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Along with the impetus provided by German Expressionist dance,
Butoh has proved to be the most significant force for dance
innovation in the twentieth century. This contemporary dance
form borrows from two primary sources, merging the physical
work among rice farmers in Japan and transmitted shaman and
animistic traditions to create variations in movement placing
the nude body in a state between life and death, between uninhibited
exhibitionism and the grotesque. Since its inception in 1959,
Butoh dance has both fascinated and shocked the West in equal
measure.
From the early 1960s on, Kasai has played a major part in
developing the Butoh movement, giving performances marked
by an extreme emotionality. In this production, he improvises
to images in a major Butoh exhibition on his mentor and friend
Tatsumi Hijikata, whose book "Handsome Blue Sky"
gave this work its title.
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Bibo No Aozora - Handsome Blue Sky
Dance and choreography: Akira Kasai
Akira Kasai, born in 1943, originally studied modern
dance and classical ballet, but became instantly fascinated
by Butoh in 1963 when he met Kazuo Ohno, one of the founders
of this dance form. But he abruptly stopped dancing in 1979,
dissolved his troupe and went to Germany to study eurhythmy
and anthroposophy. He stayed in Germany for six years. When
he returned to Japan he began work on his own highly individual
style of dance, a style leading him to be dubbed as the "Nijinsky
of Butoh".
Parallel to the Festival, the IfA Gallery in Berlin is showing
a major
Butoh exhibition. When this exhibition opened in Tokyo,
Akira Kasai gave a premiere performance of his homage to his
mentor and friend Tatsumi Hijikata. |
