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.