Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of "But" Author(s): Vicki Sanders Source: Asian Theatre

Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 148-163 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161489 . Accessed: 05/05/2011 09:51
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Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of Buto

Vicki Sanders

a poor in northeast farm boy from Akita, Tatsumi, Hijikata was a when the the atomic United States bombs teenager Japan, dropped on Hiroshima a career He intended in classical dance, but and Nagasaki. the course of Japanese just as the atomic assault forever altered political so did aftershocks mark its artists the nation's history, indelibly emerging roots from which and their attitude toward the aesthetic they sprang. cause was not antiwar, his dances Hijikata's came of age as a dancer and choreographer, however, an was in when there ruins, country lay opportunity to throw off the mantle of Westernism, class structure, redefine what of itmeant aspects "the dark 1986a, social truths is what dance tradition not antibomb. at a time when He his

a rigid to change to rediscover and

to be Japanese. One way to attack the oppressive was to expose to explore the underbelly, that hid beneath the Japanese social mask" (Stein set out Hijikata forms and entered to do when instead Donald he turned his back on that

115). That

conventional condoned Japan

an artistic

substratum

years, class-conscious unyielding, Japan its so-called the vagrants, casts, nonpeople: prostitutes, whoremongers, on and impoverished Blemishes drunks, homeless, 1986). (Richie cheek, powdered metaphor they became Hijikata's that was rejected by Japan's classical definition of beauty. In the protective shadow of the 1950s and 1960s avant-garde, white

his revolutionary for more than forty

ideas. Critic

who has lived in Richie, was to startle an aim says Hijikata's of its out into recognizing the presence the

nation's

for all

Hiji

Vicki

Miami

Sanders has been a dance and theatre critic for The Berkshire Eagle, The Providence Journal, and The In 1986 she conducted in Asian Studies at the Herald. research Fellow in Japan as a Gannett of Hawaii. University

Buto

149

a style of choreographic kata developed extremism he called ankoku buto, mean or to "dance of darkness" "dance of the dark soul," a interpreted term later abbreviated crude simply to buto. He features and built his new dance using the reprobates' physical stances and perverse sexual gestures, refinement (miyabi) and understatement thetics.1 a 1959 piece based on a in Forbidden Colors (Kinjiki), example, in what his author Mishima Yukio, Hijikata by depicted bestiality a young as "a violent torian Lizzie Slater describes spasm of antidance: man clutches a live chicken between his thighs, in the midst of a brutaliz For work (Stein 1986a, 115). of the sponsoring members the All organization, to Art of the Dance because threatened Association, per Japan resign left instead, followed by some of his collaborators. Sla formance, Hijikata ter contends that the departure signaled buto's break from the mainstream When several modern movement scores dance world. It also marked become that would the beginning known internationally of an experimental and would engage ing act of buggery. footsteps of another In the darkness, man" the audience perceives the advancing (defecatory a direct assault on the for instance), so valued aes in Japanese (shibui) uncouth habits

of dancers, and companies choreographers, by the time of Hijika at ta's death from liver disease 1986 in January the age of fifty-seven. of its buto has undergone years many evolution, During thirty a them has been of its changes. Among tempering grotesquerie, making the dance ences. somewhat more In fact, much gen choreography displays lyricism, a nota of tleness, humor, and even an occasional sign quality playfulness, and Byakkosha of the troupes Dai Rakudakan bly found in the dances instilled by its of darkness of the qualities (Plate 4). Buto retains many now have by These formed themselves into an characteristics originator. to examine it possible aesthetic, making art and philosophy. tional Japanese The aesthetic
themselves.

palatable of the current

to both

Japanese

and

foreign

audi

the dance aim here critics

using

the observations

of Western

to tradi in relation is to explore the buto and of the performers

and the Beast Beauty All great myths are dark and one cannot imagine all the great Fables aside from a mood of slaughter, torture and bloodshed, telling the masses about the original division of the sexes and the slaughter of essences that came with creation. Theatre, like the plague, ismade in the image of this
slaughter, this essential division. It unravels conflicts, liberates powers,

releases potential and if these and the powers are dark, of the plague or theatre, but life. ?Antonin Artaud, Theatre and Its Double2

this is not the fault

150

Sanders

Artaud's ness, with

cuts description its eerie, mutantlike

to the heart qualities,

of Japan's dance its crudeness and

of dark freakish

anthropomorphism

1). (Plate editor Richard that buto Philp has written Dancemagazine managing of such aesthetically dance the stylization shunned acceptable Japanese that forms as no and kabuki. Instead, he observed
the reduced heads themselves and stark to white areas primitive "animal" makeup. our basics The collective the use of

dancers, shaved

nudity, ment strove

through content of unconscious, at

the move and the cost of

troubled probed deep, to expose most man's

of

instincts?survival

brutality, Buto

killing,

destruction

and death (1986, 61).

