I was made for loving you.Melbourne’s RISING Festival, Japanese artist Saeborg.
Image: Jacqui Stockdale with Yumi
Working Like a Dog?
No—I am the dog.
I was made for loving you. Melbourne’s RISING Festival, Japanese artist Saeborg. Thurs 5th June to Sunday 15th June — 5pm to 12pm, Howey Place, Melbourne
I'm currently performing at Melbourne’s RISING Festival, working with stunning Japanese artist Saeborg, and yes… every night I become a dog. Literally.
Saeborg is an internationally acclaimed artist, winner of the Taro Okamoto Contemporary Art Award (Toshiko Okamoto Prize, 2014) and the recent Tokyo Contemporary Art Award. Her work, often featuring self-made latex body suits, explores the idea of cyborgs as "incomplete beings—half-human, half-toy," transcending age and gender through artificiality. Every detail is hand-crafted, and she performs inside the costumes herself.
She is a hard-core powerhouse, but she is very kind and charming person.
To be honest, at first I wasn’t so sure about getting into a latex dog suit…
But stepping into the world from a dog's eye view—seeing, moving, and sensing humans from that perspective—opened up something profound!
To ‘perform’ as SaeDog, she told me to let go the desire to “express’ something, and explore what exists between you and audience…OMG those are almost same as philosophy of Butoh!
I could enter those full Butoh-body mode , through touch, scent, subtle presence as a dog, even I was surrounded by the shiny latex, far from anything “natural” or “organic”! Those surreal texture of latex makes me quest for that canine presence.
It actually reminded me of working with Kaitaisha theatre, an amazing Japanese company, where actors explored the idea of “inu-kehai” (dog-aura or dog-sensitivity)—incredibly subtle, deeply embodied movement.
Woof woof!
Come and see the world!
In a glass box like a pet shop window in CBD Melbourne, SaeDog, a fragile creature—tearful, shedding a little from stress, sits Vulnerable, tender, endlessly giving love, and somehow… funny and heartbreaking all at once.
We tried to find the right English words for “はかないHakanai” or “切ないsetsunai”.(My tea teacher Adam sensei told me that it could be like pensive, forlorn.)
Either way, SaeDog is somehow surreal wabi-sabi of Japanese art!! Ha
Come and see us 5pm-12am Thursday to Sunday every night this week in the Howey Place in the City!
In English there is an expression "working like a dog" but this time I'm working "being a dog". Lol
Working with Japanese artist Saeborg at RISING, Melbourne's International Arts Festival, makes me doggie every night.
Saeborg is a selling artist who has been awarded the "Taro Okamoto Contemporary Art Award" Okamoto Toshiko Award (2014) and recently the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award, and has been traveling all over the world!
"As a half human, half toy imperfect cyborg, I made my own latex bodysuits that I believe can transcend gender, age, and more by being artificial." and many pieces have been produced. All the detail work is handmade, and it's super tight that puts itself into the onesie and performs, but he's actually very gentle.
Honestly, at first, I was running away thinking I would fit into a clothesie, but somehow, I realized that the world is very deep in which you can see, move, and feel human through the gaze of a dog. Some of the ideas for performing "Sae Dok" (this time's name for the doggy) include "expressing something out of itself" and "searching for something between you and the audience" and that's truly a dance!
Once you start to feel a dog's skin, feel, smell, etc, it's completely a dragon! Lolz.
Back in the day, when I worked with the theater company, I remembered how the actors used to move subtlely with the expression "dog-sensitive". It's a real deep world.
The actual dog is made of latex, and quite the opposite of the so-called organic world, but therefore I'm looking for a "dog-like" that's extra surreal.
This saedog says, "A teary, stressed and slightly hairless, in the middle of Melbourne's streets, in a glass-like pet shop." Somewhere humorous, as the title suggests this time, he is a gentle or vulnerable presence who keeps giving love.
I tried to translate "hakanai" and "heartbreaking" in English, but I couldn't find any good words.. This is also a bit surreal "Wabi Sabi" art from Japan.
(Afterwards, I asked Dr. Adam of tea, and he said that the words "pensive" and "forlorn" are expressions of lonelyness.. )
Starting this week Thursday through Sunday
At Howey Place from 5pm to 12pm
(Howey Place runs South from Little Collins Street between Swanston Street and Elizabeth Street. It joins with the shopping mall at 234 Collins Street which runs through to Collins Street, as well forming an "L" shape toward the back of the Capitol Arcade which connects it with Swanston Street.)
