White Prints
The third performance of the "The Human Body - a Universal Sign" project has restored faith in the idea that a man on the stage is able to attract attention and even express something.
Two butoh dancers, a nearly empty stage, a black floor. Dancers' bodies are covered with white powder which leaves more and more thicker and thicker prints on the black floor. They remind us that we are witnesses of a way, that time is going by. And music - sometimes oriental rhythms, more often electronic storms, rains, the sea hum. This excess of sounds was a bit irritating, over illustrative, not matching with abstract stage reality. The performance began with long stillness in minimal light. On the right side of the stage there was a kneeling turned back woman. On the left side - a man standing motionlessly. Stillness was slowly changing into motion. Motion broken, far from harmony. The dancers were not so much telling a story as were expressing its essence, tension, emotional states. White powder and costumes (Japanese but not ethnographic) were making the dancers unreal, turning them into ghosts, dolls, abstractions.
The performance, built of some sequences, had weaker and stronger moments. Among two dancers the more interesting one was Mika however both show great skills. But this was Mika who was intriguing and mysterious. A bit like a child, a bit like a small animal, a bit like a demon. And this was her who acted a sequence which from the whole spectacle I will remember for sure. A strange and sore one. The cringed woman is removing with difficulty hanging from her mouth red threads. Suggestiveness and ambiguity of this scene let us think that a human body is or happens to be a universal sign.
[Japanese]
