Lucky Dragon 5 Voyage to Hope
An Event created by Ken Hiratsuka, Seiji Ichimura and Gloria McLean
Film by: Chris Fiore Choreography: Gloria McLean
Dancers: Mariko Endo, Mia Morissette, Sayuri Hirayama, Eric Larsen and Gloria McLean
Music: Joel Thome
Sound Engineer: Phil Moffa
Sculpture: Ken Hiratsuka
With Special Thanks to the St. Elizabeth's School children featured in the music of Joel Thome.
Lucky Dragon 5 Voyage To Hope took place on October 14, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan -- a Global Performance Event conceived and organized by Ken Hiratsuka, Gloria McLean and Seiji Ichimura bringing together artists from around the world dedicated to the cause of world peace and a non-nuclear future. Gloria McLean’s choreography fully utilizes the site of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru Museum, which houses the Lucky Dragon 5 fishing boat (“Daigo Fukuryu Maru” means “Lucky Dragon 5”) that managed to return from the unannounced US Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb explosion in the Bikini Island atoll in 1954. Supported by the other-worldly music of Joel Thome, the dancers invite the audience to follow them through a journey of embodied memory around the boat, the museum’s artifacts, out onto the curved ship-like steel wall of the building, and onto the grounds where stone sculptor Ken Hiratsuka is carving a rock in commemoration of the entire event, and of the crew who perished in this nuclear horror.
About the Artists
Gloria McLean
Gloria McLean, critically acclaimed dancer, choreographer and teacher, is the artistic director of LIFEDANCE/Gloria McLean and Dancers, dedicated to the integration of body, mind and spirit through the creative process, producing works that privilege dance and the body often in collaboration with new music, art, language and the environment. Ms. McLean extends in new ways the great tradition of modern dance bequeathed by Erick Hawkins in whose company she was a leading dancer from 1982-1993. McLean ‘s work has been presented in NYC and internationally, including the American Dance Festival, festivals in Ireland, Paris, Montreal, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Korea and China. In October 2019, she produced "Lucky Dragon 5 Voyage to Hope,” with partner sculptor Ken Hiratsuka on the theme of world peace, bringing together artists from around the world to perform at the Daigo Fukuryu Maru Museum, Tokyo, Japan. Like the museum, the event was dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the hydrogen bomb tests on the Bikini Islands in 1954 by the U.S., and to the hope for a non-nuclear future. In June 2018 in Beijing, McLean collaborated with leading Chinese avant-garde choreographer Wen Hui and Ken Hiratsuka to produce “Stone. Paper. Line. Sky. Water”—dance interacting with drawing, live stone carving, water and audience in the unique 3-story architectural space of painter Huang Rui’s Cloud Pavillion in Beijing. In 2008-09, her film “Twice Marked” was included in a show of artists’ self-portraits titled “As Others See Us” at the Brattleboro Museum marking the beginning of her series called The Lifedrawings. Currently she is the President of the American Dance Guild producing the online festival “10 Years Over 10 Weeks” through December 20. Since Covid-19, she’s been teaching online through Zoom. Please visit: www.gloriamcleandance.com
Chris Fiore
Chris Fiore is best known as director of the ground breaking Hip Hop documentary, Backstage, a chronicle of Jay Z’s historic Hard Knock Life Tour starring Jay Z, Damon Dash, DMX, Redman, Method Man, and Eve. A Dimension Films release, Backstage had a profitable theatrical run and was a late night staple on Showtime. Fiore’s other feature length documentaries include The Red Umbrella Diaries, featured in 12 film festivals, Mockstar and Trip And Go Naked, which won the Excellence In Sexual Theater Award at the 2011 Arlene’s Grocery Picture Show. Fiore’s recent documentary, Goodwoman, won the 2016 LA Film Invasion Grand Jury Prize.