The goal of Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape is to express furyu, “wind flow” or “the beauty of being as it is,” which is an intuitive translation, since 1998. Furyu is an affirmation of ephemerality. Human emotion and states of being flow back and forth, like the wind, between the senses of worldly/conventional life and spiritual/mortal life. Yet by recognizing our mortal essence in our lives, we connect with our holistic being and sense the expansion and contraction of the universe. With the viewers, Kato hopes to create the moments of liberation through her dance.
Grasping dance as an art of being, Kato seeks the contemporary form of liberation through movements. By being aware of Ma - space, silence and stillness, Kato’s works offer contemplative environment informed by Taoism, Buddhism and Japanese traditional arts, yet often fused with western music/sounds, particularly J.S. Bach and free jazz. During the past few years, as much as butterfly effect can explain, Kato’s aim is to choreograph the energy through moving bodies and she believes that dancers should convey their movements with such sensitivity through space. Kato’s current choreographic approach is to physically extract empirical essence in human bodies through movements to express the forever imperfect and ephemeral state of being and its beauty, even including the moments of struggle.
Dance reveals that “absence of absolute” and “absolute necessity” are interrelated as a whole. And embodying the fact by cherishing moments is the mission to move.