Everything Starts From A Dot
Concept, Sound Design, & Visual Design by
Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi
Inspired by abstract visual artists, notably Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Calder and Otto Piene, Everything Starts from a Dot is an abstract journey of a humble dot presented through Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre, combining video projection and the presence of moving objects on stage. The story unfolds solely with abstract characters — shapes, lines, color, light/shadow and sound. An inhabitant of two dimensions, the dot escapes from its familiar environment. Through various encounters and metamorphoses, the dot explores microscopic yet cosmic territories in itself and beyond. The performance is accompanied with Electro-acoustic soundtrack, without spoken words.
The 8th La MaMa Puppet Festival Fall 2018 has been made possible with support from Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Jim Henson Foundation, Puppet Slam Network, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and public support by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Cultural on the Arts. Additional support from Cheryl Henson is gratefully acknowledged.
CREATIVE TEAM
Concept, Sound Design, Visual Design by Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi
Dramaturgy by Peter Eckersall
Lighting Design by Marika Kent
Technical Advisor & Builder: Willie Gambucci
Text from “Point and Line to Plane” by Wassily Kandinsky
Production: Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi
Performed by:
Sachiyo Takahashi, Zac Pless, Willie Gambucci and dot
Preliminarily developed as a part of Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse 2015- 2016
With the support of The Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant 2017 and Production Grant 2018
Special thanks to: FiveMyles
Cover Photo by Richard Termine
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sachiyo Takahashi is an artist, composer and musician whose work centers around storytelling. Compositing sensory elements in a minimalist manner, she explores the border between narrative and abstraction to generate fables for the subconscious.
Sachiyo founded Nekaa Labin 2006 together with other “lab members” (stuffed toys and tiny figurines). She has been producing performances, installations and writings, while observing human nature from alternative perspectives. Sachiyo’s Microscopic Live Cinema-Theatre— unique performances projected from a miniature stage — has been appraised as a quirky yet imaginative merging between theatrical and cinematic experiences.
Sachiyo currently lives in Brooklyn yet sometimes can be seen strolling the back alleys of Japan, where she originated.
Find out more on their website!
La MaMa Puppet Festival
The La MaMa Puppet Festival showcases new contemporary puppet theatre by artists from around the world. Curated by Denise Greber, focusing on diversifying the voices, stories, and perspectives shared onstage, with the goal of uplifting marginalized identities within the puppet community.
PRESS QUOTES
for Nekaa Lab/Sachiyo Takahashi
“Sachiyo Takahashi does, in sheep #1, a miniature world inspired by The Little Prince’s interrogations and the most poetic hour of theater you are likely to see at the moment.”
— Exeunt NYC
“Takahashi’s Brooklyn-based Nekaa Lab is similarly interested in the language of cinematic storytelling, but her experiments with the surrealism of scale are essential to her intentions, designed to encourage intimate reflection with ourselves.”
— Exeunt NYC
“Using basic, low-tech resources – including a consumer-grade video camera, a tiny plastic sheep, some cloth, and a toy telephone – [Takahashi has] created one of the most uncanny film worlds you’ll ever see.”