Enacting peripeteia in Möbius Strip: Adapting Butoh principles in mixed-media performance

Abstract

The article draws from the Japanese phenomenological approach (Kyoto School) concerning the embodied experience of time-space. The article aims at the distillation of Butoh principles and its creative adaptation in a mixed-media performance titled Möbius Strip. As a method of choreographic practice, the concept of qualia is the matrix of Butoh notation (Butoh-fu). The western term for qualia would be ‘image-worlds’, which is encountered in the choreographic practice of Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton and Michael Chekhov (). Butoh-fu is a chain of qualia (scores/atmospheres). Consisting of qualia that require full psychophysical engagement of the performer, Butoh-fu, one could dare to say, resonates with Haiku or Zen Koans (). Under this frame, the performance explores notions of temporality availing in the processual nature of qualia to address the issue of ‘politics of time in neo-liberal societies’ (). The performance borrows its title from the concept of a Möbius Strip by mathematicians A. F. Möbius and J. B. Listing; having only one side and remaining in one piece when split down the middle, characterized by alternative modalities of connectivity. Möbius Strip focuses on the effects of war upon ‘ordinary people’ who suddenly find themselves amidst a crisis that urges them to reconsider their principles and discover dormant values. This is a decisive turning point: a peripeteia. The performance is a bittersweet embodied poem that wishes to offer a crack of light amidst the deep darkness of the current warfare. This article documents part of the practice-based research that includes the creation process and theoretical framework of Möbius Strip. The performance seals the studio work, where Butoh training was deployed as a methodological tool to sensitize performers’ psychophysical compresence. Furthermore, while allowing themselves to be observed by the gaze of the audience, they eventually access shifting time perceptions through the performative experience.