ゼロイチ Ikebana Battle
2025.01.19 at 晴れたら空に豆まいて。
My artist friend Yuiru invited me to her flower arranging event. I’d seen her creations before and was always intrigued at how non-traditional they were so of course I was interested to see what an event to make them looked like. The result far exceeded my expectations and set a new bar for creative expression in my time in Japan. The event space was surprising because it is in Daikanyama which is known to be a posh place, yet this club was straight out of New York or Toronto. Show posters for all sorts of my favourite bands past and present adorned the doorway and inside was a mix of well-worn wood and DIY fabric covered facings. The club was dark and laid out intelligently for music shows with the bar the main hub. I instantly knew good things happened in this space.
I’m not the biggest fan of drum and bass but the selections were great and the sound was well balanced, again hinting that they know what they’re doing here. The central drum kit was another big suggestion of something dynamic to come, although as with all things pivoting on a single instrument performer, it can easily go both ways. Again, I was pleasantly surprised when the drummer started it was superb. Tons of feel and backbeat that I have never seen a in-Japan drummer present.
After the first 30 seconds or so I clued in to the format of the show. Two people, 3 rounds of 5 minutes to each person. A total of 30 minutes plus 30 seconds in between. The first person starts by building an ikebana arrangement using a myriad of ingredients around the stage. Then, for the next 5 minutes the opponent can modify the design how he likes and add or remove things to create his specific design. Meanwhile the improvised drumming provides a continuum of sorts and keeps the emotions high by punctuating the moves of the flower arranger.
What immediately became apparent was the sheer speed and confidence necessary to arrange a large scale artwork in only 5 minutes. Even in something like action painting, it’s pretty hard to make something cohesive and powerful in that time, yet the mix of performance and particular inherent beauty of the materials bridged the gap between human and natural in a surprising way. Art was formed in almost a fast-forward version of nature being controlled by man.
Particularly shocking was the frenetic destruction of the previous arrangements and the incredibly violent cutting and stabbing of flowers, ropes and other items. The one contestant’s scissors were so incredibly sharp that they cut through half-inch ropes like thread. In the above video you can see the aftermath of the destruction of the previous person’s work. Yet, just 2 minutes later, it was again transformed into a completely cohesive work. Incredible.
This kept going back and forth and a clear personality of each of the performers emerged. One was a builder, adding, constucting, arranging, creating a support structure for later. The second was chaotic, sometimes adding, sometimes completely destroying or converting, or inverting the shapes or focus of the piece to create or expose an entirely different meaning. At one point the “destroyer” hung up the previous piece by the roof and swung around inside the creation as the 5 minutes came due.
Mixed with the superb drumming and constantly tweaked focus-lighting it was a perfect marriage of sound, sight, motion, and smell.
After intermission, the previous contestants invited 6 crowd members on stage to do essentially the same thing as amateurs. I was apprehensive about how anyone could do such a feat of spontaneous transformation, but was shocked to see that 5 of the 6 resulted in very interesting and aesthetically pleasing designs. Moreover, the differences shown between the two original contestants and within these amateurs was yet again illustrated acutely. Each had a strong decision and physical style. Some were thinkers, some were highly energetic, some were more traditional beauty-oriented, others were architectural. It was fascinating to see the personalities revealed so quickly and raw, often completely at odds with their clothing or speaking style.
The night was 3 hours long so there were many more videos and photos which are really impossible to transform into a short article, but one highlight was the final performance by my friend and a singer. I know the exact lyrics meaning but it seems to be something about starting a new year with give and take, incorporating inside and outside, nature and human. As a whole, it summed up the action of the ikebana perfectly in both content and spirit and the idea of putting a human voice to it which was so lovely sounding was akin to generations of campfire folk songs wishing for good things to come.
CONCLUSION
This was one of the best shows I’ve seen in Japan and hit the mark in all regards - music, visuals, interaction, aesthetics, feeling and the potential to create meaning in each person according to how they viewed it.
The particularly impressive part was also sociological. Japanese people are incredibly consistent and reserved in day-to-day life and frankly in “professional” arts such as music or painting, it seems that rote learning and adhering to convention often sap the life or soul out of most of the works. Here it was very different and surprising in the degree of force and spontaneity the people exhibited. At one point it reminded me of how a samurai duel may have realistically required such spontaneous commitment. In that way, perhaps the combination of natural and artistic elements here allowed the rigour and precision of Japanese style to be effortlessly unleashed.
PRICE
3000JPY
AVAILABILITY
2025.01.19 at 晴れたら空に豆まいて
[出演]
上野雄次(華道家）
春山 福太郎(花の人 福太郎)
緑川直人(Drum)
Rintaro Sekizuka(DJ/VDS)
THE RATING
8/10 Absolute
10/10 Relative
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