In a scene from The Five Rings, an actor with a face white as chalk, his hair arranged in an elaborate Japanese traditional style, stares out at the audience. His eyes are slightly crossed, his teeth bared, his tongue hanging far out of his mouth. He meets the world salivating, spit dripping down his chin and mixing with the white paint, his eyes unblinking. It is almost difficult to take in a person with such extremity, such brutal singularity. This overt challenge to the viewer is part of what makes butoh such a fascinating theatrical form. Arising in Japan in the late 1950’s, butoh thrives on mystery, provocation, and primal energy.
The word butoh means “stomp dance,” or “earth dance.” It was taken from a Japanese word, butohkai, originally applied to ballroom dances from the West. The connotation of the word today differs from the old definiton; whereas there was an idea of rising and falling in old dances such as the waltz, butoh in its present meaning remains completely grounded, often descending as far as it can go. Hijikata Tasumi, the founder of butoh, wanted his dancing to show the darkest side of human nature, our deepest instincts. Thus, ankoku, the word often used alongside butoh, translates to “black darkness.”
Butoh is an ever-evolving examination of what it means to be human, born out of a time of rigid unsurity in Japan. Its creators, the aforementioned Hijikata, as well as Kazuo Ono, wanted to build a form that would guide Japanese artists towards unique creation. Rather than copying innovations of the country’s past, or those of the West, butoh would make a bold strike at finding movement that was entirely unlike anything seen, and at the same time rooted in the most ancient world spirit. It exists out of ...
... middle of paper ...
...www.contemporary-dance.org/butoh.html>.
Dunning, Jennifer. "Kazuo Ohno, a Founder of Japanese Butoh, Dies at 103." The New York Times 1 June 2010. Print.
Kim, Jaie Jiae. "Min Tanaka’s Butoh." Theme. 2006. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. .
Leavitt, Dustin W. "KJ Interviews & Profiles: Dance Kitchen." Kyoto Journal 58 (2004).Kyoto Journal - Perspectives from Asia. 2004. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. .
Fraleigh, Sondra Horton. Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan. Pittsburgh, PA: Univ. of Pittsburgh, 2010. Print.
Dance of Darkness. Dir. Edin Velez. Independant, 1989. Online Video.
Yeung, Bernice. "Dancing With the Butoh Masters." San Francisco Weekly. 17 July 2002. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. .
Tolve, A. (2007, December 17). Lifelong friends both find a place at Mark Morris Dance Company. Retrieved February 28, 2010, from SFGate: http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-12-17/entertainment/17274863_1_mark-morris-dance-group-ethan-iverson-youngest-dancers
Fallows, James. "After Centuries of Japanese Isoation, a Fateful Meeting of East and West." {Smithsonian} July 1994: 20-33.
Bibliography Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner Mind. New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1982. Young, William A. The World’s Religions, Worldviews and Contemporary Issues.
Ogawa, D. (1993) The Japanese of Los Angeles. Journal of Asian and African Studies, v19, pp.142-3.
The possession of dance goes to emphasize the idea that gaining a sense of control through dance comes by being possessed by a deity or spirit that processed to speak or act using the possessed person’s body. Being possessed by a deity relates back to some cultures in foreign countries such as Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, in which the people recognize a person’s poo...
Savas, Minae. "Feminine Madness In The Japanese Noh Theatre." Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Ohio State University, 2008. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. 11 Mar 2014.
Suzuki, Tomi. Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996.
... social dance. Many people in today’s society enjoy social; dancing. Chapter eleven dance concert, properly planning and establishing a dance concert is of the utmost importance. The partnership with the lighting designer usually takes priority over all other factors. One of the most important issues concerning customers has to do with mobility. The dancer must be able to move comfortably in the costume. The task of producing a dance concert is an overwhelming and tiring one. Chapter twelve dance in education and career in dance, many dance educators present the argument that teaching and learning dance as an art form is obviously absent from the American student education. There has always been and always will be people who have a love, desire, and passion to instruct and learn the art of dance, will ensure an important place for dance in higher education.
Buddhism is a beautifully complex religion that since its widespread introduction to Japanese culture by the end of the seventh century has made enormous impacts and direct influences on the government and cultural practices of society (Hoffmann 36). The Japanese death poetry composed by Zen monks and haiku poets, compiled by Albert Hoffmann, is an excellent literary explication of the Japanese attitude towards death. This attitude is most notably derived from Buddhism, the main religion of the Japanese people. Even Japanese citizens who are not literal Buddhists still embrace the philosophies that have now become instilled in the cultural history of Japan due to such a heavy Buddhist influence on government and education throughout the centuries.
However, New York Public Schools offered ballroom dancing classes to low-income students of color, which allowed the arts to be included in their curriculum. Watching the film, I observed the positive reaction the children had to the dance classes. Overall, they were exposed to different cultures, made new friendships, became more confident, and aware of different career options such as professional dancers or singers (Agrelo, 2005).
In the same way Japanese poetry often alludes to or derives from the canon of poetry that precedes it, noh plays are often based off of classical Japanese literary sources that form the framework for the play’s themes and moral message. Many of these plays reference poems from revered anthologies, such as the Shinkokinshū, within the play’s dialogue, but it is the monogatari or tales that provide the foundation for certain noh plotlines because of their vast array of character references and plotlines. These tales are the primary sources of information for two plays in particular written by the famous Japanese playwright Zeami: Atsumori and Matsukaze. The warrior-play Atsumori draws from the famous war epic The Tale of Heike to further an anti-war message grounded in the original text, as well as to further explore Buddhist themes of attachment and karmic ties. Matsukaze draws its origins and background from Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji and Ariwara no Narihira’s The Tales of Ise for location, tone, and themes of longing in order to juxtapose the Buddhist duality of attachment and detachment from this world.
The religion of the Ghost Dance started with a man named Wovoka. On January 1, 1889, he had a ‘vision’ during a solar eclipse in Nevada (Peterson 27). It brought a message of hope to the oppressed Indians of only the Indians living. The Indians called Wovoka the ‘Messiah’ (“The Ghost Dance” par. 1) and it was believed that he would bring a “day of deliverance” (Phillips 16) to the Indians. The messiah was said to return to the earth so that all the white men would vanish and the buffalo and their ancestors would return (Peterson 27). Wovoka’s vision was that:
Steve Paxton: Speaking of Dance – Conversations with Contemporary Masters of American Modern Dance. Academic Internet Video. Directed by Douglas Rosenberg. Oregon: Alexander Street Press, 1996.
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. "The Ambivalent Self of the Contemporary Japanese." Cultural Anthropology 5.2 (1990): 197-216. Print.