Tatsumi Hijikata Research Articles

Finding Kokoro through the Eyes: Butoh in Roberta Carreri’s Work and Pedagogy

In 1984, Roberta Carreri, Odin Teatret actress since 1974, saw Niwa (The Garden), a Butoh dance performance by Muteki-Sha, and attended a three-day workshop with Natsu Nakajima, direct heir of the Butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1986, she traveled to Japan to work with Natsu Nakajima and Kazuo Ohno. The meeting with the Asian masters changed her approach to training and the creative process. For her, the most remarkable aspect of this apprenticeship was the work with the eyes. The way the eyes are used in Butoh conditioned Carreri’s training and the creative process of her solo performance Judith (1988). Since those same years, the Italian actress has been developing her own pedagogy. Today, she travels globally leading the workshop Dance of Intentions, which includes “flexing the eyes,” an exercise whereby the actress transmits to trainees how it is possible to shape the quality of scenic presence through the eyes. Drawing on a rich bibliography, Roberta Carreri’s work diaries, unpublished documents, and audiovisual materials kept at the Odin Teatret Archives, this paper aims to analyze how the actress embodied the ability to find the kokoro (Japanese for “heart” or “soul”), its application to the creative process and the performance, as well as her pedagogic work, and how this Butoh apprenticeship conditioned her professional identity.

Falling dance: Hijikata’s recomposition of the body via Bacon

ABSTRACT The themes of transformation, indefinite form, and disintegration haunt the work of many post-World War II artists, who had witnessed the animality of human beings as well as the depths to which human beings can fall in wartime. This paper looks at falling as an artistic and phenomenological practice of the body in the work of the Japanese butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, whose notations refer in places to the work of the Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon and offer new bodily lexicons with which to graph the movement of falling. Drawing explicitly on Bacon and using cross-media collage to produce movement, a body in Hijikata could be deformed or made formless onto the ground. In falling, inhabiting and simultaneously vacating oneself, the body makes contact with a surface and leaves or exteriorizes a graphic mark, visual, and performative, in its wake. This attention to falling was part of an ongoing process at the rise of phenomenological boom in postwar Japan by which artists attempted to understand and recompose the kind of body that could inhabit the nuclear age.

SOL E LAMA

O trabalho que ficou conhecido como obra inaugural do Ankoku Butô de Tatsumi Hijikata foi nomeado Cores Proibidas, fazendo uma alusão direta ao título do romance escrito por Yukio Mishima. Deste ato proposital, surgiu uma amizade entre esses artistas que durou onze anos. Este artigo apresenta a partir do Cores Proibidas do escritor e do dançarino as distinções entre suas perspectivas acerca da morte, atrelada diretamente aos modos que investigaram seus próprios corpos. Propõe-se um embate entre o Corpo Saudável em Mishima – forjado pela doutrina severa do Sol e do Aço – e o Corpo Debilitado em Hijikata – aberto e poroso como condiz à sabedoria anunciada pela lama.

The Outside of Butoh Is the Inside of the Body: Ko Murobushi and the Process of Self-Mummification

Ko Murobushi (1947–2015) is considered one of the most significant figures of Japanese butoh in the post–Tatsumi Hijikata era. His manifesto, published right after Tatsumi Hijikata’s death, is believed to mark the beginning of a new era for butoh. Murobushi’s work reflects both his understanding of the “outside,” a concept used to describe the dancing body in butoh, and his study of self-mummification.

Processes of Corporeal Corruption and Objective Disfiguration in Tatsumi Hijikata's 1960s Butoh

