Richard Siegal. art.Life

Header image: © Richard Siegal / BoD

For over a decade, choreographer Richard Siegal has been fascinated by "Shudan Kodo", Japanese precision walking, which gained worldwide fame in the form of viral YouTube videos in recent years. The unique physical discipline involves groups of athletes moving with remarkable precision in synchronized formations. Shudan Kodo combines an extraordinary blend of discipline, aesthetics and collectivity that captivates with both its visual power and technical perfection.

Richard Siegal traveled to Japan to study Shudan Kodo together with his company Ballet of Difference at the Nippon Sports University Yokohama in 2022 and further developed choreographically his experience of its strict principles and rules. Siegal returned to Yokohama in 2024, where he collaborated with the Shudan Kodo master Jiro Omi on his choreography "Collective Action". Set to alva noto’s 2012 album Transpray, two dancers from Ballet of Difference and 53 Japanese athletes were immersed in an interplay between the crisp electronic soundscape and video light design of Matthias Singer and fantomas. The result is a cutting-edge perspective on the subordination of the individual to the collective in the digital age. Collective Action premiered in 2024 at the Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting at the Kanagawa Arts Theater. A separate camera recording of Collective Action from various angles outside and inside the choreography itself forms the basis for the video installation "art.Life".

"art.Life" is the first transdisciplinary work on Shudan Kodo. It will celebrate its world premiere at the Lenbachhaus during the 2025 International Dance Biennale of the city of Munich. An examination of the technocratic tendencies of our digitally shaped reality, art.Life poses questions fundamental to our time by conflating humans with the bio-logic of digital systems created to study natural living systems: Where now is the border between technology and our bodies? How are our behaviors and relationships governed by the digital systems in which they are embedded?

A production of Muffatwerk, Munich in co-production with Richard Siegal | Ballet of Difference and Synaesthetica.
With the kind support of the Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting and the Nippon Sport Science University.
"art.Life" is presented by International DANCE Festival Munich in cooperation with Lenbachhaus.

Free admission! 

The 21-minute video installation ‘art.Life’ will be shown in an endless loop.  

Project management: Eva Huttenlauch, Lenbachhaus