Installation & Film
January 29, 2025 - April 20, 2025
Durational Solo Performance
Thursday February 13, 2025, 3-8pm
Wednesday March 12, 2025, 1-5pm
Saturday April 12, 2025, 12pm-4pm
Grossman Gallery, SMFA at Tufts University Art Galleries | 230 Fenway, Boston, MA 02115
Hollow Center embodies an intricate quality of slowness, high physicality,
and balance through sound, video, gestures, and repeated movements over
a long duration. By stretching time, Yamamoto practices a “minor” mode of
aesthetics—lingering, listening, obscuring, and relating—without capturing
or pre-determining meanings. In continuation of his previous works
NOTHINGBEING (2022-23) and Opacity of Performance (2021-22),
Yamamoto contemplates the porous duality of nothingness and
being from his dual-cultural position.
DIrection & Performance by Takahiro Yamamoto
Film by Roland Dahwen & Takahiro Yamamoto
Object Design by Maggie Heath
Sound Contributions by Cenk Ergün,
Jesse Majía, Shao Way Wu, Byron Au Young, and Sofia Acosta
Hollow Center is part of a new commission in
an archive and/or a repertoire, on view through April 20, 2025.
++++++ available for online purchase ++++++
Books for purchase
NOTHINGBEING (2023), 12-20 USD sliding scale (+ $5 Shipping)
Opacity of Performance (2021), 25 USD (+ $5 Shipping)
Direct Path to Detour (2017), 12-20 USD sliding scale (+ $5 Shipping)
For purchase, click here to directly contact Takahiro Yamamoto via email
++++++ past events ++++++
Movement exploration and process for Hollow Center project
Featuring sound by Erik DeLuca
Velocity Dance Center, Seattle, WA
As part of the Dance Innovators Series: Physical Education at the Seattle Festival of Dance + Improvisation (SFD+I)
Physical Education presents their 3rd semi-annual SAY WHEN mini festival featuring Lu Yim, Cosmos Dark, jess pretty, and Midori Hirose.
Performance Works Northwest | 4625 SE 67th Ave. Portland, OR 97206
WIP Performance by Lu Yim
March 31, 2024 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Performance Space New York | 150 1st Ave, New York, NY -4th Floor
Presented by Open Movement in partnership with Queer|Art
This is an ode to horizontality and to the brutality of stillness, softness and fatigue. It is more than this too, and I have yet to know. It is a group work performed with Nami Yamamoto, Cynthia Chang, ryen heart, Ella Dawn W-S, Takahiro Yamamoto, myself and Lauren Tosswill.
Jessica Jackson Hutchins: Wrecked and Righteous
March 02, 2024 | 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Frye Art Museum | 704 Terry Avenue,Seattle, WA 98104
A onetime performance created by Jessica Jackson Hutchins in collaboration with
Portland-based Physical Education. The performers will activate Hutchins’s large, wearable vessels on
display, enacting strange “little labors” of domesticity, care, and conviviality as they move throughout the
gallery. Variously serving and splattering the contents of their unwieldly ceramic outfits, Physical
Education dancers Allie Hankins, Takahiro Yamamoto, and Lu Yim will engage in a playful exploration of
color, texture, and gesture through food.
Feb 12-17, 2024
21st Century Dance Practices residency
NCCAkron | National Center for Choreography Akron
The annual spring phase of Ideas in Motion, 21st Century Dance Practices is a capsule series representative of genres, geographies, cultural and/or social contexts outside the traditional binary of modern and ballet in a conservatory setting.
Dec 12, 2023
Pooling
A collaboration with Erik DeLuca
Laconia Gallery: 433 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118
In Pooling, we approach a place where progress ceases. We hover in static with no direction or
purpose. We focus the aesthetics of our pooling time on practicing care and gaining competency in
not-knowing. This 50-min live performance, instigated by experimental musician Erik DeLuca and choreographer
Takahiro Yamamoto, incorporates amplified and repetitive movement, cyclical experiments in sound, physical
touch between performers, and improvised conversation with invited friends about 'nothing.' Our work doesn't
always have a clear understanding of what to do or how to proceed. Rather than presenting ambiguity, we
annotate our performance with dialogic-critical awareness—often addressing aspects such as queerness, racial
tension, and the fluidity of god.
Oct 5-7, 2023
NOTHINGBEING
Thursday, Oct 5, 7pm
Friday, Oct 6, 7pm
Saturday, Oct 7, 7pm
The Chocolate Factory Theater: 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, NY
NOTHINGBEING is a project that investigates investigates ways to embody the presence of nothingness
and "being," breathing spaces that we could easily dismiss and considering possibilities for the unfiltered
self. This project addresses the notion of nothingness and "being" from multiple modalities such as moments
of highly physical movement, a communal meditation, and internal activation of sensory memories.
NOTHINGBEING book will be available for purchase at the venue.
May 18-21, 2023
NOTHINGBEING
Thursday, May 18, 8pm
Friday, May 19, 8pm - followed by a conversation with the artists along w Tonya Lockyer & Shin Yu
Pai
Saturday, May 20, 8pm
Sunday, May 21, 5pm
$20-$32 | TICKETS HERE
On the Boards: 100 West Roy StreetSeattle, WA, 98119
NOTHINGBEING is a project that investigates investigates ways to embody the presence of nothingness
and "being," breathing spaces that we could easily dismiss and considering possibilities for the unfiltered
self. This project addresses the notion of nothingness and "being" from multiple modalities such as moments
of highly physical movement, a communal meditation, and internal activation of sensory memories.
