Goshogaoka

The film chronicles the warm up movements and training of a Japanese girls basketball team. What at first appears to be a workout program evolves into something that more resembles choreographed dancing.
The film consists of six ten-minute segments. The opening segment shows an empty gym hall. At the far end of the frame there is a stage with a red curtain. After a while we hear running footsteps and suddenly people start rushing past the camera. When the line reaches the other side of the hall we can see young women in training outfits, followed by different warm up movements and ball training. Everything carried out with great discipline in straight lines and with symmetric movements - all in line with our western image of the Japanese mass exercises.
With Goshogaoka Lockhart wants to show a foreign culture through something that is familiar to her. She is interested in the complex relationship between reality and fiction that the film medium creates. She mixes the two elements by further evolving the exercises of the team. With the help of a choreographer she has created choreographed dance from their everyday exercises.
The position of the camera stays the same throughout the film, there are no camera movements or panorama shots. I n effect it is the most primitive technique possible, the same principals that were used by the Lumiere brothers at their first shots with their Cinematographe. In the same way the substance of Goshogaoka becomes movement in picture - our interest is drawn to people performing ordinary tasks. To create the same sensation that the moving pictures did in 1895 is impossible today, but fact is that Lockhart's film is so different that one feels a sense of surprise at every new segment. The viewer gets a feeling of observing a photograph were suddenly the people start to move.
LOVE GUSTAFSSON

Premiärstatus
Skandinavisk premiär: Medverkande
Naomi Hasegawa, Eri Hashimoto, Emi Ishida: Producent
Sharon Lockhart: Manus
Sharon Lockhart: Foto
Tatsuo Suzuki: Musik
Michael Webster