gorno (Glenn Potter-Takata), photo by Shintaro Ueyama
gorno (Glenn Potter-Takata) is an artist-person of Japanese-descent working in butoh, an anti-modernist dance genre originating in Tokyo during the late ‘50s. His work centers a Japanese-American experience, and is preoccupied with the consumer culture runoff from the Japanese archipelago. He uses Buddhist and its adjacent Shinto philosophies to address the by-products of Japanese internment, creating ritualized performances around fictional pop culture deities. Glenn is a current Movement Research artist-in-residence. He has developed and shown work through residencies at Gibney Dance Center, Amanda + James, and Lehman College/CUNY Dance Initiative. Additionally, his work has been presented at Triskelion Arts, HERE Arts, Dixon Place, Arts On Site, Abrons Art Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, and with Pioneers Go East. gorno received his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where he focused in multimedia performance.
Through butoh and re-contextualized Buddhist rituals, Yonsei yeah yeah imagines a future where the cultural erasure associated with Japanese internment camps has been overcorrected and distorted into a value system where anime and Japanese junk food have been assimilated into the pantheon of buddhas and bodhisattvas.
“Thank you thank you and thank you to everyone who made this residency (Black Artist Space to Create) possible. These past two weeks have been a blessing! Not only have I been able to deepen my own personal/artistic practices, I was given the space to connect with people that I love! I was given space to reflect on love, and to prepare for what this next year (2021) will bring! Shout out to New Dance Alliance, Modern Accord Depot and Angie Pittman for the time, the space, and opportunity! I am forever grateful! It felt like a good meal, with dessert!”
– Johnnie Cruise Mercer
New Dance Alliance
182 Duane Street
New York, NY 10013