NOTHINGBEING book will be available for purchase at the venue.
April 28, 29 and May 6, 12, 2023
PEBG event series & NOTHINGBEING pdx book launch
Free or by donation |
Sator Projects, 220 SE Market Ave, Portland, OR 97214
TH 4/28 7pm: Lu Yim & Kabir Carter
FRI 4/29 5pm: Lu Yim & Kabir Carter
SAT 5/6 2pm: Roland Dahwen, Sam Hamilton, Jess Perlitz & Takahiro
Yamamoto
FRI 5/12 7pm: Allie Hankins, Supergroup, & Jaleesa Johnston
PEBG (Physical Education Basement Garage) is a series of events featuring dance, sound art, reading,
video/film presentation from Lu Yim & Kabir Carter, Roland Dahwen, Sam Hamilton, Jess Perlitz &
Takahiro Yamamoto, Allie Hankins, Supergroup, and Jaleesa Johnston. Organized and coordinated by Takahiro
Yamamoto, this event series invites the public to casually get together to enjoy artworks that have been
stored in the actual, mental, and digital basement/garage.
Taka's new book NOTHINGBEING will be available for purchase during the events. ($20)
April 3, 2023
NOTHINGBEING: Book Launch
Reading by Takahiro Yamamoto w performance by Fox Whitney & Otto Barry
7-8pm | Free
Elliott Bay Book Company: 1521 10th Ave, Seattle WA 98122
Official launch of the new book NOTHINGBEING, featuring readings by Takahiro Yamamoto along with
Seattle-based musicians Fox Whitney and Otto Barry who will perform music in conversation.
March 8, 2023
Opacity of Performance: Book Reading
6pm | Free with RSVP
Northwest Film Forum: 1515 12th Ave, Seattle WA 98122
Northwest Film Forum presents an AWP offsite event, featuring readings from artist Takahiro Yamamoto
and scholar Jang Wook Huh along with a dance performance by choreographer Heather Kravas.
Yamamoto’s latest book,
Opacity of Performance, takes its title from his 2022 performance installation
at the Portland Art Museum.
This dynamic reading expands upon the book’s investigations into visibility and objectification
and uses the lens of choreography to question the opacity of performance.
February 26, 2023
Property of Opaqueness
2pm | FREE
The Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art
615 S. Palatine Hill Road MSC 95, Portland, OR 97219
Presented as a guest event that is part of the Hoffman gallery’s spring 2023 faculty exhibitions:
Scrum by Dru Donovan and Betwixt and … by Cara Tomlinson.
Property of Opaqueness -a performance by Takahiro Yamamoto along with Roland Dahwen and Emily
Squires- is a parallel performance project of
Opacity of Performance.
Based on the dramaturgical and choreographic foundation of Opacity of Performance,
it investigates the physical and emotional effects that both dancers and viewers undergo when visibility,
activity, and attention vary over an extended duration.
February 14, 2023
DANCE AND THE POETICS OF NOTHINGNESS
6pm (ET) in person
REGISTER HERE to attend in person
at the Kelly Writers
House
3805 Locust Walk | the University of Pennsylvania
Locust Walk is a pedestrian street between (and parallel to) Walnut St. and Spruce St.
6pm (ET) on YouTube
Virtually watch here
How abundant can nothing be? This iteration of the dance and poetics series sees artists Takahiro Yamamoto
and Dahlia Li engage the possibilities of nothingness through collaborative gesture and poetic language
practices. Drawing on Yamamoto’s NOTHINGBEING project and “the possibilities of the unfiltered self” and
Li’s research into cultural memory and photographic negation, this participatory performance
workshop/lecture opens the intimate fold of nothingness towards the unknown spectator. Together we will
probe what it means to witness what unfolds in the present and attend to the rich temporal relations
nothingness casts. No prior dance or poetry experience required.
September 9-11, 2022
NOTHINGBEING
Sep 9 at 6pm
Sep 10 at 6pm
Sep 11 at 2pm & 6pm
PICA's TBA Festival 2022
PICA Annex | 15 NE hancock Street
Sliding Scale: $10 / $20 / $25
Instigated by Takahiro Yamamoto
Created in collaboration with David Thomson, Anna Martine Whitehead & Takahiro Yamamoto
Thought Partner: Samita Sinha
Physically engaged by David Thomson, Anna Martine Whitehead & Takahiro Yamamoto
Sound Design by coast2c
Costume Design by Alison Heryer
Lighting Design by Jeff Forbes
June 16-26, 2022
Opacity of Performance
Centering visibility as a core question, Opacity of Performance investigates the physical and
emotional effects that both performers and viewers undergo when acts of looking, moving, and paying
attention vary over an extended duration.
Choreographed by Takahiro Yamamoto
Dramaturgy by Ben Evans
Performed by Emily Squires, Garrick Imatani, Intisar Abioto, Irene June, Nolan Hanson, Roland Dahwen,
Stephanie Schaaf, Sydney Jackson & Takahiro Yamamoto
Curated by Sara Krajewski, the Portland Art Museum’s Eichholz Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art
April 16, 2022
NOTHINGBEING: A Virtual Symposium
2pm EST / 1pm CT / 11am PST
FREE
For details and registration, click here.
Participants: Samita Sinha, David Thomson, Anna Martine Whitehead & Takahiro Yamamoto
Co-organized by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art & The Chocolate Factory Theater