Arto Lindsay’s concert at Daikanyama’s Unit came with an additional attraction. Arto himself and the musicians behind him — Melvin Gibbs (b) and Micah Gaugh (key, sax) — were great, of course, but what made the event really exciting were the performances by the three girls of Kathy before and during the show.

KATHY

For those unfamiliar with Kathy I'll introduce them briefly. The three girls that make up the performance group all have a dance background, and reportedly don't like it when people categorize their art as "contemporary dance". They usually wear wide and fluffy, girlish dresses, blonde or brunette '60s-style wigs, and black stockings over their faces. Sometimes they appear as a trio, and sometimes in collaborations with other performers such as artist Taro Chiezo, fashion designer Tsumura Kosuke, fashion/theatre (?) unit Theatre Products, and others from a variety of different genres.

So this time it was Arto Lindsay, whereas Kathy’s participation was not announced, and obviously came as a big surprise for those who came to see Arto and probably had never heard about Kathy before. When they appeared on stage all of a sudden, it was interesting to see half of the audience totally puzzled. Frankly speaking, there was a clear mismatch between their show and the intelligently lyrical, and at the same time noisy music of Arto. However, after Kathy’s surprise attack the music fans offered the trio a warm welcome.

Photo by Maeda Keizo

Kathy first appeared among the standing audience, clearing their paths through the waiting crowd toward the stage with lithe and sensual movements. Once on the stage the three grabbed mics and started a yodel concert, and this comical scenery was answered by the audience with loud laughter. Even though nobody seemed to know who they are, everybody was enjoying the high quality of their performance. Since they were all waiting for Arto, booing would have been a perfectly natural reaction, but in fact the show had the opposite effect.

Arto told us later that he had seen Kathy in New York before, so for him their strange performance wasn't that surprising. However, his comment on Kathy after the show was "beautifully disturbing"! What’s important in this expression is the first half: "beautiful". (A mini "Tokyo Visitors' Book" interview with Arto will appear on RT next week)

I have the impression that collaborative performances of this type are gradually increasing recently. I wrote before in this column that I dislike the exclusive way in which music events are made only for music fans, theatre performances only for theatre fans, art exhibitions only for art fans etc. It would be nice if witnessing Kathy’s show at Unit was for some music fans inspiring enough to make them go and see more dance or theatre performances. On the other hand, I'd like to see more theatre, dance and art fans go and see concerts. Without a doubt, more exchange between creators and audiences from different genres will improve the quality of artists and their works.