"I am an avant-gardist who crawls the earth. I am a body with language. Language is symbiotic with the functions of the body. Dance comes into being between body and body, arising as a result of mental effort." (Min Tanaka)

"When Min Tanaka's body confronts the darkness of the camera, it disperses the light and confuses what we witness. It is an invitation to an expanded kind of perception, beyond the sense of vision. Some sort of 'primeval feelings' are being bared." (Masato Okada)

Contents
Photographs and Notes
Garbage Is Becoming the Earth - Min Tanaka
I Am an Avant-Gardist Who Crawls the Earth - Min Tanaka
Forest Stage, Mountain Stage - Dancing the Four Seasons at Tokason
Body - Darkness - Camera - Masato Okada
Memorandum - Masato Okada

Dance Log
Min Tanaka 1966-2007

Texts
Photons Dancing in a Dark Box - Kuniichi Uno
An Angel's Vanishing Point - Kazue Kobata
Photography at the Edge of Dissolution - Seigo Matsuoka
Eventful Days with Okada - Min Tanaka

Profiles
Min Tanaka - Dancer, actor
Born in Tokyo in 1945, Tanaka studied classic ballet and modern dance, and from the age of 20 participated in a large number of dance performances. In 1973, he went solo in order to pursue his own dancing style. In 1978, he founded the Body Weather Laboratory and increasingly performed abroad. Among other awards, he was knighted in 1990 by the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and received the Best Performance prize at the Munich Theatre Festival in Germany. In Japan, he founded Dance Resources on Earth in 1997 and then the Tokason dance and farming collective in Kai City, Yamanashi Prefecture. In 2003, he also became famous as an actor, and received a Japanese Academy award for his performance in The Twilight Samurai, directed by Yoji Yamada. Official homepage: https://www.min-tanaka.com/

Masato Okada - Photographer
Born in Kobe in 1949, he encountered the dancer Min Tanaka in 1975. In 1976, he started working for Kousakusha. At around the same time he also started shooting Tanaka. He followed Tanaka around during his 1824-hour Hyperdance project to more than 150 locations in both towns and wilderness all over the country, and the severe shooting conditions at places like the Yume-no-shima garbage dump and the Tojinbo cliff in Fukui Prefecture have since become legendary. As the in-house cameraman for Kousakusha, he shot all sorts of pictures, from architecture to advertising, as well as many photo reportages for the tourist yearbook Japan Now. He passed away in 2006.