Roppongi Dreamin’
Written by: Alice Lefèvre Casimiri
It is the middle of the night as I contemplate the flickering lights of the Tokyo skyline surrounding me. I am floating 200 meters above the ground and the city extends around me as far as the eye can see.
Thousands and thousands of sparkling little red lights, cars and tiny people swarming under my feet, unaware of my presence above them; walking, talking, eating, drinking, laughing, crying, sleeping, making love and… dreaming.
Perhaps just like me.
“How did I get here ?”
My memories are fuzzy…
“Where am I exactly ?”
The thin layer of glass that separates me from the void seems to go on forever on each side. I am alone.
“Alice, shall we go ?”
The voice surprising me doesn’t seem to be in my head this time. I’m turning around and find myself face to face with my friend Lisa. Suddenly, everything comes back to me. We are in the middle of Roppongi at the top of the Mori Tower, and I met her 5 hours ago and 50 floors lower.
The last rays of the sun were caressing the glass facades of the skyscrapers while I waited in the middle of the crowd. It was hot. Children were having fun and running around a musical sculpture [1]. People lay on the grass, in front of a giant wire-frame bird [2]. A performance was setting up below a mountain of inflatable fruits [3]. Everywhere, people greeted each other, chatting cheerfully, debating how they would spend the night. I watched with an amused eye this busy and carefree crowd.
Suddenly, a powerful electronic sound bursts through Roppongi Hills [4]. The crowd calms its rumor and all eyes fix to an alignment of small televisions, each lighting up one after the other. Silhouettes dressed in black appear on the stage, focused look and precise step. In a flash, the night begins, to the rhythm of the TVs’ percussion. The sound resonates in my chest, and I feel each of the strokes as if they touched me directly. The crowd has become more compact, and each of the bodies seems to feel the impacts of the music with me. The rhythm intensifies and a dancer appears on stage. The sound reacts to the movement of her black-and-white dress flowing around her. She doesn’t follow the music, she creates it, and she seems animated by the energy of the entire crowd. Under the falling night, she keeps spinning around and around until the final suspension, the silence, and the burst of applause.
The sudden sound of the crowd cheering and clapping is pulling me out of my daydream. As I am looking around me, I catch the sight of Lisa on the other side of the stage. She has not seen me yet. She too, observes around her, a little lost in the confusion of the crowd beginning to disperse. I go up the stream of people leaving the Arena to join her. At my sight, her face lights up. The night has fallen now. The skyscrapers of Roppongi are glittering as I am following her through the city.
We go down a long concrete staircase taking us underground [5]. Below us echoes a dull and repetitive sound of shock. Bursts of laughter come to us. In the middle of this concrete cathedral, a ping pong game with several balls is taking place, flying on all sides and rarely landing on the table. At the bottom of the stairs, a tree with large black and red leaves awaits us. Arriving in front of it we find out that what we thought were leaves were actually table tennis rackets. In one look, we are grabbing our weapons and getting into the game. It is chaotic and the participants are spending more time chasing the balls across the room than actually playing. The exclamations and laughter resound.
As we pursue a lost ball, it guides us despite ourselves in the adjacent room. When we look up, we are surrounded by mountains of trinkets and sculptures, posters and paintings, videos and photos. Couple of people are walking among the artworks, some with a focused look, others making amused but thoughtful comments, and some others laughing out loud without any restraint. I see objects distorting. The cartoon music mixed with the conversations of visitors overwhelms me. Dancing figures and naked characters escaped from their frames surround me. The light of the museum is dazzling and as it becomes more and more intense, the sounds around me seem to be muffled, as if covered by a pillow. In the light I can see the silhouette of Lisa going up the stairs to the exit, in a final burst of laughter.
When we emerge on the surface, our eyes have to readjust to the darkness of the night. We cross the dark alleys and busy avenues of Roppongi. Everywhere, bright signs are flashing and matsuri lanterns surrounding the main intersection are swaying with the evening breeze. The ballet of the taxis has replaced the traffic jams and people arrived with the last trains escape from the metro. Party-goers mingle with families, and tourists with artsy students.
At the bend of a building, a strange vending machine [6] catches our attention. A crowd has gathered around, phones and cameras in hand. We sneak into the front row, and discover with surprise and horror that between the soda cans and the bottles of tea exposed in windows are people, locked behind a glass. How did they get there? And why ? They are looking outside with a frightened air, but do not seem to see the assembled audience on the other side. Scared, we run away from the scene in the direction of the tallest tower in the neighborhood.
“Alice, shall we go ?”
The doors of the elevator close on us, and the floors begin to scroll by at an impressive speed. My ears are clogged by the change in pressure and the bluish light of the elevator warms to orange as we get closer to the ground. The cool night air whisps our faces as the sliding doors open again on the streets of Roppongi. In the Mori Garden, some people are now sleeping quietly on the grass. The madness of the night has calmed down and only a few drunken little groups continue to pace the streets with their faltering footsteps. Before my eyes, crazy images of the past night scroll by and I do not know anymore which are real and which are imagined, which are memories and which are dreams.
The first rays of morning light arise as we walk silently through the Tokyo streets, saying to ourselves“another night has passed”, as if it was only at dawn, by looking back on it, that we could take the real measure of this night lived out of time, in a zone of silence in the middle of the noise, of immobility in the center of the carousel.
[1] ayumi tsuchiya, “Daytime sound, Nighttime sound” https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2019/en/programs/12154
[2] Cédric Le Borgne, “Le Désir et la Menace” https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2019/en/programs/12158
[3] Choi Jeong Hwa, “Fruit Tree” https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2019/en/programs/12088
[4] Ei Wada+ Nicos Orchest-Lab, “ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!” https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2019/en/programs/12184
[5] SENSE OF HUMOR Exhibition, 21_21 Design Sight https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2019/en/programs/12318
[6] Hiroyasu Shimo, “Entangled” https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2019/en/programs/12614
Alice was born and raised in Provence, in the south of France, and moved to Paris when entering university. After two years studying there, she came to Japan as an exchange student at Keio University, in Minato City, and lived in Hiroo, on the border of Shibuya and Minato district. She is studying Social Sciences and Literature, and has a deep interest for culture and arts in all their forms, being herself an amateur dancer and actress.
