“time/life/beauty” is supported by the National Dance Project, a program of
the New England Foundation for the Arts, and lead commision funding by Duke Arts.
Seeking commissioning, residency and presenters
(National Dance Project funding available)
Booking:
Michael Sakamoto, producer
michaelsakamoto1@gmail.com
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Overview
Fusing butoh dance theater, hip-hop mixology, new music and multimedia, and inspired by the legacy of famed composer-musician and activist Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023), time/ life/beauty looks at the past, present, and future of acute cultural, social, and ecological themes in our historical moment.
Mining the variety and mystery of Ryuichi’s music, interdisciplinary collaborations and environmental and anti-war commitments, choreographer-writer-performer Michael Sakamoto and composer-musician Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky transform Ryuichi’s art and ideas into two original performances: Gods and Monsters (working title), a music/dance/multimedia concert, and asymm (working title), an intimate dance theater collaboration with dancer Mohammed Smahneh aka Barges. Each performance is available individually or as a combined program (60-90 minutes).
Recent and upcoming engagements
January 2024 Winter Jazz Fest, New York, NY (guest performances)
July 2024 Japan Fest, Levitt Pavilion, Denver, CO (community concert)
January 11, 2025 Live Artery/New York Live Arts, New York, NY (APAP showcase)
Spring 2025 Mt Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA (work-in-progress)
Aug-Sept 2025 Development residency, College of Fine Arts, University of Texas, Austin Fall 2025 Production residency (host TBD)
January 30, 2026 Duke Arts, Duke University, Durham, NC (premiere)
2026 onward Full productions available for touring.
Performances and Activities
The artists will tour two works, available individually or together (60-90 min):
Gods and Monsters
(working title) combines Miller’s and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s compositions, Michael Sakamoto’s dance, and multimedia into a reflection on butoh and hip-hop as revolutionary art forms, the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and life in the high-tech age of the anthropocene.With electronic, classical, and hip hop music, movement vernaculars from butoh to hip-hop and contemporary dance, and immersive media visuals from history, science and beyond, Gods and Monsters is a kaleidescope of sound, movement, imagery, and text.
asymm
(working title) is an intimate, semi-autobiographical dance theater work written and performed by Sakamoto in collaboration with dancer Mohammed Smahneh aka Barges, with music by Miller, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and others, a lively meditation crossing artistic, social, and imagined borders and inspired by butoh and hip-hop’s roots in social resistance and Ryuichi’s “neo geo” (new geographies) intercultural worldview and lifelong search for meaning and activist engagement through everyday life.
As internationally active authors and educators, Miller and Sakamoto are also available for master classes, lectures, panels, or possible inclusion of local performers in the work as a manifestation of the project’s communal themes (subject to artist approval).
Background and Themes
time/life/beauty honors the legacy of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) by embodying two iconic cultural movements, both born from trauma. Originally called “ankoku buyo” – dance of utter darkness – butoh emerged in post-WWII Japan as a response to nuclear devastation andAmerican occupation. Hip-hop arose in NewYork in the 1970s and 1980s, with graffiti artists, MCs, DJs, and breakers transforming the marginalized experiences of Black and Brown communities into a cultural revolution. Whether reflecting our tech-obsessed society, penning gorgeous, melancholy film scores, experimenting with digital and immersive media, blending multicultural influences, or raising awareness of environmental, anti-war, and anti-nuclear issues, Ryuichi Sakamoto throughout his life was dedicated to an intersectional worldview.
Following in Ryuichi’s footsteps, including his use of Afro-Asian and Afrofuturist influences, Miller and Sakamoto blend their respective hip-hop and butoh practices at the intersection of science, art, digital music, and movement cultures. They employ quantum entanglement – the scientific phenomenon of entities simultaneously affecting each other regardless of distance – as a metaphor for cultural connectivity. The artists explore polytemporal expression, both hyper-accelerated and agonizingly slow movement and sound, as a meditation on how culture and nature survive and thrive in the face of radical change and the anthropocene. In a world propelled by infinite algorithms and data, global realpolitik, and ecological disaster, time/life/beauty is a powerful mirror to reflectthe realities of a global climate polycrisis. Miller and Sakamoto create performances that blur culture, race, language, and nation, highlighting the interdependence of societies and ecosystems and expressing a benevolent intercultural commons.
The piece is inspired by some of the earliest advocates for Butoh dance and the founders of the movement – Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazhuo Ohno, and Yoko Ashikawa, one of the earliest women performers to adapt butoh practice.
