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Is Keiko possible with ZOOM？
Bring the iPad on a tripod to a small keiko room and launch ZOOM. Translation app is ready on the screen of my iPhone. The scenery is not as beautiful as it should be when the electronic devices are brought into the keiko room. I was negative about the keiko using ZOOM, but I decided to try it for the first time.
The student is a dancer and choreographer from Colombia who lives in Berlin. She was supposed to be enjoying Kyoto life now with the Artist Residency Program sponsored by Goethe-Institute. But the Corona turmoil forced to change her plan to the Online Residency Program. Isn't it a vocabulary contradiction?
Is it possible to do our keiko with ZOOM?
The conclusion I have reached after two months of trial and error is that if some prerequisites were met, it might be possible.
Prerequisite # 1 Student has a mutual experience .
Lina, my student this time, is from a university called PUC in Sao Paulo. There, she participated in Toshi Tanaka's class. In the first place, she came to me with Toshi's introduction. As long as her works she showed me, a part of movements used in her dance seemed inspired by the movement she experienced at Toshi's class. In any case, I can't think of to do practice online without her experience with Toshi. She said she was interested in "air", so we started our keiko "focusing on what we can't see."
Prerequisite # 2 Multiple people on both sides.
At first, I tried it one-on-one, but I soon realized that it was no good. Face to face over the screen does not work well. We decided to ask each other for a partner for each side. The style is that there are two people here and two people over there. This makes it look like a keiko scene. Demonstrate on this side and have them do it over there. Just having a checker makes it different. I was surprised that Lina was able to call on friends who are former students of Toshi in Berlin.
Prerequisite # 3 There should be a possibility that one day you can practice in a real place
There is no guarantee that we will be able to practice together in a real place in the future. However, we cannot do it without assuming it. The feeling of itching in the shoes is too strong. In other words, keiko cannot be completed online alone. Our keiko will be completed when we will meet in a real space.
It seems it's a better idea to carry a real body over here rather than practicing at ZOOM, even if she needs a period of self-isolation after her arrival . But we should do what we can do under given conditions at this point.