focusing on equal participation
First, thank you for participating in continual discussion with us.
As a public wok using public budget our discussion should go back and forth between society and art. And although this is the art project held in japan, since we are interacting Internationally, we would like to lead our discussion to the contemporary theme discussed globally. so, even when we are dealing with nepali and Japanese culture and society, it is good to observe the discussions, topics and example which are being dealt in the world.
Taking one topic like Equal participation, there's still place for discussing about which kind of equality and what for. because there are several kind of diversity like race, religion, disability, cultural mingle, education and so on at various level. and we should take into consideration for what we should make the things diverse, for whom, and why.
and since what we can do here is limited because of the limited resources, it seems better to confirm what we can do and what we have and then we will move to the discussion about what we are going to make.
Since you are the artist who do performance, I have looked for the some activity performed by diverse people's body. Disabled sports. if we focus on the moving of the performance we may find the differences of each other's body. and if we deal with the social matter and performance at the same time, i think the discussion of disabled sports can be useful for our discussion. in a game of it, diverse bodies play at the same time. there is a equality's problem as well as honor of the playing the sports. if it's a group sports, players have to think about how they can collaborate with different bodies.
if we make the performance involving the people and perform together, we may discuss this point. if we will get interested about this in the next skype meeting, we can develop further discussion.
And also you are the Nepali artist and have an experience to stay japan, you talked about your experiences at last time. I think it will be interesting to begin with your personal experiences. Now we are planing to research in the city with you in July, we can walk and go to several site in Osaka, so we can develop our discussion about it in July. recently i had a chance to talk with foreigner living in Kansai area (Osaka's neighborhood) they said they were feeling the same feeling as you. You said when you were staying in Fukuoka, you asked Japanese people the way with your map but anyone could not answer it. there might be some reasons like because they were so busy and had no time to show the way or they could not speak English or it might be a usual situation that Japanese people tend to avoid a communication with someone whom they don't know well. In these situations Japanese people may feel safety to stay in the place only where they are familiar with, while foreign people feel some exclusiveness to them.
And here, from this simple but revealing the symptom of Japanese society example, we can do the discussion. maybe there is opinion that those attitude can be allowed because it's just a cultural difference, while there are other opinion that japanese people should change, they should be more open to the foreign people. or there might be an another solution.
the Filipino man living in Nara whom i talked recently said " if we have a same interest like music and in the same circle, it is not difficult to communicate." implying in his voice that he feels difficulty to communicate outside the community.
The American living in Osaka said " In japan i cannot talk to girls at random in the cafe, if i do they'll ignore me or pretend not to speak english."
Maybe the point is if we are in the same circle, group or community we can communicate, but outside the community it will not happen. And there is a question that; Is it good to live in the separate communities where people share the same interest and there's no connection between them, Or are we going to make the opportunity to meet the diverse people at random, relate at various level and interact each other?
And this point is also crucial for us because we are considering to do the performance in the public space and , we should remind that we are using public budget so we cannot make this performance or exhibit for only closed community. how are we going to make an impact or impression or any feeling among the audience in the public space. and how we can interact with each other.
This point is not only relating to the theme but also relating to the marketing and fundraising of performing arts, so i hope we can have enough time to talk about this.
And at last of this topic i would like to share a video relating this topic. it is a performance by the musician Jon Batiste. he plays melodica with the band "stay human" at everywhere, on the road, in the train, parks, and trips around the world. for him, stage is everywhere. He advocate "Social music."
http://youtu.be/iDsK3lIfUYE
thanks for reading, see you at next meeting !