Yokohama Untitled

This video embodies Gladwell's core practice: slowed recordings of urban subcultural practitioners occupying public space in unexpected ways. Young people balance their bodies with extreme skill to undertake physically complex interactions with the zones in which they are situated – metro stations, shopping malls, retail outlets.

In 'Yokohama Untitled' four Japanese break dancers are filmed in urban public spaces – performing in turn in a metro carriage, a shopping arcade, a metro platform and a department store. As Blair French has written, "Dressed in uber-chic streetwear they lope along in languid rhythms, trailed by the camera, every so often breaking into a set of spellbinding moves that lay claim to space, asserting presence and identity within otherwise everyday, almost homogenous environments" [Blair French (ed.), 'Shaun Gladwell: videowork', Artspace, Sydney 2007, pg. 9]. It can be added that the dancers do this with extreme grace and physical prowess.