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from "Ballet International", Heft 11, Nov.1999
[ German version ] -
[ Japanese version ]
EX...it!99 IN GERMANY
Absolute Butoh
Ex...it!'99 -
in search of a present-day Butoh
at an international workshop in Schloss Broellin near Berlin
by Akiko Tachiki
Butoh's characteristic imagery of the grotesquely-deformed body presents an outlook that repudiates the Western sense of aestheticism and that has opened new possibilities of physical expression. This year, Butoh completes its fourth decade since its birth in the 1959 performance of "Kinjiki (forbidden Colours)" The year 1998 also marks the thirteenth anniversary of the death of Butoh's founder, Tatsumi Hijikata, and there have been various events in Japan to examine and reevaluate Butoh in this milestone period. However, apart from the activities of leading Butoh figures - such as Kazuo Ohno, the dancers of Sankaijuku, and Min Tanaka - on the international stage, it must be admitted that Butoh has lost its luster in the modern dance scene. One factor is that many Butoh dancers are trapped in what might be called cliche-ism. Recently, more than 50 artists gathered in Germany's Schloss Broellin (Broellin castle), in the state of Mecklenburg- Vorpommem for "Ex...it! '99," a symposium and dance ex-change project, to examine what Butoh is to-day and to experiment with new possibilities for the future. This was the second time the event had been held, and it drew participation of Butoh dancers performing around the world, as well as choreographers and dancers interested in Butoh. It was an intensive program aimed at artistic exchange through workshops, creative production, and performances while living together for roughly two weeks. Artistic direction was provided by Delta Ra'i and Yumiko Yoshioka of Ten Pen Chii Art Labor, both formerly of the Butoh group Tatoeba Danse Grotesque.
Participating choreographers and dancers included: Juju Arishina, a solo dancer from Japan who now works in Paris; Itto Morita and Mika Takeuchi, a Butoh dance duo based in Hokkaido ; and Yuri Nagaoka, an expressive solo dancer who performs mainly in Tokyo. Among the others were: Shinichi Koga, who performs chiefly on the West Coast of the US; the Kokoro Dance Group, based in Vancouver, Canada: the Mexican dancer Shanti de Oyarzabal, now based in Berlin; Sabine Seume of Germany, who trained with Pina Bausch and who later, after she encountered Butoh, studied under Carlotta Ikeda; Artur Kuggeleyn, known for his unique theatrical activities with his former company RA.M.M. Theatre; the British dancer and visual artist Miriam King; Imre Thormann, Kazuo Ohno's disciple from Switzerland; Maria Reis Li-ma from Portugal, who studied under Kazuo Ohno; and Viatcheslav Inosemtzev, a pantomime artist who leads Zhest, the grotesque movement theatre in Minsk.
Broellin castle, in whose historical stadium they all gathered, is located 150 kilometers north of Berlin close to the Polish border. This isolated place, in a vast rural setting, is now a centre of innovative cultural activities. Twelve productions were performed in total by all participating choreographers and workshop participants. Of the productions based on the theme of verbs with "ex" -prefixes, presented under the program title,"EX...IT," there were performances that cannot be defined as Butoh. but were found interesting as stimulating performances with new potential. The independent productions were interrelated and formed a single world, with a comical troop of cock-roaches (choreographed by Shinichi) serving as a vehicle for spectators to follow as the performances unfolded. Prominently impressive was Sabine Seume. She mainly dances solo, receiving the Prix Mandala (Peau/France) in 1994 and a prize in the Brims Festival/Belgrade in 1997. Her production entitled "Expectation", used a corner of a large barn with dancers performing while half-buried in the ground Especially poetic and exotic was Seume's solo in a transparent plastic box pierced some two metres underground, where she slowly awoke, like a fetus or a ???h/hibernating animal, in reaction to the air around her. The three other workshop students also suggested an awakening in spring, dancing mysteriously while their bodies were half-buried in the ground.
The production by Itto Morita created poetic simplicity through a resonance between the body and the venue, while respecting Butoh's existing approach. Morita's stage was a vacant lot in front of an old church next to the castle, where a huge thousand year-old tree stands. With a graveyard in its background, dancers wavered slowly like mystic spirits , responding to every element in the atmospheres, the sensation of the cool wind rusting the tree, the light rain shower and its sound Death, an important element that underlies the concept of life in Butoh, was given an European interpretation successfully in the dramatic performance by Imre Thorman, who expressed Hijikata's idea of the sacrificial body. The production was an exquisite fusion of inspiration-from the cool and sedate setting created by Schloss Broellin - with political criticism, aimed at the human follies in Kosovo and Auschwitz and a narrative of human life living with death. A wagon appears from the darkness, and men dispose of a corpse on the ground. A man pedals a bicycle with all his might and stops, collapsing into the fore-ground. Wood is placed under the arms of the dead man, and he is carried away. The procession heads to the moss-covered bog, deep in the estate, creating an image of the Crucifixion. At the same time, it was reminiscent of the famed Hijikata performance, "Hangidaitokan," where the theme is execution.
The finale was directed by Arthur Kuggeleyn. The audience is taken by surprise as they enter a renovated barn, now used as a hall. Ten or so dancers - most of them naked and painted in white - are scattered about, cringing in the foetal position. This scene, each dancer embracing a light bulb, was, in it self, a beautiful art installation. A casual march turns into the "Blue Danube" waltz by Johann Strauss II, and the dancers, wobbling, slowly rise. The finale that expressed a new start was an outstanding presentation of Butoh's concept of "return to the womb," a concept confirmed the other day during a panel discussion with German philosopher Rolf Elberfeld, actor and choreographer Gregor Weber, Butoh researcher Maria Pia D'Orazi from Rome, British critic Gilles Kennedy, and this writer. The focus, based on thoughts about "metamorphosis" as projected by the material body, reconfirmed that the essence of Butoh lies in the unique concept of the body that Hijikata explored in depth.
In the struggle to vie against Western approaches to dance and to supersede modernism, Hijikata discovered the body's potential for transcending conventions, and, in harmony with Eastern thoughts, he expanded his dance from that foundation. His basic idea was that the body's animating spirit metamorphoses into other existences, leaving the empty physical shell to respond to place and environment - a message still significant to this day. This emptying out and search for interaction with the external world liberate both the body and the spirit and refine sensation. Such Butoh movements offer healing that has psychotherapeutic importance, as practiced by Kazuo Ohno and Toru lwashita. In other words, Butoh can be interpreted as an effort to achieve nothingness as a mental state and, through physical experience, a sense of liberation.
In view of these concepts, it may be necessary to reexamine the Butoh concept of the body, especially, because there is a paradox in Hijikata's Butoh that starts from a renunciation of the ego- which, in a@modern@sense, is the core of creation. Reaching the stage of a "Butoh body" only means that a dancer is ready to dance Butoh. Since Butoh is an individual art without universal form, it is important for each Butoh dancer to find his own reality of how the body currently lives - his own form of life. In fact, performances of note in Japan today are often being created by those who have learned Butoh and are now active in the area of contemporary dance, regardless of dance style. In "Ex...it!'99", one could feel Butoh's potential for excellence, as understood by and cultivated within the Western physique and sensibility in dance that can be called "hybrid Butoh," as represented by Sabine Seume. And such artistic encounters as happened at "Ex...it!'99" certainly stimulated the creativity in each artist, just as Butoh, itself, was born through Hiiikata's artistic quest through his "conflicting body" to resolve the paradoxes between dance and Japanese identity.
*From "ballet INTERNATIONAL / AKTUELL tanz" Heft 11.November 1999, Germany.
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