The radical reassessment of performance conceived by Tatsumi Hijikata calls into question the body informed by dance systems and society. While exploring a wide range of corporealities, Hijikata focused his attention, in particular throughout the 1960s, on the nikutai (carnal body). This specific corporeality is corruptible, pluralistic, metamorphic, ungovernable, intrinsically political and anti-capitalistic. The nikutai permits the performer to access and explore gaps between reality and fiction, to uncover the quality of deformation and malformation inherent within reality, while resisting systems of knowledge and forms of monolithic identity. As Hijikata states, the nikutai is shattered at the moment of birth. Hence, it may be said that disfiguration is at the very root of the carnal body, which oscillates between the rotting corpse and living body. In his 1960s dance aesthetics Hijikata experiments with corporeality by challenging image, reproduction and representation, and dismisses the figurative outcome of the performative act. Central to this enterprise is the corruption of the body and of the standardised body-object relation disciplined by language and quotidian behaviour. In this essay, I examine aspects of Hijikata’s artistic strategy to undermine choreographic methodologies and framed corporeality. With reference to James Gibson’s theory of affordances I also argue that the challenge in butoh’s movement process and corporeal work disrupts affordance. In relation to this alternative economy of movement, and of attention and exhibition, is highlighted the question of how Hijikata, in his earlier experimentations, avoids ‘the aesthetic consciousness of those who dance’ and switches off the power of gaze.

Presença em Tatsumi Hijikata: Shintai-Nikutai

Neste trabalho transitaremos pelo conceito de presença que é o cerne da pesquisa denominada Por uma poética política: presença e ankoku butô. Tendo em vista alguns pilares que sustentam o entendimento de presença desenvolvido por Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, o interligaremos mais precisamente à presença cênica do dançarino japonês Tatsumi Hijikata. Para tanto, adentraremos mais profundamente no trabalho deste artista, desvendando em sua proposta de pesquisa corporal a chave para a presença. Não por acaso, permearemos as qualidades corpóreas do shintai e nikutai que são possibilidades distintas desse corpo que dança.

Dark voices in revolt

For decades, voice practitioners have been working on freeing the voice and connecting voice to body. It is a voice in ‘crisis’, both literally and figuratively. This article discusses the application of existing Oriental and Occidental methods to discover an alternative to the multifaceted area of the voice in performance pertaining to the notion of ‘crisis’. In this context, however, the inspiration stemmed from Butoh dance, particularly looking at the practice and philosophies of Tatsumi Hijikata. The non-conventional physical and vocal training practices of the Voice Theatre Lab, a practice-led research performance group from Tasmania, Australia, incorporates Butoh practice in training and performance in order to express the voice in ‘crisis’. Although this explanation of ‘crisis’ is not directly linked to Hijikata's cultural notion of ‘crisis’, its roots lie in the artistic expression of change within society and culture. The result was a series of structured training sessions and performances. Elements such as imagery and the expression of the unconscious helps in abandoning literal realities which result in the expression of a ‘freer’ voice. As a result, the Voice Theatre Lab developed a series of training and performance aesthetics that went beyond the quotidian forms of physical and vocal expression.

Takahiko Iimura's Butoh Films: Cine-Dance in Anma (The Masseurs) and Rose Color Dance

In this interview, Aaron Kerner speaks with Takahiko Iimura about the relationship between butoh and film. The discussion focuses specifically on Iimura's films Anma (The Masseurs, 1963) and Rose Color Dance (1965), which feature the legendary Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of butoh. Kerner frames the discussion by noting that there are in effect two different types of “butoh film”; on the one hand, there are films that document, constituting a record of an event, and on the other hand, there are films that integrate butoh elements into the practice of filmmaking itself. Iimura's films fit into this latter category, and he fittingly refers to this practice as “cine-dance.” Over the course of their discussion, Iimura and Kerner talk about the filmmaker's practice and his relationship with Hijikata and many other prominent artists working in the mid-1960s (Yoko Ono, Eikoh Hosoe, Jonas Mekas, Allan Kaprow, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, and Genpei Akasegawa).

The transcultural body: Kolkata re-membered

Abstract This article explores the tensions that surround the effort to make intercultural performance. In particular it draws on the author’s experience of making a cross-cultural devised theatre project for the British Council in India, working with Indian performers and largely western devising techniques. This is contextualized by a discussion of the work of some key practitioners in this area, such as Eugenio Barba, Jerzy Grotowski and Tatsumi Hijikata. Barba’s notion of ‘travellers of speed’ is discussed, as is the critique of such ideas by Phiip Zarilli, among others. The attempt to make a performance space that transcends culture is contrasted with the experience of making performance in a context where cultural specificity is written through every aspect of the work and expresses itself within the bodies of the performers themselves.

