Body Speed

Our bodies have speed.

Over the past few centuries (or indeed, ever since ancient times), we have sought speed. Speed in movement. Speed in knowledge. Speed in acquisition. And there is no doubt that the ceaseless pursuit of this desire has resulted in making our lives significantly faster and more efficient and convenient.

However, it is also evident that our bodies are crying out in response to this increasingly accelerated world. Within the last few years, the speed of information has risen yet further and, in consequence, our reactions have become more emotional and instantaneous, even though the actual speed of our bodies has not really changed. After all is said and done, our bodies as physical objects still require time to move or grow.

So how about slowing things down? No, it’s not as simple as that. Especially in the case of a metropolis like Tokyo, any attempt to decelerate everything would be patently absurd. In the first place, our bodies don’t all have the same speeds. We are sometimes fast and sometimes slow. There are young bodies as well as old ones. Moreover, this immense city is a composite of infinite coexisting variations and gradations of speed, where the speed of bodies is joined by the speeds of things that are not human, by speeds that do not belong to bodies.

While the performing arts do not create works of art that remain behind as objects somewhere, they examine our lives at the speed of the body, through the things that emerge from our bodies. Is it possible, then, to envision the city through the performing arts, even if for just a fleeting moment? The festival is a time for doing this.