“An unforgettable performance…full of fire and comic detail…performed with style and panache.” – New York Times
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky is a composer, multimedia artist, and writer blending genres, global culture, and environmental and social issues. Miller has collaborated with an array of recording artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Metallica, Chuck D from Public Enemy, Steve Reich, and Yoko Ono amongst many others. His 2018 album, DJ Spooky Presents: Phantom Dancehall, debuted at #3 on Billboard Reggae. Miller is known for his international environmentalism efforts, including: an artist residency program on Vanuatu in the South Pacific, one of the nations most impacted by global warming’s rising seas; Antarctica research and resulting Ice Symphony and tour; and participation in the annual Hiroshima Peace Boat project, and his resulting Peace Symphony and tour.
Miller’s large-scale, multimedia commissions and performances include Rebirth of a Nation, Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, and Seoul Counterpoint, Sonic Web, and others. He was the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Met Reframed, 2012-2013. In 2014, Miller was named National Geographic Emerging Explorer. He produced Pioneers of African American Cinema, a collection of the earliest films made by African American directors, released in 2015. Miller’s artwork has appeared in the Whitney Biennial,Venice Biennial for Architecture, Miami/Art Basel fair, and many other museums and galleries.
Miller’s books include the award-winning Rhythm Science, published by MIT Press; Sound Unbound, an anthology about digital music and media; The Book of Ice, a visual and acoustic portrait of the Antarctic; and The Imaginary App, on how apps changed the world. His writing has been published by The Village Voice, The Source, and Artforum, and he was the first founding Executive Editor of Origin Magazine.
Miller is currently Artist in Residence at the Yale University Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (2023-2024, extended).
web: djspooky.com
DJ Spooky is included in this memorial for Ryuichi Sakamoto on WNYC.
A commanding performer…a dramatic tour de force.” – Los Angeles Times
Michael Sakamoto is a transdisciplinary artist active in dance, theater, performance, media and photography. Known as an innovator in butoh and the philosophy behind it, Michael is dedicated to intercultural dialogue and cultural sustainability through performative and visual methodologies He creates choreographic and narrative performances, media works, and photo essays to reveal diverse experiences across geography, language and social boundaries.
Michael’s work has been presented in 16 countries, including at Vancouver International Dance Festival (Canada), Boston Lyric Opera, REDCAT, Dance Center of Columbia College- Chicago, Gøteborg Art Sounds (Sweden), TACT/Fest (Japan), Audio Art-Krakow (Poland), and many others. Touring works include: Flash, a butoh/hip-hop duet with Rennie Harris; Soil, a dance theater trio with Cambodian,Vietnamese, and Thai dancers; dance-music collaborations with Christopher Jette (blind spot) and Amy Knoles (Sacred Cow); and many others.
Michael has taught and lectured internationally and publishes creative non-fiction, critical essays and academic texts. His book monograph, An Empty Room: Imagining Butoh and the Social Body in Crisis, a critical autoethnography of Michael’s three-decade journey through butoh history, practice, and theory, was released in 2022 by Wesleyan University Press and shortlisted for the de la Torre Bueno Prize for best first book in dance studies. Michael is former faculty at University of Iowa, California Institute of the Arts, Bangkok University, and Goddard College and serves as Performing Arts Curator and Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture Program Director at the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center.
web: michaelsakamoto.org
“The dynamic Mohammed Smahneh…moves fluidly between styles, his dancing a through line that links dabke, a traditional Palestinian folk dance, and breaking.” – New York Times
Mohammed Smahneh aka Barges is an internationally-active contemporary, hip-hop, and folk dancer based in Palestine and New York City. He is a member of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, with whom he has performed numerous projects since 2011, including: Gathering: New York City, Last Ward, 3×13, Against a Hard Surface, Noah, bound, and The Playground.
Smahneh was one of the first b-boy dancers in Palestine Askar refugee camp and the region. Together with a group of young b-boy dancers, he works on developing and teaching breaking in Palestine, where they organize battle competitions and workshops. He has won various break-dance battles in Palestine and been involved in many international and local projects, including: Badke, a co-production between KVS, le ballets C de la B & A.M. Qattan Foundation and directed by Koen Augustijnen, Rosalba Torres and Hildegard De Vuyest (2013-2016 Brussels, Blegium and international tours); B by Koen Augustijnen and Rosalba TorresGuerrero (2016-2018 South Africa, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and France); Nomads Dance Camp directed by Dina Abu Hamdan with choreographers Jorge Crecis,Taoufiq Izediou, and Samara Haddad King (2014, Jordan); Nji alli with Botega Dance Company directed by Enzo Celli (2009, Italy); Floor Wars Battle Champion (2012, Copenhagen, Denmark); and festivals in Spain and Greece touring Palestinian traditional dance (2004-2005).
Smahneh is also a puppeteer for acclaimed international public performance project, The Walk with Little Amal, by Handspring Puppet Company.