Butoh: a bibliography of Japanese avant‐garde dance

PurposeThis article's aim is to provide an annotated bibliographic resource guide for scholars researching butoh and academic and research libraries with collection development areas specializing in modern dance and/or Asian studies. Butoh is a Japanese avant‐garde dance form developed in 1959 as a reaction against Western influence in Japanese politics and culture. Butoh's founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, have created a dance movement that is growing in popularity in the USA, influencing psychology, fashion, music, art and architecture.Design/methodology/approachSearches were performed using a variety of databases, catalogs and online sources in dance and videos were reviewed at the New York Public Library of Performing Arts.FindingsUnlike most modern dance forms, butoh does not have a specific technique that can be passed down from teacher to student, yet it has characteristics (e.g. extremely slow movements) that create the butoh “look”. Butoh collections are fairly small, which will appeal to organizations with small budgets.Originality/valueNo other scholarly, annotated bibliography currently exists for those interested in researching or collecting information on butoh.

Butoh: Duet for Dancer and Photographer

Butoh, the Japanese dance form, has been widely photographed since its inception in 1959, when the first performance emerged from the collaboration between Kazuo Ohno (1907–2010) and Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986). It has attracted photographers with its strong visual aesthetics and the physical appearance of dancers’ well-trained bodies. The dancers welcomed the collaboration with photographers, which resulted in the creation of many Butoh photograph albums. There is an interesting statement reappearing in many Butoh photographers’ testimonies noting that the act of taking pictures places them closer to the dance. They often claim that they are themselves part of the Butoh dance. The photographers’ creative involvement has been recognized and appreciated by Kazuo Ohno for many years, and he often collaborated with the French photographer Nourit Masson-Sekine. He would invite her to take photographs during the rehearsals in his studio, allowing the clicking sound of the camera to become his guide on whether the inner focus in his dance was sustained. However, this creative duet between a Butoh dancer and a photographer has not received much attention in view of the artists’ immediate collaboration, and the dance and photographs have been mostly discussed as separate artworks. Here I am offering a closer look at the dancer-photographer relationship by describing my act of photographing several Butoh performers and sketching reflections on this process. This will help present the duet in a new light, where a photographer does not only offer a technical skill and a visual interpretation of a dance (according to his style, art-history knowledge, and so on) but first and foremost takes part in creating a new event and is an active participant rather than just an observer. I first came across Butoh in Australia in 2000. Having previously studied mainly “classical” theatre, Butoh seemed fresh, new, and challenging, with dancers’ grotesque bodies treating taboo subjects such as sex, death, and homosexuality. Following the advice of a writer and theatre director Lee Chee Keng, who said that “Butoh is an art that is understood primarily through practice,” 1 I took Butoh workshops, mainly with Daisuke Yoshimoto, in order to experience the dance myself. I was disappointed to discover that I felt uncomfortable dancing Butoh, which led me to conclude that the body was not my medium of expression. However, just watching Butoh

土方巽・著「病める舞姫」を読む 「模写」について

土方巽・著「病める舞姫」を読む 「模写」について

土方巽・暗黒舞踏における非統合の身体～1970年代の身体像とメソッド

土方巽・暗黒舞踏における非統合の身体～1970年代の身体像とメソッド

Two Kinjiki: Diametrical Oppositions

Juxtaposing two performances entitled Kinjiki-by Tatsumi Hijikata (1959) and Itoh Kim (2005)- reveals the divergence of contemporary Japanese dance from butoh's expression of eroticism and violence toward a post-butoh aesthetic that is concerned with a more relational and social game.

Dancing Identity: Metaphysics in Motion

Combining critical analysis with personal history and poetry, Dancing Identity presents a series of interconnected essays composed over a period of fifteen years. Taken as a whole, these meditative reflections on memory and on the ways we perceive and construct our lives represent Sondra Fraleigh's journey toward self-definition as informed by art, ritual, feminism, phenomenology, poetry, autobiography, and - always - dance. Fraleigh's brilliantly inventive fusions of philosophy and movement clarify often complex philosophical issues and apply them to dance history and aesthetics. She illustrates her discussions with photographs, dance descriptions, and stories from her own past in order to bridge dance with everyday movement. Seeking to recombine the fractured and bifurcated conceptions of the body and of the senses that dominate much Western discourse, she reveals how metaphysical concepts are embodied and presented in dance, both on stage and in therapeutic settings. Examining the role of movement in personal and political experiences, Fraleigh reflects on her major influences, including Moshe Feldenkrais, Kazuo Ohno, and Twyla Tharp. She draws on such varied sources as philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Martin Heidegger, the German expressionist dancer Mary Wigman, Japanese Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, Hitler, the Bomb, Miss America, Balanchine, and the goddess figure of ancient cultures. Dancing Identity offers new insights into modern life and its reconfigurations in postmodern dance.