use a fresh, of sometimes dancers nightmarish vocabulary once seems at and futuristic. With that and gesture prehistoric grimace and avant-garde this altered view, of experimental they share a purpose to foist a new vision artists everywhere, of reality on the postwar gen
eration.

Eiko from

and Koma

are New

York-based longer dance:

the buto school, but who no is how they experience genre. This

who emerged performers themselves consider part of the

When we perform, we like to imagine that each of us is a fresh fish which was just caught and is on the cutting board. The fish intuits that some body will eat it. No room to be coquettish. The fish's body is tight, shin 1985, B14). ing blue, eyes wide open. No way to escape (Kriegsman aes of the traditional is reminiscent Japanese viewpoint of transi thetic concept of mono no aware, the sorrow-tinged appreciation so art in and the of Heian the idealized tory beauty, period (794-1185), in The Tale of Murasaki Shikibu. particularly of Genji (Genji monogatari) Their Buto ogy also accepts and appreciates the transitory, but denies without are the proprietary that pretty things symbols of impermanence. Nor is this the only traditional aesthetic ideal that touches filtered apol buto.

"Beauty theless," ance of in the describes

remains beauty none through the prism of the grotesque wrote dance critic Anna Kisselgoff after seeing a 1985 perform chief collaborator Admiring La Argentina by Ono Kazuo, Hijikata's sec. statement of buto (Kisselgoff formation 1985c, 2:16). Her Ono's artistic

a transformation of his wiz skill in orchestrating ened 79-year-old in women's clothes, he pays tribute to the body. Dressed and in the process transcends the dancer great Spanish convincingly own of and evokes the his peculiar reality aged presence youthful vitality of his patron.

Buto

151

Figure
dancer Ono

a collaborator with Hijikata La buto, performs Admiring Argentina, a choreographic 7. Ono Kazuo,
inspired who Kazuo.) him to a career in dance. (Photo:

Tatsumi in the formation of tribute to the great Spanish

Naoya-Ikegami; courtesy

have been a no master, for revolution era, Ono might of the aesthetic inherited much ary as buto is, it has nevertheless sensibility of its classical predecessor. above for the description Compare, example, one on no: of Argentina to the following In another
Yugen literally means "obscure and dark," but this darkness is a metaphor

for a perfection

of beauty

so subde that it cannot be portrayed

by form

152

Sanders

alone. A classic illustration ofyugen is the moon shining behind a veil of cloud, or, in no, a superb old man dancing the role of a beautiful young woman, his inner power transforming the voice and body of old age. This inner power does not imitate beauty, it suggests beauty, and the consum
mate no actor combines the shamanistic energy of ancient Shinto ritual

to communicate the cool meditative objectivity of Zen Buddhism to the and audience yugen directly unmistakably (Oomoto 1980, 27). with to instance, purposely points an unre to contemplate the audience beyond himself, inviting something "Such is our vealed essence. In the words of novelist Tanizaki Junichiro: The buto performer, in such find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns way of thinking?we of the shadows, that one thing against another the light and the darkness, creates" (1977, 30). an

The Body and Buto

Hijikata once told a fellow dancer:

. . . and will appear in each detail of our In our body, history is hidden we can In butoh find, touch, our hidden reality?something expressions.
can be born, can appear, living and dying at the same moment (Stein

1986a,

125).

felt in buto's stillness, The dramatic tension eroticism, intensity, of facial disfigurement, is the artistic manifestation and gestural distortion a fundamental aesthetic conflict. This conflict when began Hijikata turned have away from the Western styles of dance, ballet in twentieth-century He predominated Japan. was not for forms did not made such that the movement, imported body fit the substance of Japanese life. a close observer to Donald of the early work, Richie, According was to the first revel in the squat, contemporary Hijikata choreographer earthbound the common and modern, that felt the Japanese

of of his countrymen and the natural movements physique folk (Richie 1986). a well-known was Tanaka Min, buto soloist, has said that Hijikata at motivated how bodies had been controlled by anger historically: "Behind the social face we have many faces. He tried to take them off. That makes There that distressed very very strange faces" (1986, strange movements, 146). a of the movement formalization was, however, gradual

as it did some of buto's early supporters: "Like Hijikata, sort it it had. codified and lost what That human, everything cutting edge a of thing happens vo Now in have fast known you particularly Japan.

