Butoh and Modern Japanese Theatre
Known originally as Ankoku Butoh (dance of darkness), Butoh was founded in Japan after World War Two as a reaction against the Western influences which started to dominate Japanese Post-WWII culture and the arts. Butoh is a reaction against the structure of traditional Japanese cultural forms such as Kabuki and Noh while also being reactionary to Western Ballet. Some of the originators of the form were the famous Japanese dancers Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. It often comprises performers grotesquely contorting their bodies and moving at either a glacially slow pace or at a frenetic bushfire pace. The imagery of Butoh is normally strong, stark and symbolic and pieces often deal with taboo topics. Pieces are often set in extreme or absurd environments. It traditionally is performed in white body makeup with slow controlled movements but it can easily be adapted to different forms. Some Butoh performances involve nudity so make sure you watch all of a vdeo before showing it to students. Here are a couple of examples of videos of different Butoh videos. Some are from Japanese artists and some from artists from different cultures:
Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours) which was developed and performed by Tatsumi
Hijikata for a 1959 dance festival, was a Butoh piece based on Yukio Mishima’s
novel Kinjiki, was probably the
first Butoh performance. Hijikata referred to his work as
"Ankoku-Buyou" (ζι»θθΈ – dance of darkness) but later changed it to Butoh
which ironically originally was a term that referred to European ballroom
dancing. He later developed work based on the writings of Artaurd, Genet,
Lautreamont and de Sade. He mostly developed group performances since he saw
Butoh as a largely group form. He was also interested in the transmutation of
the human body into animal forms. Around 1960, Kuzuo Ohno started to work with Hijikata. Some other earlt exponents of Butoh were Iwana
Masaki, Tanaka Min and Teru Goi.
By the 1980’s wider
interest in Butoh started to develop in the West as Butoh troupes started to
perform outside of Japan (particlularly in the USA). An incident in a
performance in Seattle Washington where a performer was killed during a
performance by the Japanese group Sankai Juku sparked interest in Butoh. During
the performance, performers hung upside down from long ropes inside a very tall
building and one of the ropes snapped. Another performance in the mid 1980’s
which was performed inside a dark cave with no audience also attracted
attention. A religious ritualistic style performance by Koichi Tamano on top of
the huge drum of the San Francisco Taiko Dojo inside San Francisco’s Grace
Cathedral sparked attention.
The influence of Butoh has also been felt heavily in the J-Horror film genre. In the 2001 film ‘The Grudge’ director Kiyoshi Kurosawa butoh movements with his actors. Butoh style performance is also evident in Doris Dorrie’s film ‘Cherry Blossoms’ made in 2008..
In some senses, Butoh
can be seen as the illegitimate lovechild of Expressionism and Post WWII
Japanese revolt. It takes aspects of its form from Kabuki, Noh and Bunraku
puppetry although unlike these forms Butoh has more openness and less control.
As Butoh developed, it also started to draw more from Western Modern dance
forms.
Butoh attempt to have
the performer use their ‘authentic body’ as opposed to forms like ballet which
demand that the performer almost uses ‘another body’ or a body which is a
construct or edifice. There is sense in Butoh of the space controlling the
movement of individual performers. The space and other forces moves the
performers. The space can ‘pull’ or push’ the performer. The space and the
internal images inside the performer can move the performer.In Butoh,
performers train themselves to empty themselves. Sometimes in Butoh the
performer has to imagine that rather than them moving in space that the space
is moving. Sometimes it is useful to imagine that the space is pulling you or
pushing you. The performer has to imagine that the space and other forces are
moving them. Internal images can also be used as the force to move the
performer. Butoh performers train to empty themselves.
One of the first
Butoh pieces was a piece called Forbidden Colours which was based on the Mishima book of the same name.
Another early piece was Revolt of the Flesh. The use of the white painted face is a
common convention used by Butoh performers. The Japanese Australian Butoh performer Yumi Umuimare has a great video with a short history of Butoh called 'The Spirit of Butoh and Beyond'. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics (actually celebrated in 2021 due to the 2020-21 COVID 19 Pandemic) featured the most watched piece of Butoh ever when the Japanese Butoh dancer Temmetsu dressed in all white struck mournful poses to represent the death due to COVID 19 and the deaths of nine Israeli athletes and officials at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. This piece of Butoh was probably watched by almost 1 billion people world wide.
