From Hokkaido Shimbun (Hokkaido Newspaper), May12(Mon) 2008,Japan
　

A lower body paralyzed dancer, Tamar Borer,
Participated in Butoh workshop in Sapporo

　
A lower body paralyzed dancer, Tamar Borer (42yrs), from Israel, participated in Butoh workshop held in Sapporo in April. At age of 16, she watched Butoh performance of Kazuo Ohno, born in Hakodate, as a start, and went into Butoh heart and soul.
(by Younosuke Nakahara)
Handicap as one’s own individual characteristics, Butoh as passion
Butoh dancer Toshiharu Kasai (56 yrs), professor of Sapporo Gakuin University for body psychology, hosted this workshop. Borer and other participants from Denmark, U.S.A. and five Japanese dancers joined. Butoh dancer Mika Takeuchi (41yrs), active as Dance therapist, taught with Kasai for two weeks.
　
Smooth movements
At the closed Butoh presentations by the participants in the last day of the workshop, on the dim stage surrounded by about 20 audiences, Borer in a white costume was gradually showing her body through white cloths moving like a mollusk. Lying, sitting, she looked like a butterfly hatched out of a cocoon. Owing to her flexible and smooth movements, it is impossible to imagine her life with a wheel chair.
　Borer danced with Takeuchi in the latter half of her performance: Total about 30 minutes. Some were moved to tears to her performance, “I tried to express our spiritual journey and woman's life”, Borer said.
　Ohno’s Butoh performance Borer saw in Israel was his famous and most important Butoh piece “Praise for La Argentina”, a dedication to Argentina of Spanish dance. “It was extremely original. I felt this should be my path of life”. At that time, Borer belonged to an Israeli dance company. Then, she started independently her own contemporary dance performances at the age 23, while studying classic ballet, modern dance, and Butoh dance.
　
Presupposed physical constrains
　At the age 24, a tragedy hit her. Her lower body was paralyzed by a car accident. By wishing that　“I wanted to overcome previous myself”, Borer kept practicing, and visited Japan in 1992 to study at Ohno’s Butoh Institute in Yokohama. She later attended Butoh workshop of Yoshito Ohno (Ohno’s son) in Paris, 2006.
In Israel, together with Butoh performances, she has been having Dance therapy sessions, a mind-body therapeutic approach, to heal and ease mentally troubled soldiers in wars and suffering women from domestic violence and others through Butoh movements.
　She decided to come to Sapporo because the workshop purpose was to teach both Butoh as a dance and Butoh as a body psychotherapy.
She does not use a wheel chair while performing on the stage. “Because of the lower body paralysis, my body expressions have become clearer and my performance naturally has developed”, Borer recollects.
　“In Butoh, physical handicaps can be regarded as individual characteristics, with which you can express yourself in Butoh dance”, says Kasai, “Diversity represented by Borer’ performance is Butoh’s magnetism. Butoh can advantage a lot more people”.
　


Column:
Butoh dance, Japanese origin, BUTOH in abroad.

Tatsumi Hijikata (born in Akita, died in 1986 at the age of 57) originated Butoh dance in 1950s as a peculiar performing art, different from ballet or modern dance, suitable to Japanese people’s short limbs, characteristically in a lower position with deeply bending knees. Most Butoh dancers paint their body white when performing. But, the professor of Sapporo Gakuin University, Toshiharu Kasai says “Following prescribed forms or movements is not important in Butoh, but how well you express your own emotions and passions is.” Because Butoh allows any dance expressions regardless of physical handicaps, its variability of performance is attractive. BUTOH has been known well worldwide.

(Translated by Itto Morita)

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