foreign countries. In the real world, however, the passport system used all over the world requires our passport to certify our identity for immigration inspection. Depending on the situation, we need a visa, too. From his video series, we found the process at all immigration counters is almost the same. But the immigration inspection is actually uncertain. If a first name in the passport looks like a Muslim name, it implies that the person is a Muslim. If the person is a Muslim, the possibility of becoming a terrorist is added. The probability of that logic is quite uncertain. Besides even if a dancer successfully danced and proved that he is a professional dancer, there would still be a possibility that a professional dancer is a terrorist. Firstly, how can amateur immigration officers judge that his dance skills are professional?

What MATSUNE is proposing is not about the world divided by terrorism. Although his identity is certified with his passport, a dancer can be doubted because of only his first name and can be forced to dance at the airport. Or such an important document, a passport can be issued with a strange ID photo which is different with his usual face. There is something uncertain involved in a system that is assumed to be solid. It is ridiculous, weird, loose and includes humans’ imagination or expectation. Each country requires on the border that he/she certifies by himself/herself who he/she is. But the system for that cannot be perfect. While borderlines are defined and entering borders is strict, what MATSUNE revealed is the vagueness. He pointed the discrepancy of the divided world with the passport system---it is strange and even mysterious--in a moderate way, I think.

Before I end, I will mention about the venue. Kyoto Art Center used to be a primary school from 1869 to 1993. After an extensive renovation in 1931, the building is preserved as it is till today. When it revived as an art center, both the outside and inside of the building was not almost changed. We can see the beautiful architecture and interior of the primary school it used to be. (20 December, 2016)

The Venue, Kyoto Art Center