By Rohan Mattu
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Akiko Kitamura’s “Cross Transit” will have its North American premiere at Towson University on Friday at 8 p.m.
The performance, held in Stephens Hall Theatre, is a multimedia dance piece that confronts Cambodia’s violent past and the process of moving forward, but never forgetting.
A collaboration between internationally acclaimed Japanese dancer-choreographer Akiko Kitamura and Cambodian photographer Kim Hak, “Cross Transit” is a blend of contemporary dance, photography, and film.
Together through their respective art forms, Kitamura and Hak express the trauma left on Cambodia from the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge – a brutal regime that killed up to 2 million people in mid to late ‘70s.
The performance highlights the fading memory of this past trauma, but also celebrates the profoundly revitalizing effects of contemporary Asian art.
Kim Hak was born in Cambodia two years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
“It was still in the period of lost, revival and rebuilt of everything, I have grown up to listen suffered and painful experiences of survivors,” he said in an interview. “Slowly, stories of the war have been affecting me. The scars of the conflicts have been being reflecting on my photography works.”
“Cross Transit” began in 2015, when the memories and stories reflected in Hak’s work caught Kitamura’s eye.
“Akiko talked about idea of doing collaboration between visual art and performance art. Crossing the forms, crossing the lands, crossing the cultures,” Hak said.
The project premiered in Tokyo in September 2016, and was then presented in Cambodia in November 2017.
Regarding the title of the performance, Kitamura explains that Cross Transit is “across the land, going beyond the cultural differences, each personal idea is mixed.” Kitamura said he wants to convey “changing, shifting what we have with moving. Accepting what our ancestor had, delivering what we have, to the future.”
Cross cultural exchange is incorporated by harmonizing Kitamura’s Japanese-rooted style with both new and customary Cambodian music, dance and martial arts.
“I was very fascinated with the way of fusion between traditional and contemporary especially in the pop music,” said Kitamura, who founded the Lenni-Basso dance company (1994-2009). “I am a big fan of the Cambodian pop music.”
Kitamura is particularly inspired by the resilient and energized youth of Cambodia.
“This is a very heavy, cruel memory,” said Kitamura. “But even so, young generation’s positive power is holding this and develops their own way.”
Though the reign of the Khmer Rouge ended 40 years ago, the message intended is universal.
“Wars have been happening every day at different corners of the world,” said Hak. Hak said he hopes that the audience will learn more about humanity from the performance.
The premiere at Towson University is a result of a partnership between the Japan Society and the university’s Asian Arts and Culture Center.
“We have had an ongoing relationship with Towson,” said Yoko Shioya, artistic director at the Japan Society. “We have been working with the center for over a decade.”
Stephens Hall Theater is the first of three stops on a tour organized by the Japan Society.
“Occasionally they reach out to us, and they say, ‘Hey, we have this group that wants to tour,’” said Joanna Pecore, director of the Asian Arts and Culture Center.
The incorporation of martial arts in the performance smoothly fits into the center’s overall focus for the Spring semester, which is “The Power of the Spirit.” The theme includes exhibits, workshops and demonstrations centered around martial arts.
After the performance, there will be a talk hosted by the Baltimore Asian Pasifika Arts Collective, otherwise known as BAPAC.
According to their website, BAPAC is “dedicated to strengthening racial understanding between communities and empowering youth through artistic practice and community engagement.”
After “Cross Transit” is presented at Towson, Kitamura’s team will travel to Washington, D.C., to perform at the Kennedy Center on March 19. The three-part tour will finally close at the Japan Society in New York for a two-night show on March 22 and 23.