'Butoh': Formless journeys through time

Asip A. Hasani, Contributor, Yogyakarta

Butoh, Japanese contemporary dance, is a kind of iconic, multidimensional performance art.

It is not merely the art of human bodily movement but is also rooted deep in spirituality.

Two butoh dance groups led by the second generation of butoh dancers, Kohzensha Dance Company and Ahiru Dance Studio, displayed two different styles recently at the 2nd Jogja Arts Festival (JAF 2005).

On the first occasion, the biyearly festival was held in July 2003.

A piece of work titled A Butterfly in the Dark was presented by Ahiru Dance Studio with five butoh dancers including its founder Mitsuyo Uesugi. During the 40-minute performance the audience was treated to strange movements from the dancers.

Hardly any of their movements could be considered "natural"; there was no walking, running or even dancing.

"There was no specific form to the movements of the dancers as it was a dance from their soul," said 55-year-old Uesugi, who has studied butoh with one of the three important butoh founders, Kazuo Ohno.

A Butterfly in the Dark, which was performed at Yogyakarta's Sositet theater on Sept. 21, tells of a mans struggle to find his true self. The performance closed JAF 2005, which had been opened by Japanese theater group Ku Na'uka Theatre Company on Sept. 7 and 8.

Uesugi, who declined to be called the choreographer of the performance, acted on the stage as a metaphor of darkness while four young dancers (two male, two female) struggled to seek the light of truth.

"In another way, I also played the part of a midwife who helps them give birth to a baby -- their real selves. So I don't really know when the performance will end as it depends on how long it takes for the four dancers to find the light," she explained.

Meanwhile, the performance on Sept. 20 by Kohzensha Dance Company, founded by butoh dancer Yukio Waguri, was far more entertaining. Kohzensha's five dancers, including Waguri, interpreted his work, Transforma, in which Waguri tried, at the start, to blend Indonesian music composed by contemporary musician Djadug Ferianto with the movements of four butoh dancers.

"This is a challenging work for me to communicate butoh with Indonesian music," said Waguri who is already well-known to Indonesians, especially Yogyakartans.

Transforma was the fifth performance of Waguri in Indonesia.

The result was, however, that the four dancers looked more like Indonesian traditional dancers than butoh performers. The butoh-style movement was only evident when Waguri, who acted as an insane person wandering about the city, appeared on stage and became the focus of interest of the performance.

The 53-year-old Waguri exhibited excellent movement skills. As in many of his performances, he used white makeup on his face, like a mime artist.

Waguri is known for mixing butoh with other dance styles, including Indonesian styles. "Butoh has for years been explored in Western countries. Now I want butoh to find itself in Asia," said Waguri, who has also studied with another butoh founder, Tatsumi Hijikata.

In the last minutes of the performance, a traditional Japanese song from a small island, Amami Oshima, southern Japan, was heard when the four dancers appeared again on stage.

Transforma tells of an insane person who lives in the city and has no shelter. Every day, he moves from one place to another. For years he has lived that way, until old age. The insane, lonely person eventually dies one freezing night.

"This piece is in line with butoh philosophy about a journey through the time in which there is no permanent entity or form. Everything changes," said Waguri.

The word "butoh" which means "stepping on the earth", represents the spirit behind the movement that originated in the early 1950s when the Japanese became preoccupied with Western culture, including dance such as ballet. Thus, butoh was a counterculture movement against the West, especially in the field of modern dance.

Three important butoh founders, Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno, and Sankai-juku, rejected Western ballet and founded Japan's own contemporary dance style, which was better suited to the physical attributes of Japanese people.

Since the early 1960s, butoh dancers have been invited to give lectures and performances in many Western countries where people learn that butoh is also as a healing movement.