Party Next Door begins with ideas about an individual’s fear of missing out and being an outsider. There seem to be parties around him but not quite within his reach. These partiers don’t respond when he bangs on the door. The piece continues into the character creating movement when he is alone. A form of self-acceptance in creating your own party. As the character becomes more adventurous he loses his fears of failure and embraces them.
Inspirations throughout this piece came from my years both as a breakdancer and as a camp drag performer. While there are many camp elements throughout, the first part of the piece plays with machoness and hip hop culure and transforms into drag/disco inspirations. The work is showing all the elements of a rigorous dance rehearsal but laid bare for the audience to see the failures that create success.
Yuichiro has a natural physical humour and charm. We played off of his playfulness, and place delicate gestures next to ones filled with his strength. Often, we chose natural gestures he would do during rehearsal when he wasn’t performing.
The audience is left never quite being sure what will happen next. Simple props grow or easily disappear. The sequined band extends the limits of Yuichiro’s body while he makes the pink silk scarf beautiful at the expense of the body. In the end the audience gets lost in Yuichiro’s jumps while his mic’ed breath fills the room with his body.
The piece uses every element of the room, making the viewer aware of the space –the dancer emerges from the sidelines, knocking on backstage doors that lead to groups of people other than the audience, having an audience member throw this silk scarf at Yuichiro, breaking the wall between performer and audience. In the end, nobody ever walks through the door. Yuichiro’s character is waiting for something that never appears; in the he decides to create his own inner world instead of looking outside of himself.
Party Next Door was a collaboration with contemporary dancer, Yuichiro Inoue for Singular Bodies (2016) at Toronto Dance Theatre, a show in which 10 visual artists were each paired with 10 contemporary dancers to create 10 dance solos.
Yuichiro Inoue in Party Next Door (2016).
Choreography by Marisa Hoicka.
Presented by Toronto Dance Theatre as part of Singular Bodies.
Artistic Director: Christopher House
Rehearsal direction: Rosemary James
Lighting Designer: Simon Rossiter
Production Stage Manager/Costumes: Cheryl Lalonde
Stage Manager/Metcalf Foundation Intern: Kaitlin Cheel
ASM: Jessica Wilder