by Liz Waring

"Creating unerasable impressions is our business."
Amagatsu Ushio

On May 24, 1959, Hijikata Tatsumi and his group Ankoku Buto-Ha held their first major performance, Forbidden Colors. "It was a short piece, without music. In the piece a young boy enacted sex with a chicken by strangling it between his thighs. In the darkness that followed, a man approached the boy" (Sikkenga 1). With this performance, Ankoku Butoh (the Dance of Utter Darkness) made its first appearance and simultaneously managed to scoop the punk rock movement by a good twenty years (Klein 1). Since this performance, butoh has been given a wide variety of descriptions, including "shocking, provocative, physical, spiritual, erotic, grotesque, violent, cosmic, nihilistic, cathartic, and mysterious" (1). Ankoku butoh, broken down into English, literally means "black stamping dance." Ankoku literally means pitch black. "Butoh, in Japanese, is made up of the characters bu, which means to dance (the same bu that is found in the word Kabuki) and the character to, which means to step or tread" (2). The term butoh has always been used in Japanese culture as a catchall term for any type of dance not traditionally Japanese (for example, Western-style dancing such as the waltz and the flamenco were called butoh). However, since 1959, butoh has been given new meaning and has created a new genre in Japanese dancing and in postmodernism around the world.

Two men, Ohno Kazuo and Hijikata Tatsumi, are credited with the actual founding of butoh. Their backgrounds growing up were quite similar and filled with great poverty. "Ohno recalls that when he was in junior high school his youngest sibling died in his arms because they did not have enough money to take the child to the doctor. Hijikata remembered vividly the day that his older sister was sold into prostitution" (6). These experiences caused Hijikata to develop a belief that the places where people grow up, as well as those who surround us, "impress themselves upon our bodies in an unconscious, but nevertheless powerful way" (5). Klein notes, "Hijikata began growing out his hair in the 1960's in the belief that this act would help his sister to live on with him. …Ohno has had a number of dances that dealt with his relationship to his mother, particularly his feelings of guilt for what he calls his 'selfishness' towards her" (6). However, these similarities did not connect with the temperaments of the dancers. Both were at extreme ends of the spectrum: Ohno the light, Hijikata the dark. Both intensities were necessary to combine and create the energy that is butoh (7).

Before creating butoh, both dancers had studied and were influenced by Western-style modern dance, due to the influx of Western culture after World War II. Klein states:

When the postwar occupation lifted the wartime censorship on Western dance and drama, first Tokyo and then all of Japan was swept by what could only be called a "craze" for Western-style dance. Although in the beginning ballet eclipsed modern dance in popularity, the number of modern dance schools and studios increased steadily throughout the 1950's, supported and periodically revitalized by visits from the major modern dance companies of the period. …The visit of Martha Graham's dance company in 1955 had a particularly strong effect on the shape that mainstream dance took in the 50's and 60's in Japan, and it was often towards Graham-influenced work that butoh directed its anti-Western antagonism. (9)

In response to the "Westernization" of Japan, Hijikata choreographed Forbidden Colors. In this piece were choreographed many of the qualities that have since come to epitomize the butoh movement. "In it, Hijikata eliminated many of the supports upon which mainstream dance leaned at that time: music (the dance was performed in complete silence), all interpretive program notes, and any dance techniques which went beyond what he felt were the realistic limits of the 'natural' body" (10). This method of dance was an attempt to bring back into dance the traditional Japanese belief of the body being in tune with nature, an idea that had been lost in contemporary society. Kazuko Shiraishi states, "Through discovery of new values and a new sense of beauty, butoh restored the poetry, landscape, philosophy, time, and space within the mind which dance had failed to see due to prejudices favoring the beauty of the form [Western dance]" (1).

In addition to the body becoming aligned with nature, "Hijikata discovered the body's potential for transcending conventions…His basic idea was that the body's animating spirit metamorphoses into other existences, leaving the empty physical shell to respond to place and environment…This emptying out and search for interaction with the external world liberates both the body and the spirit and refines sensation" (Tachiki 3). However, when a person attempts to obtain the stage of a "butoh body," it is important for the individual to find his/her own reality of how the body exists before transcending into a mental state of nothingness and a physical state of liberation (3). This idea directly relates back to Eastern thought and meditation. Once a person is able to do this, the dance can expand from that point. Forbidden Colors contains one example of how butoh has been used to tap into the energy of the body and nature:

The act of killing a chicken, with its primitive sacrificial overtones, was meant as an expression of the turbulent sexual passion which modern man suppresses but which still remains as a core of darkness at the heart of our existence. In the conclusion of Forbidden Colors this core of darkness expanded to cloak the entire stage: all that was left was the sound of the boy's footsteps escaping and the man pursuing him. (Klein 10)

This exploration of the human psyche and nature has been continued and developed by the work of other dancers and choreographers of butoh. Klein gives examples such as Tanka Min, whose ecstatic trance improvisations are often danced to the pounding beat of live African-influenced jazz drumming, or Ojima Ichiro, whose solo dances are set in prehistoric ruins in order to participate in and communicate with the traces of aura left behind by prehistoric peoples (19). The famous group Sankai Juku also believes in this approach. "Sankai Juku's aim is to present the human body in a primitive form, as an untouched slate on which the movement is painted, revealing an intensified, emotional state. …In the absence of motion, there is life. In all Japanese arts, emptiness is not a void but a vast space full of choices, brewing together until one simple idea emerges" (Stein 68). Sankai Juku's founder, Amagatsu, illustrates this idea even further. When asked to demonstrate the choreography of the word "wind," he began by standing very still, "then began to sway his right arm slightly, then his left arm. He stated, 'It is not pantomime, but from inside the body that the wind emerges'" (68). As depicted by these examples, the technique and choreography of butoh is a direct representation of this belief.

