Waguri's 'Butoh' dance an acquired taste

Waguri's 'Butoh' dance an acquired taste

By Sal Murgiyanto

JAKARTA (JP): Silence reigned when the auditorium lights
dimmed. Then two rays of an altogether more intense light shot
out from the stage wings and picked out a white figure standing
in the center of the stage likes an entrance gate.

The figure appeared statue-like, sometimes appearing
beautiful, at times comical, and even ugly. The images all the
time being formed by two women "dancing" inside a white,
cylindrical, elasticated, muslin tube.

The scene opened Yukio Waguri's Butoh piece entitled The
Topography of Images at the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in
Central Jakarta. The performance was staged on Sept. 25 and Sept.
26 as part of Art Summit Indonesia 1998.

Yukio Waguri's dance troupe Kohzensha, which consists of Yukio
himself and three female dancers -- Asuka Shimeda, Mayo Miwa and
Yuriya Ikeda -- is the fifth Butoh group to have visited
Indonesia. The other four troupes are the now disbanded Byakko-
sha, Ohno Kazuo, Sankaijuku and Hakutobo.

In discussing this uniquely Japanese dance phenomenon, one has
to be wary of making generalizations. There are a number of
common factors shared by the increasing number of Butoh groups,
but it is also true that as a movement, Butoh is divided into
several different styles.

Byakko-sha is characterized by brutal eroticism. Ohno Kazuo's
solo work is intense, subtle, and poetic. Sankaijuku is cool and
heavily symbolic. Unlike the theatrically spectacular work of
Byakko-sha and Sankaijuku, Hakutoboh does not use elaborate sets,
props or special effects. His work is simple, but more spiritual
and mystical in nature.

Like other Butoh groups, Kohzenza owes derives its inspiration
from Tatsumi Hijikata, one of the founding fathers of Butoh, who
is credited with coining the term ankoku Butoh, dance of darkness
or gloom.

Hijikata believes that the body of a Butoh dancer is far
removed from the balanced, ideal beauty of the ballet dancer, and
that it has no grounds for pride in powerful musculature or
physical strength.

Images in a Butoh performance are often presented through a
stooped body, small and feeble, with bent legs, and an outsized
caricature of a face.

In the second section of Topography, a bare shouldered Waguri
with his body painted white, wearing a white loincloth and long
haired wig, danced his solo like a vigorous primate holding a
broom in his right hand.

His movement was tense and stiff. With open arms he walked
slowly into a spotlight projecting a changing shadow onto the
white muslin pillar which formed the backdrop to his performance.

The performance sets a magical atmosphere in which to explore
simple and strong images of primates, helped along by the use of
sophisticated lighting.

Later, three female figures wearing plain kimono danced an
improvised jig to an accompaniment of Japanese music while
wearing white masks on the backs of their heads.

At other times, dressed as samurai (traditional Japanese
soldiers) with their typical wooden shoes, the three dancers
danced together slightly out of unison, as if criticizing the
tradition of blind discipline.

Waguri's solo was performed in a red evening gown reminiscent
of Ohno's transvestite. At the end, erotically and ironically,
Waguri opened the gown slowly and seductively to reveal his male
body and thin moustache. The contrast between the female image
and the male body lingered momentarily as a very striking image.

"A fertile republic of bodies," Waguri said, "coming down the
ladder in the body, we reach a realm where flowers, animals,
smoke, earthen walls, peacocks, ghosts and various lives are
breathing. Take in all things in nature in your empty body, and
you will, with your keen senses, hear the flow of water deep
inside."

Indeed, through the bodies of the dancers, Waguri shows us a
process of metamorphoses.

"But, was it a good performance?" one may ask.

Answering a question like this is not an easy task and there
is definitely no one single answer. The answer will depend on how
deep and wide run one's life and aesthetic experience, and what
one considers to be "good" in a performance: meaningful, useful,
or merely beautiful?

Should a performance enrich one's life experience or simply
entertain? If the question was rephrased to "Was it a good Butoh
performance?" The answer would already be very different.

Any performance is situated between two poles, ritual and
entertainment. A ritual is efficacious, and is very meaningful to
the performer(s).

Entertainment on the other hand, is pleasing and helps to pass
the time, but does not necessarily provide a nutritious
experience.

Ritual transforms one's life permanently, entertainment only
temporarily. A good performance always contains both the
efficacious and entertaining elements, but there is no fixed
formula on the composition. The correct composition depends on
entirely on the individual artist.

The conservative element in the audience -- those who were
there to be entertained -- had trouble recognizing Waguri's work
as a "good" dance performance.

They did not see what they wanted to see, namely the expansive
movement of Western dance or the beautiful, slender images and
lithe bodies ballet dancers.

But for the progressive audience who came to the performance
not simply to be entertained, but to enrich their lives and
aesthetic experience, Waguri's piece was good for two reasons.

First, it differs from the work of other Butoh groups. Second,
it is meaningful, because it helps us to understand other aspects
of life and movement of the dancers' form.

Some Japanese choreographers, including Waguri, have not
capitulated to the onslaught of the Western aesthetic and are
determinedly perpetuating the classical Japanese gestures and
poses made famous in traditional performances like nihon buyo,
kabuki, or noh.

They are striving to find their own "new" Japanese tradition,
as seen in Topography.

But this does not mean that there were no weaknesses in
Waguri's performance. With only four dancers in the company, the
Jakarta audience did not see the best of Waguri choreography.
Technically speaking, the three female dancers in the company
were not convincing.

Waguri is an impressive dancer and good choreographer. But his
female impersonations have not yet reached the unique and
delicate heights of Ohno's. To borrow the conventional aesthetic
achievement from traditional noh performances, Waguri has now
reached the state of hana, a flowering with physical beauty,
while Ohno has reached yugen, the ultimate in spiritual beauty.

However, I agree with Waguri's statement in the workshop
session. He said, "for an artist, the most important thing is to
keep dancing, creating, and searching to find new ways of
creative expression." Inspired by Hijikata's work in ankoku
Butoh, the 46-year-old Waguri does not simply imitate but keeps
moving toward individual invention which depends entirely on his
own personal experience.

This unending search and creative enthusiasm is something
Indonesian choreographers should strive to emulate.

The writer, a prominent dance critic, is dean of the School of
Performing Arts in the Jakarta Institute of the Arts.