Figure

8. Tanaka Min,
has

who only recently

independendy

aligned himself with Hijikata

for years, mosdy as a soloist.

and the
He is

buto movement,

worked

shown here
Sekine-Masson.)

in Tokyo,

in a 1983 performance

called Plan B.

(Photo:

Nourit

154

Sanders

or kata, of buto, and, like no and kabuki, you have specific moves, cabularly into a code" (Richie that you can put together 1986). to expand of buto remain devoted this, many practitioners Despite Natsu and Goi soloists them the Teru, among Nakajima repertoire, ing Dai Rakudakan, and the Sankaijuku, Yoko, protege Ashikawa Hijikata and Byakkosha buto companies been the of styles thriving among troupes. The wide variety movement not the has of that the in is, fact, proof energy

sapped, only changed, by formalization. or "nat One aspect of style they all share is the use of "primitive," on the Western mind is this can make The ural," postures. impression "With their comments shaved writer Susan Reiter: in of the exemplified heads and whitened, appear communicate creatures ers] these not-quite-human bodies, vulnerable-looking to commune forces. natural with timeless [The danc a deep, York sensual awareness of kinship with nature"

(1986, 43).
In the 1985 New ist Kisanuki experience: wood, with gifted Kuniko "To premiere similarly see a dancer of Butterfly Butterfly (Tefu tefu), solo who said of the critic Kisselgoff, impressed into a piece of drift transformed suddenly own abstract forms, is to see a highly

all the beauty (1985a,

of nature's

dancer"

C:24).

HHIIillll|||||H|HH|H^H^H

Figure 9. Buto soloist Goi Teru in an excerpt of a work his studio in Tokyo in 1987. (Photo: Vicki Sanders.)

in progress,

presented

at

Buto

155

Figure dances

10. Dairakudakan, are phantasmagorical

company journeys

of men into

and

women psyche,

whose was

the Japanese

epic one

story of the

first troupes to tour the United In order of the mind. to understand

States.

(Photo: Nourit

Sekine-Masson.) not forget the role on in its emphasis

similar Though and technique, buto demands that its performers athleticism, physicality, as be spiritually well. critic "is Buto, says developed Jennifer Dunning, in life the of the mind and and in the grounded memory personal as Ono a universal it, that exist within puts 'biographies,' history"

one must buto, however, toWestern styles of dance

(1985,C:27).
In this respect, buto embraces rather than rejects Japa certainly, It is entirely possible, to apply to buto what Ito for example, writes about classical Japanese dance in general: "The transcen Sachiyo dence of body has been stressed the of Japanese throughout history ... dance. So it is that we strive to master for its potential technique into breadth translation of expression and depth of content. ..." nese tradition.

(1979, 277).
Themes and Variations

Buto's primary themes are metamorphosis, and death transcendence, or nothingness birth or rebirth, these Japanese issues which preceding dancers have chosen to address with all their inherent violence intact. In the opening history (Jomon scenario of their most epitomizes famous these toPre piece, Homage themes (Plate 3). Four

sho), Sankaijuku

156

Sanders

into view, writhing, into fetal amorphous shapes are lowered contracting into the form of men as they descend. poses, and finally lengthening toPrehistory to communicate The ability of Homage its themes across it elicits from cultural boundaries is evidenced in the kind of responses Western for example, A. David, started his dis scene a cussion of the two grand circles with straightforward description, but soon was caught up in trying to interpret what he had seen. The rings were large enough a car, he began, to encompass and lay flat on the stage until they were raised slowly to stand on edge. Then he wrote: "They are observers. Critic Martin openings roundness which to and of earth the portals of other, from death, itself and?intertwined?the of the future and the parallel dimensions, of the symbols of the atom