Butoh is sometimes characterized as having "intense expressiveness, distorted movements, and grotesque imagery. The limbs and faces of butoh performers are contorted, their costumes are often tattered or intentionally ugly, and the boundaries of physical expression are consistently challenged" (Encarta 1). The typical costume of butoh dancers is usually (but not always) white body makeup and either a simple leotard, loincloth, or complete nudity. The hair is commonly shaven off. The most familiar movement styles seen in butoh have been slow, contorted, and grotesque movements. Klein states, "The beshimi kata, in which the body convulses spasmodically, the eyes roll up to show the whites, the tongue spews out, and the face is twisted beyond all recognition, represents an attempt to move beyond the usual forms of expression to a level of grotesquery that would make it impossible to apply verbal explanations" (40). Itto Morita, a butoh choreographer, tries to explain the rolled eyes when he states:

I feel that the western society has been evolved too much into a visually oriented world, overly depended on what is seen by eyes. It makes everything turn into an OBJECT, and the ample information obtained by other sense organs is not taken in and lost. It creates a gap between the perceiver and the object…(1)

Also, the images of the shaved head and completely white body symbolize the problem of individuality. Klein declares:

Shaving the head and coating the nearly naked body with white makeup eliminates all emblems of personal "taste," a step towards freeing the dancer from capitalism's consumer culture. Butoh's use of continual metamorphosis to confront the audience with the disappearance of the individual subject by refusing to let any dancer remain a single identifiable character, is another strategy that confronts the modern myth of the individual. (46)

However, this is not always the case. Because the whole idea is behind butoh is to be liberated, there is not one specific technique or style of make-up or costume. Many butoh companies have entirely different techniques. Some use solo work, some use group. Some may leap wildly in a frenzy of motion with loud music, while others perform with no music whatsoever and use subtle, barely recognizable movements. When performing, the dancers' hair may be shaven, wildly teased, or elaborately coifed. Even the traditional white makeup that came from Japanese theater may be replaced with gold, silver, red, or black makeup, or even no makeup at all (Hermon 1). Therefore, there can never be one set construct for butoh. How can one recognize butoh? As one author suggests, simply ask (2).

Hijikata and Ohno set out to create a dance form that was entirely new, constructed by the rejection of traditional Japanese dance and Western modern dance. Within this dance form flowed many ideas relating to the Eastern philosophies of physical liberation and abandon, the once-forgotten Japanese belief of the body coordinating with nature, and controversial movements, costumes, and makeup. Although butoh was constructed in Japan, for a very long time it was an underground movement that was hidden from everyday society (Klein 35). After the butoh movement gained momentum, many of the original ideas were modified according to the taste of the individual choreographers. The butoh seen today can have music, meaning, and even interpretive program notes. Sankai Juku has toured internationally and has gained tremendous fame both in Japan and overseas. It is famous for its trademark "hanging event," which involves four male dancers suspended by their ankles and being slowly dropped down from a building. "A dance form that was violent and virulently set against giving the audience pleasure is now peaceful and aesthetically appealing…" (36). Although this is not always the case (this is butoh, the indescribable dance, after all), because of this trend towards more public works and acceptance, butoh has emerged in today's world and has even become popular. However, "there are times when an art which rejects completed form must choose a form, when an art which holds the most bitter doubts about existing values is called on to respect one value-this is a dilemma which the avant-garde must eventually face" (Kuniyoshi 5). This provokes concern for the fate of the original concept of butoh because without that primitive concept, butoh would not be butoh. However, whichever way the course runs for butoh in the future, this Japanese dance form has made an impact on today's modern dance world.

WORKS CITED

"Butoh," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000 <http://encarta.msc.com>
© 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Hermon, Dan. "What is Butoh Dance?" March 25, 2000. Online: <http://www.butoh.net/define.htm>l November 6, 2000.

Klein, Susan B. "Ankoku Butoh: The Premodern and Postmodern Influences on the Dance of Utter Darkness." Diss. Cornell U, 1987.

Kuniyoshi, Kazuko. "Butoh in the Late 1980's." Online: <http://www.xs4all.nl/~iddinja/butoh/kuni.pdf> November 6, 2000.

Morita, Itto. "Butoh Dance Notes." Online: <http://www.ne.jp/asahi/butoh/itto/kasait/k-note.htm> November 11, 2000.

Shiraishi, Kazuko. Online interview. Online: <http://www.jpan.org/cdance/answers/shir-e.html> November 11, 2000.

Sikkenga, Harmen. "Butoh-Dance of Darkness." DANS 12 (1994) no. 6 (September), p. 22-23. Online: <http://www.xs4all.nl/~iddinja/butoh/eng_1.html> November 6, 2000.

Stein, Bonnie Sue. "Sankai Juku." Dancemagazine April 1986: 64-68.

Tachiki, Akiko. "Absolute Butoh." EX…it!99 June 22, 2000. Online: <http://www.ne.jp/asahi/butoh/itto/ex-it/tachiki-E.htm> November 11, 2000.

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