One of the most problematic challenges for an artist is to be asked to make work that is a ‘response to’ another artist. What are the parameters, the expectations? To what extent does my voice echo the other? How far apart can we feasibly be?
For choreographer Melanie Lane, being asked to respond to the idiosyncratic genius of Japanese visual artist Yayoi Kusama is one thing, but to do so on the site of the latter’s career-spanning retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) takes it to another level.
“I was more interested in…not necessarily a counter but to transform some of her ideas into the language that I work with,” Lane reveals. “One point I wanted to make sure I didn’t tread into was replicating. I do not want to bring polka dots into the world I’m creating. I want to find and understand themes she’s interested in.”
Born in September 1929, Kusama, now 95, is often described as the world’s most significant living artist. Her work spans mediums (painting, sculpture, installations, video) and genres (pop, feminist, minimalist). Her longevity and influence alone mark her out as one of the last century’s most successful visual innovators.
“Like many people, I got to know her work through this very ‘pop artist’ thing,” Lane admits, “but the more I got to know her work, and talking with the curators at NGV, it was really fascinating to find out where her practise comes from.”
Scratching beneath the brightly coloured surface of Kusama’s more famous works, Lane was further intrigued. “It’s so committed. It’s like, she uses the word obliteration a lot. Self-obliteration and all that. And you can really feel that. It’s really powerful. You know, from a distance her work is so playful, but then there’s this…deep sadness and melancholy in her experience of this world she lives in.”
Here then, the deeper connection, and the springboard for Lane’s response, Pulau, which will premiere in February in the Great Hall at NGV as part of Melbourne’s Asia TOPA triennial.
As she explains, “I was drawn first of all to her world building, which I can really relate to; these sort of fictional, fantastical universes that she builds. She has this kind of obsession with this imagery that she’s had since her childhood; these hallucinations of polka dots and colour.”
Lane’s fascination, it transpires, is more than merely aesthetic or intellectual. Like the artist, the dancemaker understands private, unconscious visual landscapes. In her case, a recurring dream. “It’s like texture. I had these smooth white surfaces that would snap to really rough, sandy surfaces; and it would snap between these two textures over and over again. Yeah, really strange. So, when I was learning about her hallucinations, I could understand this…almost torment…of this abstract visual world that still kind of hangs with me.”
Thus, her ‘response’ will not be rendered in saturated pop colour, and strewn with Kusama’s signature polka dot motif. Indeed, Lane’s choice to call her piece Pulau (which means island in Bahasa, the language of her Javanese heritage), is a reference to another of the artists’ shared experiences — namely, that both are “a bit nomadic”, having worked and lived around the world.
“Actually, that’s where the image of the island came from — this idea of, like, moving between places. But it’s also a response to being in the Great Hall, with those big, floating, yellow polka dot clouds. So, I had this feeling of trying to land, or to find this opposite tension.”
Mapping this onto the terrain of dance, and doing so in a way that utilises the cavernous interior of the NGV, was the next challenge. “What I started with was trying not to get overwhelmed by her enormous legacy, and just trying to think about what our connecting threads were, even if from a distance,” Lane recalls. “What do we share, what can I relate to? Obviously, the world building is big. I always work in these kind of speculative, fictional worlds. Another one, is her transient experience.”
In choreographic terms, this translates as repetition, illusion, destabilisation and suspension. Moulding these into movement is the task that now confronts Lane and her team as they ready themselves for their Asia TOPA bow. “But, at the same time,” she reflects, “I also want to honour Kusama. I’m trying to find ways to respect this incredible legacy and body of work. So, I’m finding little details that nod to her, without replicating. It’s actually been challenging, but a really interesting space to try and tackle.”
That space is not only artistic but physical. The Great Hall at the NGV is resoundingly architectural. Rectilinear, monumental, grandiose. Lane emits a knowing laugh. “It’s got potential for things that you can’t do in a black box. It’s got these other possibilities too,” she teases. “We’ve got some pretty exciting ideas, but…I won’t share too much.”
All we can be sure of now is that Lane is building a world, a planet, an island, on which Kusama may also find sanctuary. Perhaps, come late February, we too might set foot upon that shore.
Melanie Lane’s Pulau will be presented as part of Asia TOPA from 22 – 23 February. For tickets and more information, visit www.asiatopa.com.au/event/pulau.
By Paul Ransom of Dance Informa.
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