I was very tired, I was supposed to write a text about my work with Butoh; I felt devastated: even though I am a man who has come to maturity and has dedicated himself to the performing arts for many years, I am still like a child when it comes to Butoh… a beginner who, thanks to his background, learns things fast, moves forward without restraint and has managed to find the teachers needed to start a real career in it, but in the end I’m still a beginner. After several exhausting drafts, I succumbed to a nap, the kind that saves one from suicide – even if just metaphorically – or simply from depression.
In the delirium of falling asleep I began to feel as when I was a child, afraid of dying and never getting to grow up, asking to hear voices that would tell me what to do, voices of inner teachers who could teach how to continue with my work and believe in it. The dream did not disappoint:
I dreamed I was at my parents’ house (a house that is not my house anymore) and that a party was being prepared with the exact layout of furniture as we used to do: moving it near the walls to have more space and welcome a large group of people. The main guest for this event was famous Butohka Ko Murobushi – who’s never been my teacher -(1), who was appreciated by all the guests, especially the Europeans, a group of wealthy married couples that were art lovers. After quite a long time at the party and in a kind of almost erotic seduction consisting of glances between an older man and a young man (2), I came to find myself sitting next to him, and we started talking. In his slow, methodic Japanese accent – he spoke in English – he exposed part of his work, that of his teacher Hijikata, and also exposed some personal views. Nevertheless I sensed he was not telling the whole truth, that something was not quite clear, that he was not talking about his real relationship with him. I wanted to hear his fears, his desires, his true exchanges with the teacher. He drank constantly (the Japanese I know like to drink a lot), and at some point his talk began to change, and became somewhat distant; then I asked him a direct question about his fears when he found himself all alone once his teacher was not there any more (Hijikata died relatively young, before he turned 60, in the eighties). Murobushi then began to expose himself in a strange way: his skin flushed like many Asians when inebriated, his speech became ever more difficult to understand, he was slapping the table with his hands, gently but firmly; he was in a trance. I told him I did not understand what he was saying anymore, and he began to cry; he said that what he was doing – babbling – was what he heard from his teacher, that his teacher was incomprehensible to him, that he was alone, that he had to go on alone trying to discover those words that he had never understood when they were said by Hijikata. He got up and tried to talk more, but his pain didn’t let him. The foreign married couple (now there was only one) hugged him, and soon more people came and he was embraced by dozens of guests, being comforted because he was admired. Me, trying to apologize, explained all I was doing was having a conversation with him.
I really did not know what to do, he was crying defenseless. I did not know what to make of a man I considered a great master of Butoh and who I thought was going to clarify the way I needed by telling me about his own experience.
Disappointed and leaving him while he was being comforted by those foreigners and guests I went to where my family was seated as they used to in the reunions at my maternal grandmother’s place, with all the chairs with the backs to the wall and the old relatives looking into the open space in the middle of the room where the guests stood and the children played: they were there, my mother, my older sister and my theatre acting teacher Antonio González Caballero, who had the appearance of my grandmother when she was over 90 years old. He – who was her too – was smiling because of what I had experienced with Murobushi and he tried to explain to me what had happened, and he did it in the same way that my teacher used to do in other situations, but there was a problem, he felt uncomfortable in his seat and he couldn’t explain himself clearly either. Then I tried carrying him to another more comfortable armchair – his body felt exactly as if it were my mother’s body at 80 years old -. When I sat him into the other seat, his head hit a shelf on the wall, gently, but that was enough for him to pass out because of the blow. Everyone came to see the unconscious grandmother. I knew that because of my action my teacher was sleeping – or dying -, and I realized he would no longer be able to talk to me. His face was that of my old mother asleep, his sitting was like my maternal grandmother at 90 years old, his presence was that of my theatre teacher. What a mess in my head!
I had caused such chaos at the party demanding teachings from those who suffered because of them or who were too old or dead to say anything of value to me!
I woke up, and immediately I wrote down what I could remember of this vivid dream. Finally I wrote my short essay about Butoh and my teachers, and I’ve been writing about it for years and years till now.(3)
(1)Ko Murobushi became my teacher a few months after this dream, first in July 2013 in Toronto and after that in May 2014 in New York.
(2)Even though I had seen him performing during the 90s in Mexico City, I exchanged glances with him for first time during the intermission of a Butoh performance at Terpsichore in Tokyo in 2011. I was watching him intently, and he noticed, but I didn’t approach. I suppose that experience transformed into this dream as a flirtatious exchange of gazes.
(3)In this dream, neither Yoshito Ohno nor Kazuo Ohno appeared (Kazuo Ohno was never my teacher in real life). I believe I can explain why: in 2013, I found myself at a pivotal point in my Butoh education. After absorbing all I could from the teachings of the Ohnos over several years, I felt drawn to explore the other lineage—that of Hijikata. At that time, Ko Murobushi was the performer I most closely identified with that lineage. It seems logical to dream about him even though I hadn’t met him yet.
Cortina es un proyecto creativo de Dominque Suberville que absorbe sus años de sufrimiento en convalecencia de varias cirugías a las que la sometieron desde muy niña, experiencias ligadas a una atmósfera religiosa que resultaba más opresora que tranquilizadora. El tiempo, el dolor, la espera, las velas (veladoras) del catolicismo, y las gazas médicas, son elementos de su trabajo escultórico.
El proyecto de crear una instalación monumental en una de las salas de la embajada de México en Berlín (2) me lo comentó Tadeo Berjón y quedé inmediatamente atraído y hasta fascinado por su potencial, su profundidad y su ligazón directa al estado del cuerpo en memoria viva. Quise formar parte de este trabajo y busqué proponer un performance para la apertura de la exposición de la pieza.
