| Тuesday, 28th June 2011 |22.00 / The Youth Theatre, Grand Stage |

Die Scheinwerferin
What is ‘appearance’? It’s outward manifestations such as make-up, colour, light and shadow... It’s a transient ‘empty’ surface allowing people not only to notice but as well to identify one another, even fall in love with one another. Visual artist and performer Naoko Tanaka chooses Die Scheinwerferin as the title for her first solo in which ‘appearance and reality’ are taken to new dimensions by displacing their light and shadow.
Tanaka’s images raise questions about her own experience with an eating disorder. On a dining table lies a doll that is an exact miniature of the artist. With it she artificially distances herself from her own body as well as repressed experiences and embarks on a fictive journey into her inner self carrying just a torch. It is this small light that takes over the main role in her piece. Tanaka here uses simple means indeed, and yet manages to create fascinating fictitious images of restrained memories creeping out of a lush forest that appears to be growing under an ordinary dining table. Her powerful ‘illusory world’ of light and shadow takes over the whole space, flows and disappears.
Tanaka presents images she herself sees for the first time by turning herself into ‘die Schweinwerferin’ – namely into somebody casting a light. She demonstrates with it that seeing cannot be but a subjective act.
The viewers have by no means a passive role in Tanaka’s piece. The floods of ‘appearance’ they are subjected to throughout the performance aim at arousing their own personal associations. The journey the artist seemed to embark on her own turns instead into a haunting experience for just anyone.
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Naoko Tanaka
Naoko Tanaka studied painting and fine art at the Tokyo Fine Arts University and in 1999 came to the Arts Academy of Düsseldorf in Germany with a scholarship. There she got in touch both with the performance and dance scene.
Her work was shown amongst others in conjunction with the Kunstfilm Biennale at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, ‘Emprise Art Award’ in Forum NRW, Düsseldorf and in Museum Baden, Solingen.
Since the foundation of the artists’ collective ‘Ludica.’, together with the choreographer Morgan Nardi in 2001, she has been creating stage performances and dance installations in which choreography and visual art are closely linked together. ‘Ludica.’ was invited with its latest production The Corner to Dance Platform Germany 2010.
Naoko Tanaka was also invited to the project COLINA2005 – Collaboration in Art at Tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf and to the Urban Fetishes project (initiated by Ong Keng Sen) at the Tanzquartier in Vienna.
The current work Die Scheinwerferin is her first solo piece, directed by herself.
With this piece, Naoko Tanaka is conducting a focused study of the experimental and artistic possibilities of movement that still remain latent in the performance arts.