In Progress > Fierce and Gentle: Installation in Progress

Fierce and Gentle is a multi-media installation of disparate images and gestures at the intersection of body, chorography, and ritual. The core of the work is video footage of Japanese sumo wrestlers in training, Hawaiian American floral artist Calvin Charman at work, and gentle handwringing by Swedish choreographer Lotta Melin and Japanese performance artist Miho Tsujii. These videos are accompanied by ink drawings on onionskin, a handful of soil from a sumo dohyō (the wrestling ring), and a used mawashi (belt) from one of the wrestlers.
A few years ago, I started reading about sumo, and during the past two years I have watched hundreds of matches online. In December 2022, I was given the rare opportunity to enter the typically cloistered world of a beya, a sumo training facility. During two mornings at the Isenoumi beya in Tokyo, I shot sumo wrestlers in close-up, isolating and framing various parts of their bodies in motion. The camera’s close encounter transmits the intertwined characteristics that I observe in sumo wrestlers: the monumentality of bodies that are both firmly planted and extremely agile; the combination of physical intensity and respect—even tenderness between wrestlers; and their delicate and decisive navigation of the restricted space of the dohyō. For all its ferocity, the meeting of the wrestlers is also a graceful pas de deux. To the casual observer, it is the sumo wrestlers’ bulk and sheer physical intensity that register first. But upon closer attention their hands unveil many nuanced images, such as subtle grips for turns of leverage, ritual gestures of preparation and thanks, and helping hands extended to a defeated opponent. It is here, at the hands, that they intersect with other manual gestures of labor, aesthetics, and choreography—the expert florist who is no stranger to Japan’s tradition of ikebana, or a performer schooled in butoh.