Calligrapher: Shoen Iwao
Title: Dance
　Independent Calligrapher

The Japanese words mean “leaping” and “dancing;” however, in Chinese, the entire word means “dancing.” This title was selected for the Russian exhibit and to show her works to the Russian people.
In her words she tries to express elegant movement. The light ink is bleeding, but this is a comfortably bleeding.  The brush stroke moves widely.  The combination of the wide stroke with a thin line produces a lively effect, and the lines go in different directions freely and are different from the normal shape.  For example, in the character of the first word, which means “leaping,” the right side of the character is going up.  And the total shape is as though the right shoulder is going up.  However, in the second character, which means “dancing,” the horizontal line goes straight sometimes but then goes down to the left. The final vertical line looks as though it bends backwards.
Such ideas are paradoxical.  This work might be great if the total shape were in harmony.  But in this word, the use of the character “dancing” with three horizontal lines moving in equilibrium in the middle makes the work ordinary. She needs one more device, for example, if the three horizontal lines were not so flat, but moved up, horizontally, and down, or if she had formed a triangle pointing up or down. In short, those three flat lines produce formality, but little excitement.
However, I respect the stroke of her line that dances freely and expresses her initial  image.  If I focus on the whole line, I see that the bottom parts of  both words  have the same pulse. The only problem is that the three horizontal lines lack liveliness and detract from the quality of the whole.  Any combination you might attempt using the particular quality of these lines will become cloudy.
If she could  insert a lively line the whole balance would be greatly improved. The powerful stroke which pierces the paper is very attractive, and if the second character could be moved one centimeter to the right, the whole balance would be improved.