Yuzuru's Re_Pray shown over the weekend is the Zen-like Yuzu at his best, using the game-styled environment he knows so well to ask fundamental questions about life and death, winning and losing, killing to survive and dying when refusing, about playing and being played, as a pawn or a protagonist, and about trying to find meaning in the world with no rules. Simple game-like narration was heavy with metaphors and underlined with episodes of well-designed silence allowing the audience to stop and drink-in the meanings. There was a sort of a dark and deep vibe to it, but there was irony and compassion as well, and the whole show was extremely beautiful, and really flowing, giving an impression of one single unit and not many separate programs just crowded together. Some programs change from show to show, as Yuzuru makes different choices on the game’s display board presented on the screen. The flow was tremendous, as was the message, the narration and the skating itself, of course, with several new and amazing programs and several old and beloved ones (12 altogether).
Saying he received standing ovations at the end of the show is a huge understatement. In spite of the dark and serious vibe, Yuzuru himself coming out onto the ice after the show for
thank-yous and
good-byes appeared happy, smiling, confident and very, very relaxed. For
encore, he skated parts of his iconic LMEY and Seimei programs in a T-shirt, with the vibe of casually entertaining friends at a private get-together.
The archive viewing will be available between 14 and 21 November and can still be bought at beyondlive.com if anyone is interested.
Fun fact: more than 230,000 hearts were left for Yuzu in the paid international stream’s special feature by the Day 1 audience