is both The

the birth

fiery death

the past" of to of

(1984, 18).
motifs of creation and destruction the buto repertoire have led numerous Westerners the nuclear holocaust and its aftereffects. Kisselgoff, one scene in Homage to Prehistory: "... the most image into the bright glow emanating from see Amagatsu on. We next rumbles ened mutant, a body that later here is one that features four fishlike the wings [Ushio] apart so much that permeate to link the imagery for example, wrote evocatively up

creatures while

starting a thundering sound as a foreshort himself before our very eyes"

terrifying to stare

breaks

(1986, C:15).
man and In Grain, a work by Eiko and Koma, dance critic Alan M. Kriegs a cloak of sexuality the themes of struggle and death beneath is naked Eiko and lust (1985, B.14). To paraphrase Kriegsman: found beside a mound of rice. Music drones and keens in the back

sprawled

and prey, is seduced by Koma, the She, the archetypal temptress ground. to then and Koma Eiko simultane becomes, appears predator. give birth, infant and a violent lover who chokes her. He later ously, her suckling returns only Then
ness.

to her

inert

to be ravaged he stamps out

candles and rice, and she stirs to life, carrying as she stuffs her mouth with rice. sexually once more form the candles, and they disappear the dancers into the void executed the result of dark

was disturbed Kriegsman with an air of detachment, saying One must remember, coldblooded." represent all buto performers. "Coldblooded" is not

that

their work

that he found however,

that Eiko

"dismayingly and Koma do not

to Ono Kazuo, that can be applied for example. and In his dances, the themes of birth, maturation, aging, can once at death are presented with remarkable He appear poignancy. and morally As Kisselgoff is an detached says, "There compassionate. about enduring humanity seriousness of his meditation [him], upon which runs counter in no way the universe" (1985b, C:19). to the

a term

led in Figure 11. Sankaijuku's famous hanging piece, here presented inOsaka, when a 1985 to the death of dancer Takada Yoshiyuki in Seattle, Washington, frayed rope broke and he plummeted eighty feet. (Photo: Lucy Birmingham.)

158

Sanders

Figure
death

12. New
in Grain.

York-based Fullard;

Eiko
they

and Koma
no longer

address
consider

themes

of struggle
part of

and
the

Trained

in buto,

themselves

genre.

(Photo: David

courtesy Pentacle.)

giri (social obligation) are in conflict elements these two moral feelings). When to slay as in a tormented father's decision in an artistic context, is established. tension theatrical his son out of fealty to his lord, a natural that he no longer commutes have observed close associates Ono's (human another between stage nizes

they often

It is possible build on

that one the tension

reason

Ono's

dances

have

such

between

is impact and ninjo with one

no distinction between the life and art; he himself says he makes a to work from level that recog and daily life. Indeed, he appears dances in has Ono's few boundaries. This transcendental quality

that "he not escaped has observed critics. Kisselgoff the notice ofWestern can fuse the coarse with with the por universal the the delicate, symbol . . "Out of And Philp has written: trait in miniature. ." (1985b, C:19). out of out of corruption, the grotesque, limns beauty; Ono innocence; . . . have one" out He and become life. of darkness, death, light light;

(1986, 62).
at in dance critic is further hinted absorption on The Dead Sea, a dance in which he depicts comments Marcia B. Siegel's a woman's that "the 79 life to death. Siegel observes journey through The depth of Ono's

Buto

159

year-old performer where he gets so

a wresding an intense competition, is waging match death that he sometimes his intimate with acquires

face" (Stein 1986a, Ono may not in fact view adversary's 119). Though death as an adversary, is because it gives a important Siegel's description measure of the intensity with which and the serious the dancer performs ness with which he takes his themes of metamorphosis and transcendence.

The Journey Within

its, achieve Japanese their increasing Most art forms emotional expect artists and physical to push beyond visible lim until strength they also Bonnie buto Indeed, authority

spiritual sensibility. in New York contends that "working Society beyond the gates of limitation into boundaries, self-imposed passing through to undiscovered is the buto territory" key 116). (1986a, Zeami Motokiyo no's chief theoretician, in outlined (1363-1443), actor Nine Stages (Kyui) a progressive of in based system part development on his own studies of Zen. It is clear that buto dancers see a similar spirit ual dimension in their work. Sankaijuku as a style in which and death, between for example, describes buto Ushio, Amagatsu enters a state of perfect balance between life 1984, 109). reality and the unknown (Cocks a buto performance may be said to exist in mu no basho, a the body human founder

a heightened Sue Stein of the Asia

In other words, place of nothingness, manifestation former I am

mushin where The outward prevails. (no-mind) of this accomplishment is perceived audience and per by state. As dancer Tanaka Min has said, "When alike as a trancelike this 151). no in

