Cross Transit

Cross Transit

A new work by an international choreographer and dancer, Akiko Kitamura, which is based on her fieldwork and interactions with Japanese and Cambodian artists. Cross Transit was inspired by the works of a Cambodian photographer, Kim Hak, and portrays the world within his work. The dancers “step into” that world, come together with his photos and words, and attempt to step away from the framework of being an individual to becoming something else. Our physical forms eventually disappear but dance lives on through others, gradually shifting over time in its sensation and memories of others. Cross Transit has a rich vocabulary where the individual dance languages, photography, texts, and music merge and cross on the stage.

Cambodia is a country that has passed down folk dance and performance arts which is completely unique and different from that of the West, and after experiencing a long civil war and a near extinction of folk culture, Cambodia has begun taking a democratic path. Japan is a country which experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake after its economic growth ended. Upon losing its hegemony over Asia, Japan is in search of a new way of interacting with other Asian countries.
These dancers step between reality and astral, tracing out the memories of their bodies to envision the "future ruins".

In this work, current Cambodian artists who have overcome the atrocities of their country’s past and are seeking for a new form of expression, were brought together with current Japanese artists to create and collaborate under Akiko Kitamura's direction.Cross Transit involves various forms of approach such as body expression, film, and photography which forms a new vision of Asia in the future from the interactions between Japan and Cambodia.