MAVOtek is a series of performances, started in 2012, by Japanese performer and composer Tomomi Adachi. It is dedicated to the Japanese Dada movement group MAVO which was led by Tomoyoshi Murayama in the 1920s. Adachi invites artists to make new pieces which inspired by MAVO, each performances have had different guest artists and includes theatrical performances and (fictional) lectures.
MAVOtek part IV (2018)
Tomomi Adachi with Breeda CC + Kareth Schaffer
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin
June 07. 2018
45 minutes
Tomomi Adachi (concept, direction, voice, electronics, video, text)
Breeda CC (puppet, puppetry)
Kareth Schaffer (dance, choreography, voice, text)
Extra performers (voice, movements, puppetry)
Chrizzi Heinen, Charlotte Pauwelyn, Lina Walder, Olga Kozmanidze, Miho Shimomura, Silvia Beraldo, Yanice Rosenow, Miriam Bach, Lucia Sciandro, Despina Kapetanaki, Natalia Wilk, Lisa Zunftmeister, Sara Xhengo, Anaïs Poulet
The performance was commissioned by Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart as a part of the exhibition “Hello World” which included a part of MAVO.
In 1922, Murayama spent one year in Berlin and encountered many artists from the European avant-garde. One section of the Hello World exhibition is dedicated to the ties between the artists connected to the gallery and magazine Der Sturm and the MAVO group and magazine in Tokyo. The theatrical performance, Part IV focuses on the German dancer Niddy Impekoven who inspired Murayama in his commitment to feminine performance art, and a possible meeting between Murayama and Hannah Höch whose Dada dolls helped form Murayama’s Conscious Constructivism. The performance by Adachi, the puppet artist Breeda CC, dance artist Kareth Schaffer and additional performers largely develops out of the man-machine aesthetics of the 1920s, a culmination of the avant-garde in the eras of Taisho democracy in Japan and Weimar culture in Germany and also a harbinger of the body politics in the Fascist regimes in both Japan and Germany.
MAVOtek part III (2016)
Tomomi Adachi & Jennifer Walshe
Goethe Institute Tokyo on September 26 2016
The first half of MAVOtek part III was a lecture performacne about ficitional relationship between Japanese dada and Irish dada. In the second part, Adachi and Walshe improvised on a sound poem by Hide Kinoshita (1924), using the rooftop of Goethe Institute Tokyo and a bathtub.
A video extract from the second part.
MAVOtek part II (2016)
Concept, composition, text, voice and electronics: Tomomi Adachi
Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig on January 17, 2016
Commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur/EURORADIO for Art’s Birthday – 100 Jahre Dada
Voice and electronics: Audrey Chen
Noise Choir: Alexandra Gussek, Alissa Sebri, Andreas C. Schulz, Astrid Baumgärtner, Carsten Säger, Elisabetta Lanfredini, Etienne Jourdan, Florence Römer, Holger Reissig, Ikko Masuda, Jakob Matz, Laurence Tompkins, Lotte Pöschko, Josefine Bretag, Matthias Schiffner, Patricia Machmutoff, Reinis Indans, Sebastian, Sophia Geß, Susie Waites, Tina Mamczur
30minutes
MAVOtek part II is a theatrical work primarily for live radio broadcasting. It has two topics, MAVO’s home-made noise machine named “Sound Constructor” in 1924, possibly the first noise improvisation in the history of modern art, and their potential but unrealised radio play. The Sound Constructor was made with bicycles, this is why bicycles are one of main materials of the performance.
MAVOtek part I (2012)
Tomomi Adachi, Jennifer Walshe, Cia Rinne and Alessadro Bosetti
Villa Elisabeth, Berlin on September 14, 2012.
Organised by The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
Three artists, Jennifer Walshe, Cia Rinne and Alessadro Bosetti, were invited to make collaborative short pieces based on MAVO’s history, concepts and materials.
Voice Sound Poetry Form Ended With -X- by Tomomi Adachi and Jennifer Walshe
Homophonic Translations by Cia Rinne and Tomomi Adachi
Footface by Alessandro Bosetti and Tomomi Adachi (studio version)