Butoh
Exercises
Ball of
Energy
Standing still, looks
at your hands. Rub your hands together vigorously until they are warm and then
let them release but hold the warmth and energy that exists between your hands
as if it were a ball of energy. Play with the ball of energy between your
hands. Make it smaller and larger. Now start to move around the space with your
ball of energy. Play with it. Make it smaller and bigger. Play with it in
different ways and against different parts of your body. Play with it in front
of your body, to the side and behind your body. Now start to be aware of
others. Sometimes play with your ball in your own world and sometimes include
others. Throw your ball around. Catch the ball of others. Play with balls of
energy in space.
Zen Breathing
(with movement)
Stand in a neutral
position, looking straight ahead. Put one hand in a horizontal position facing
downwards at about stomach level. Place the other hand in a horizontal position
slightly above the head facing upwards. Now start to breath slowly and have the
upper hand come to the lower position and face downwards while the lower hand
moves to the upper position and moves upwards. Use the breath. Some people like
to only breath out on movement and breath in when the hands are in the desired
position. Keep this going. It is like Tai Chi or Zen breathing exercises. Keep
it slow. If you can, make the transitions between movements hardly
discernible.
Puppet and
Puppeteer
Take up a position or
statue pose. Now starting with your hands and arms, start to move individual
parts of your body as if you were a puppet. Experiment with different
movements. Experiment with different levels. As you become more confident, move
a little more around the space. Move different parts of your own body. Make
sure you also move parts of your back, head and face. See if you can create
quick movements as well as slow movements. At some point close your eyes and
observe in your ‘mind’s eye’ the movements as you make them. Repeat some
of the same moves at points, as if they were echoes, shadows or physical
memories of the movements already made.
Now get into pairs.
Decide who is ‘A’ and who is ‘B’. ‘A’ is the puppet and ‘B’ is the puppeteer.
‘B’ does not make direct contact with ‘A’ but has to control the movements of
‘A’ like a puppeteer. ‘B’ starts with getting ‘A’ to do small movements
particularly with the hands and arms and then gets more adventurous and gets
other parts of the body such as the legs, feet, torso, back and head to move.
Eventually ‘B’ can find ways to get the face of ‘A’ to move. Remember to start
slow and then increase the speed and variation as you become more confident.
Try to get some contrast in the movements where some parts are constricted and
others open and free. End the exercise with ‘B’ putting ‘A’ into a pose. Now
‘B’ back away and ‘A’ initiates attempts to repeat as much of the
sequence they just did from memory. Remember it does not have to be exact.
After this the pair swap over and ‘A becomes the puppeteer and ‘B’ the
puppet.
Notable Butoh
Artists (for research)
• Edoheart
Butoh Companies and
Artists
Hijikata
Kazuno Ono
Sakaijuku (all male
company)
Kakutobo (all female
company)
Yoko Ashikawa
Yumi Umiumare (Butoh
Cabaret at Melbourne Fringe Festival)
Music to use in Butoh
classes
Susumu Yokota
Resources
Butoh Training
Exercises
References
del Pila Narenjo Rico, M. (2020). 'Butoh', Contemporary Dance. https://www.contemporary-dance.org/butoh.html
Kurihara, Nanako. The Most Remote Thing in the
Universe: Critical Analysis of Hijikata Tatsumi's Butoh Dance. Diss. New York U, 1996. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1996.
9706275
Kuniyoshi,
Kazuko. An Overview of the Contemporary Japanese Dance Scene. Tokyo: The Japan Foundation, 1985; Viala, Jean.
Butoh: Shades of Darkness. Tokyo: Shufunotomo, 1988.
Ono, K. 1980. The Dead Sea. Performance by Kazuo Ono, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUjhQLB0hXY&t=6s
Takahashi, A. (2021). 'Experience the Wonders of Butoh'. Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History & Culture. July 20th, 2021. https://www.rekibun.or.jp/en/art/reports/20210720-11762/
Truter, O.V. (2007). The Originating Impulses of Ankoku Butoh: Towards an Understanding of the Trans-cultural embodiment of Tatsumi Hijikata's Dance of Darkness. Rhodes University: Grahamstown, SA. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145034408.pdf
Umuimare, Yumi. (2020). 'The Sprit of Butoh and Beyond'. [Video]. Retrievediment from https://vimeo.com/443273560?fbclid=IwAR29qv_hlHAAIioHwMx-2XtG7sC66v0_34pno5ACpF__2EY42LnSmM2QRMM
Thank you for this concise intro with practical exercises. Finally something useful for my students!
ReplyDeleteI am glad you enjoyed and that you are able to pass on this knowledge and practice to students.
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