Kazuo Ohno's World from Without and Within. By Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno. Translated by John Barrett. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004; pp. 344. $34.95 paper.

Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata are recognized as the most influential creators of the contemporary Japanese dance form known today as butoh. Since its wild and avant-garde beginnings in the late 1950s, butoh has evolved into an established and appreciated art form throughout the world. Despite its popularity and strong influences on the international modern dance world, butoh only recently became an accepted subject for academic research in Japan as well as in the West. With the new opening of butoh research centers and archives—such as the Ohno Dance Studio Archives at BANK ART 1929 in Yokohama, the Kazuo Ohno Archives at Bologna University in Italy, and the Hijikata Tatsumi Archives at Keio University in Tokyo—serious scholarly attention has been given to the art of butoh's founders. However, the lack of firsthand sources by butoh artists reflecting their own work still poses great limitations for a deep understanding of the art form. Kazuo Ohno's World from Without and Within is not only the first full-length book in English about the master's life and work, but also offers a rare inside view of butoh.

Buto(s) (review)

Butô(s) is the latest collection of groundbreaking and erudite essays from the Laboratory for Representational Arts of France's National Research Center (the pure research branch of the state educational system). In character with the sixty plus volumes in the Laboratory's two series, Styles of Theatrical Creation and History and Society, this first book-length study of butoh in French offers a wealth of illustrations, charts, and bibliographical material, including photos of key performances, comparisons of styles of butoh and of butoh and classical dance, chronologies of major performers, genealogies of schools and trends, a dateline of significant and corresponding cultural and political [End Page 560] events, and a film and video source list. The twenty essays include pieces by the editors on the place of Asian arts in France and on the two founding artists of the butoh movement, Tatsumi Hijikata (the violent) and Kazuo Ohno (the wondrous), as well as in-depth articles by Japanese specialists who place butoh squarely within the context of the Japanese avant-garde. Four personal accounts by participants of training sessions and workshops help readers grasp the extreme technical and psychological demands placed on butoh performers.

Eikoh Hosoe

Eikoh Hosoe has been a major innovator in Japanese photography since the 1950s, and an inspiration for younger Japanese photographers. Born the son of a Shinto priest and reared in a Shinto shrine, Hosoe had a strong spiritual foundation, and continued to explore the world of the spirit during a time of increasing materialism and technology in Japan. In 1959 Hosoe and several others founded VIVO, a photo agency which broke with Japan's traditional photography. He was a pivotal figure in the history of postwar Japanese photography, because he introduced experimentation and freedom into the medium. Hosoe is best known for his ‘subjective documentary,’ Ordeal by Roses (1963), a series of disturbing portraits of Yukio Mishima, the novelist. In this series Hosoe broke with the traditional documentary approach to photography and used straight photographs, manipulated development, multiple printing, sandwiched negatives, high-contrast copy negatives, bird's-eye and worm' s-eye views all of which resulted in highly poetic imagery. Their reference to the dream state and surrealism is undeniable. Hosoe's photographs can also be autobiographical, for example, Kamaitachi (1969) where he collaborated with Tatsumi Hijikata, the dancer, to recall memories of the Second World War. Hosoe changed from silver to platinum prints for this series. In addition, when Hosoe photographs the nude, it becomes less of a sensual object and more of an ethereal symbol as in Man and Woman (1961) or the sequel, Embrace (1969–70). His photographs of Antonio Gaudi's fantastic Barcelona architecture dramatically transformed and humanized the structures: stone becomes anthromorphized. Hosoe was haunted by Gaudi's architecture, because in it he perceived a kindred ‘Zen spirit.’ Mr Hosoe was interviewed at the Vision Gallery, San Francisco, California on 6 September 1990.