DANCE OF DARKNESS
BUTOH is a Japanese form of contemporary, avant-garde dance founded in the late 1950s, following the aftermath of World War II. The physical practice of Butoh often incorporates corpse-like or childlike gestures and postures which emulate the devestation exhibited in the fallout of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Rather than moving to a fixed rhythm or pattern, Butoh practitioners rely on being moved by an internal experience or cue which manifests unfixed, even haunting movements. Butoh relies on obscure, grotesque, and dark themes to find catharsis within the body.
Butoh practitioners often utilize the practice of SHIRONURI [白塗り] or white paint applied to the bare body, limbs, and face as an act of self-removal. While its historical roots lie in kabuki performers and geisha, the Butoh application of Shironuri focuses on the presentation of the human form as a blank canvas rather than a particular character or archetype. The color white also invokes the theme of death and decay in Eastern cultures, rather than black in Western culture.
BUTOH-FU [舞踏譜] is a system of word-based notation pioneered by Tatsumi Hijikata, one of the early founders of Butoh. Literally meaning Butoh “notes” or “score,” Butoh-Fu uses written or spoken words that employ visceral, poetic, and evocative imagery meant to guide a Butoh dancer’s transformational process. Rather than symbols or physical counts to maintain a dancer’s pace, Butoh-Fu sculpts the body with descriptive phrases that can inform a dancer’s intention, such as “radioactive cavern” or “melting wax.”
BUTOH-FU : “the cement being learns lonliness at night”
Photography by Thomas J. Crowe
“Butoh is the body forced into a corner by words and pain.”
– Tatsumi Hijikata
BUTOH-FU : “a beggar before the plutonium altar”
Photography by Thomas J. Crowe
“Western dance begins with its feet firmly planted on the ground whereas Butoh begins with a dance wherein the dancer tries in vain to find his feet.”
– Tatsumi Hijikata
BUTOH-FU : “an unfortunate fear of water in a bathtub” [NO Shironuri]