I can think and feel more If I continued than usual. dancing awareness all the time, I would be crazy. It is like a dream" (1986, an American dancer who studied modern Lonny Joseph Gordon, Japan,
performer:

gives

an account

of his experience

that could well

be that of a buto

Transcending
tion dio equal or into

is something
achieved. private

that becomes
... recesses and of life

a deeper
and

riddle with
the

each solu
stage or stu It becomes

perception the most of

It continues

far beyond consciousness. gravity and

parts

concentration

abandon,

flight,

focus

and

detachment,

going beyond

by working

through your center (1981, 26).

Space, Stillness,
"Buto cannot aesthetic dancers' take one more quality

and the Overflow

of Feelings

are like a cup filled to overflowing, one that of The 1984, 18). drop Japanese liquid" (David of that describes this dimension of buto isyojo, or overflow bodies

Figure

13.

Byakkosha,

Kyoto-based

company

that

lives

and

works

commu

nally,
Nourit

is attempting
Sekine-Masson.)

to take buto in new,

often more

playful

directions.

(Photo:

Buto

161

a (omoi) and feeling (jo) swell through the so-called heart-mind (kokoro) in
rush of unrestrained This artistic freedom. idea aesthetic is loosely related to another Japanese concept a is or an cultural interval of silence/stillness. Ma, paradigm, (ma), a space the in a haiku poem, is left unsaid the empty space in a tea bowl, what in an distance the foreground/background ratio in music, sound/silence inkwash appears painting, in buto: Every moment
next brewing step. . . . together

feeling.

Philosopher

Izutsu Toyo

defines

it as what

happens

when

thought

the moments

of repose

in a no drama.

Here

is how

it

seems to spring from a focused

Emptiness until one is not simple a void idea but emerges.

stillness

that initiates
full of dancers choices,

the
wait

a vast

space . . . Butoh

until the time is right, then spring into action (Stein 1986b, 68). as the creative substance flowing from Yojo, then, can be described In combustion. of spontaneous into the space at that moment the dancer
Ono's words:

The does

the bare stage empty stage, not mean it contains that

you nothing.

appear

on without . . .The vacant

any

preparation, is gradu

space

ally being filled, and in the end something is realized there. Itmay be the kind of thing that takes a lifetime to learn?in my case, I instantaneously knew the fact that the empty space actually was filled and I danced in joy and excitement (Stein 1986a, 120).

One audiences nevertheless avant-garde theatre can

final offers theatre

trademark rewards director

accustomed

to visual

An irritant to of buto is its glacial pacing. it in their entertainment, bombardment As the Japanese to those who are attentive.

Ota Shogo has said, scarcity of action in the awesome is and meaningful that suggest mystic, "something to use to their Forced 1985, imagination occurring" 76). (Brandon can be drawn into the creative before them, viewers the mystery unravel forms an activity theatrical them by more often denied process, popular that feel compelled to spoon-feed audiences.

In Conclusion to imagine buto hav It is impossible Donald Richie: To paraphrase nation in but any Japan. ing emerged move from its squat-bodied The dance is wholeheartedly oriental, to its rebelliousness from its post-Hiroshima ment idiom to its spirituality, present-day codification.

162

Sanders

of Japan's forms and many refined aes rejected Western as set about thetic qualities and irrelevant, restrictive founder Hijikata own on art his based refinement's crudeness, inventing opposites: vulgar from the reactions of Western it Yet, judging critics, ity, commonness. Having would seem that, despite Hijikata's aes traditional Japanese intentions, are not absent thetics in buto, but simply reclothed in starker forms, more awareness in of human and in an age the movements, primitive fragility of nuclear weapons and social decay.

NOTES
1. Extrapolated from an idea of historian Lizzie Slater, as quoted by Sue Stein (1986a, 115). 2. The quote from Antonin Artaud was used to introduce a series of on Olympic articles in High Performance magazine Arts Festival performances (David 1984, 14).

Bonnie

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