Journey to NIPAF Asia 2015

..a journal from Kathmandu to Tokyo-Osaka-Nagano by Ishan Pariyar

Nippon International Performance Arts Festival ( NIPAF) was been started and doing its series of performance art since 1993. In the beginning, artist were Sho Kazakura (one of an artist who was a Neo Dada Organizer member in the 1960`s in Tokyo ) & Seiji Shimoda, 3 Korean Artists, 7 artists from Europe and Canada. In the early 1990s, Seiji Shimoda commenced performance art in few countries such as Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. He had conducted some performances and realized that he should go to various Asian countries to meet local artists and initiate to put out the actual how performance art is practicing there.

As I have got the formal invitation from Seiji Shimoda (The Director of NIPAF) to participate in 18th NIPAF Asia, I was truly excited to be part of it. I processed to get my visa from Japan Embassy in Kathmandu and finally my flight was fixed for 29th July to Narita, Tokyo. I got my boarding pass to have one-day long travel by air. Anyway, I take it as an experience and enjoyed my travel too. As I get off to Tokyo I met with Miri Hamada she was waiting for my arrival at Narita Airport and we moved to the Hotel. It was the first time my step was treading on Tokyo and my genuine Japanese experiences were started from the day. I had the delicious taste of seafood and Japanese cuisine. I had the experience of cap sole night with a hot spring bath. It was my amazing experiences and I had time to visit the Senso-Ji Temple, Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, Museum of Contemporary Art, Mori Art Museum, and many places during my stay in Tokyo. Our performance was going to start from 3rd of August & I had a gracious bond of friendship with Asian artists Zhoubin, Tyther, Ju Young Park, Niloofar Chaman, Moda Lorina along with Miyaki, Futoshi, Nobuki, Hiroyuki, Toshiharu, Hiroko, Eriko, Azusa, Chika, Kazuaki and more friendly Japanese friends.

The first show in Tokyo helped me to learn how to conduct a performance show with proper management and guidance as Seiji-san was doing. I have found most of the artists did meaningful and lively performances related to their theme and in issues and impressions. As myself also  I did my performance titled "TIME", it was the depiction of my impression over the time I spend in the disastrous tremor in Kathmandu, Nepal during April 2015. I did use the News Paper related to the lifestyle of Nepalese people and made a pile of paper boxes wrapped in the newspaper. And I followed with my act to express my ideas with my performance. As we finished up the Tokyo chapter we moved to Osaka for our next Performance event. During our Osaka visit, I had a chance to visit The National Museum of Art and our performance was scheduled in Enokojma Art, Culture & Creative Center.

I did my performance using the water bottles and using the crunching sound and finally joined the bottles with each other and tried to balance the pile of the bottle. This performance was themed on the "Balance of Life" as each bottle was filled with water and contains objects like leaves, stones. I really had a chance to see live performances and it was quite learning the different perspectives. The Nagano experience was quite different and authentic. Despite the crowd of people, we enjoyed walking on Zenkoji Temple Street and the natural hot spring was quite memorable. I had a beautiful moment in Nagano Mountain, and the seminar was quite useful to know each other more and had a very short time to spend together. I finished my performance in Neon Hall at Nagano with continuing my "Balance" Performance, This time I did use the umbrella as my material. I had the chance to see the serial of performances throughout this visit and had a chance to learn and experiences to enhance myself too. The moment I spend during my visit was quite memorable as well as it was full of helpful for me to learn and know about the art & cultural, social aspects of Japan. I was very much impressed by the greetings, politeness & helpful Japanese people.  

Finally, I m thankful to Dear Seiji Shimoda, Eiko Shimoda, and the team of NIPAF Asia 2015 and Founder of Bindu, space for artists' Prithvi Shrestha and Saurganga Darshandhari for their kind support to join NIPAF'15.