Audience

“A few years ago, I saw the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s early work Fase at a theater. De Keersmaeker herself performed along with another young dancer. The young dancer was performing without any facial expressions. It’s an expression we can often see when the dancer is in the illusion assumed on the stage. Normally called “infinite focus,” this expression is closer to a gaze that happens in a state where one is looking at everything rather than looking at one specific thing. It’s as if a wall exists between the audience and the performers, and so the audience is not seen by the dancer, nor do they exist for the dancer. The audience who looks at the performer with such expressionlessness also imagines that world in illusion and attempts to enter that illusion. However, De Keersmaeker’s expression seemed different. It was as if she was looking at something that existed in the theater, and her focus was alive. It made me recognize not only that world of illusion but also the actual space time of “here and now” where I sat. Following that focus, I quickly moved through between illusion and “here and now,” and felt a sense of expansive space.”