Butoh's shamanic roots: - Kiahkeya

Butoh’s shamanic roots:

An awareness of matter, and soul, moving through the body at all times. Butoh for me is in a greater context a tool/vocabulary to interact with the origin of existence. My Interest to Butoh were for several reasons. As it can be called a post World War II dance originating in Japan, it is also the quest for the inquisitive dancer and artist during the 20th Century to overcome the suffering and seriousness of society. From already prior WWI in Europe, the “Fein de Siecle” of the early 1900, the outlook on society was extremely grim and the industrial world was in upheaval. To counter this there were Existentialist art movements, Surrealist art movements, Film was being revolutionized, the Neu Tanz movement in Germany, the Dada movement was reading poems backwards, with tin cans on their head, Yves Klein was taking pictures of alchemical artistic procedures, or of him self jumping off a building, the Bruecke, the Blauer Reiter, Kandinsky was getting into Cubisim. This very same movement was being observed and closely related to in Japan, it was the artist concerned with where he was coming from to where he was going. Prior to the infamous “Kinjiki” performance by Yoshito Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata that had caused increased attention to Butoh, their were surrealist performance art taking place in Japan with people having their hair cut on stage. The permissible birth date of Butoh was after Hiroshima, a form that is often remembered as grotesque and unforgiving to the viewer. Incorporating all that had been considered outlandish to dance previously, the form of Butoh established a new yet ancient understanding of man in society and nature. In fact it was the artist allowing himself to steer towards a Zero Point, and dance on its line. A refined line that can be described as an ever so thin separation between life and death. This line is comparable to what can be called metaphorically the shamans breath. An in between state. It is a dance of subtleties of inner awareness, having 10,000 ears all over your body that can hear the shrill ring of a decayed leaf about to fall off a branch. For me this aspect of Butoh is what I define as a universal dance, or as what is called in other countries tribal dance, ritual dance, last but least in an ancient context trance dance. A dance where spirit tells the story. Naturally there are different schools of Butoh, but all give the dancer access to the primordial definition of life itself all the way up to a rather complex awareness of the worlds state of affaires. Butoh having been born in Japan, and now coined as a post modern dance, was a shock and awe experience, a naked rebellion to society, humanity, decay: ultimately life itself. It is the innate longing that a butoh dancer shares with a tribal dancer, to allow the true rumbling of the universe to enter ones body, and become one with it. * It is in a universal sense the capacity to dance with risk, bare honesty, and at your own limitation. Dancing at your fullest capacity is to listen to your spirit. Spirit speaks the language of the earth. And this earth is dying for us to listen, *Butoh is a modern day revolution, as a result of having lost touch with the natural course of existence. Japan being highly civilized, in its culture and booming economy, resulted as so did the rest of the world with the need within the inquisitive artist to abort all that is determined. China for example is on the verge of a similar breakthrough, only 50 years later. From the time that I lived in China, 1994-96, the prevalence of spontaneous art, romantic, mythical, absurd, yet alone shocking art was close to none. Still coming out and recovering from a brutal post Communist regime, a yearning to express that which Milan Kundera, expresses in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” was not permissible, or dared to be understood by a larger public. Less than 10 years later, Shanghai is more modern than Tokyo, and artists like Zhang Huan perform with their naked body lying on a block of ice, or sitting naked in a communal Chinese Latrine covered with honey and snails.

For more information on Butoh dance: http://www.xs4all.nl/~iddinja/butoh/eng_1.html

My Teachers and Inspirations: Nature being the First and for most. Atsushi Takenouchi and Hiroko Komiya have shared the ways ‘Jinen Butoh’ a form that Atsushi has coined, meaning to dance with all; from breath, car, to river, to wind, to amoeba. It is with their kind of dedicated kind of passion, that I have been able to deeply connect with the light and darkness in a most full complete way, there is no indifference, for we live now, with the body that we have been given; we have to create with it now. That is the beauty of our limitless limitations. ( See below ‘Jinen’ text.) Growing up in Africa, I was acquainted with wild animals, the dance of the Zulus, Xhosa etc. and the existence of African Witch doctors at an early age. It was a given for me to understand that the human self has the undeniable urge to dance with the elements at their best. From there it has taken me to study the Voodoo ways of Trance dance, Santeria, tribes of the Amazon basin and Northern and Central Africa etc. Yumiko Yoshioka taught me how to enjoy moving through the chaos Akira Kasai to understand the shamanic qualities of life and dance. Yoruba dance and Tradition of West Africa, The Lakota way of life; Chief Leonard Crow Dog San Bushmen Southern Africa; the people of the village of Dopost, Xawante from Brazil, Hiparidi, the chief Shamans Son. Bernadette Riebenot; Gabonese priestess of the Pygmy plant and nature medicine ways. The Funio Indians, Lilisaka, from Brazil, Nancy Eagle spirit and many more. Text by Atsushi Takenouchi on ‘Jinen Butoh’. Jinen is an old Japanese word. It’s meaning encompasses ALL that is even larger than nature. In the West, “Man” exists above “Nature,” and maintains and protects it. Above Man, there is “God”. In other words, there is a separation between Natures, Man, and God. Jinen expresses the perception of the universe before such a separation occurred. In ALL things there lives god. God is the “Flow of the River of the Universe” that embraces the sun and moon, and the earth that is the origin of the birthing of all Nature including Man. God lives within man, plants, and animals, even in man-made things like houses. Jinen is the word that describes the universe, its’ origin and natural course. All things connect to this river, and are part of the river of Jinen. Man generally receives beautiful forms from Nature, such as the plants or animals. However, many forces of nature, such as huge earthquakes that I have experienced myself, destroy people, organisms and nature. This is the breath of this planet. This is also the swirl of the River of the Universe that embraces all life and death, light and dark. This is Jinen. There is nothing Man can do. All that I was able to do after the earthquake was to live with the people who had encountered live and death, and to pray and dance with them. Inside Jinen, the helpless life force embrace life and death, feel that even such life and death are connected to all things, and dance a prayer. This view of nature has already existed in the art forms created by ancient people. Every life form performs the dance of life and death by being alive. All things are dancing with Jinen. Jinen Butoh is to join together with all the life that are already dancing, to dance with the flow of the universe that is Jinen. We remove the wall of consciousness that perceives dance as the individual “ I ” dancing. We are dancing with, and are danced by, the Jinen, accepting all the environment and conditions around us as Jinen.