La primera cita con Dominique en un café del centro de Berlín fue muy alentadora, durante un poco más de dos horas nos conocimos personal y profesionalmente y encontramos puntos en común, mi motor creativo comenzó a trabajar inmediatamente. Sin embargo la relación creativa con Dominique paró ahí, no pude volver a verla hasta meses después en su estudio donde estaba ocupada trabajando en la pieza y con una situación personal que ocupaba la mayor parte de su vida, estaba embarazada. Fue muy clara en decirme que yo era libre de hacer el performance que tenía en mente pero que no contara con ella debido a lo ocupado que estaba con terminar la pieza y con su embarazo. Entendí que ella no quería involucrarse más y busqué alejar de mi mente la idea de que no estaba interesada en mi trabajo -y que continuaba porque yo me acerqué a ella con la proposición y en su momento ella había aceptado-. No sentí que estuviera arrepentida, solo no involucrada en colaborar creativamente.
Era una pena porque parte de mi interés en colaborar con una artista, sea escultora, video artista o músico, radica en el intercambio creativo. Trabajar así me iba a ser complicado, pero lo vi como una oportunidad de explorar, de usar una pieza que visualmente sería muy interesante trabajar en o con ella, y que además su concepto tenía una fuerza que revolvía las fuentes de mi energía de movimiento interno. Me preparé para inevitablemente llegar a ver el trabajo concreto antes de la apertura de la exposición y ahí descubrir el movimiento escénico, crear una improvisación en tiempo real, como he buscado hacerlo en otros tiempos y espacios. No le servía en este momento a Dominique, pero no debía yo rechazar la oportunidad que se me había dado de estar ahí sin ningún impedimento.
Para este tipo de eventos tengo un referente, algo que no quiero experimentar nunca: danzar ante un público perdido en sus vasos de vino, pláticas de reunión entre amigos, y que mi performance sea percibido como un baile de entretenimiento antes del acto principal de apertura de la exposición. Desde hace unos años tengo un respeto muy grande para todo evento público que voy a realizar, y hacer un performance, danzar, ha adquirido cierto tinte de profundidad mística en mí, donde lo profundo de mi persona creativa se liga a mi concepto de profesionalidad escénica. No puedo ofrecer más de lo que soy y sé hacer, pero eso es exactamente lo que quiero que se vea, y en este caso debía de plantearme los momentos en que mi show adquiriera importancia y respeto en los espectadores también. Eso es para mí un “evento único”.
Mis armas físicas (técnicas) eran muy básicas: mi cuerpo entrenado en el estilo de Butoh que me interesa, por supuesto; también sumé una lámpara que creaba una atmósfera a la pieza y a mi cuerpo en interacción con ella (pueden observarla en las fotografías); escogí además cuatro piezas de sonido (dos musicales y dos sonidos naturales); y decidí tener dos pequeños cambios de vestuario, semidesnudo usando una máscara que cubría toda mi cabeza y en la segunda parte, sin la máscara, vistiendo un camisón de noche de color negro. Confié en el poder visual de “Cortina”, ese sería el marco visual de toda mi danza y mi compañera en ella.
Aunque había hojas de papel con información sobre la pieza (que no era obligatorio tenerlos, si los veía la gente los tomaba), no había banners o información a la vista, así que debía asumir que la gente conocía poco o nada del concepto de la instalación. Ante eso, el contenido de mi trabajo debería acercar a los espectadores al concepto de Dominique y sin duda a mi personal interpretación ese concepto. En el sentido de mi personal interpretación, usé directamente la memoria física de mis propias convalecencias de cirugías y enfermedades en mi vida.
La improvisación comenzó a tiempo, sin aviso (eso estaba planeado): semidesnudo, maquillado el cuerpo de blanco y con la máscara cubriendo totalmente la cabeza me acerqué a la lámpara y empecé a moverme.
Durante un total de 18 minutos mi cuerpo se mantuvo en contacto directo con la cortina y mi interior con las imágenes que se producían de ese contacto y de las fuentes que tenía de ella. Hablé, pregunté, comenté, se dieron transformaciones parciales y completas, y mi cuerpo danzó. Al principio, uno o dos minutos, la gente se mantuvo sin darse cuenta de mi presencia pero rápido se fue atrayendo a mi trabajo y no solo percibía su atención sino que muy pronto descubrí un sentido de proyección y de atracción desde y hacia mi cuerpo. Había en mi performance mucho de improvisación teatral (finalmente mis primeros recursos técnicos son teatrales) pero primordialmente seguía en el “estado de Butoh” como algunas le han llamado.
Culminé la improvisación atrayendo a Dominique y obligándola a colaborar, al menos como invitada, a este estado que yo había adquirido en la improvisación. En mi corta colaboración de ese momento con ella no había más en mí que un contacto con la cortina y sus manos, y una admiración y agradecimiento por su trabajo. Al terminar la ultima pieza musical, salí sin dar las gracias; entonces comenzó el evento oficial de apertura.
Esta memoria y consideraciones mías son algo más que un diario que muestro en línea, es una suma a mi documentación y un análisis básico de mi trabajo que ahora se da en Alemania. Solo y nuevo en este país, debo abrirme paso abierto a la exploración de las nuevas condiciones de trabajo. Mi experiencia anterior, exitosa o no, no hace un curriculum para atraer público ni espacios y presupuestos en Berlín, solo se percibirá en mi trabajo concreto: “No puedo ofrecer más de lo que soy y sé hacer”.
Gustavo Thomas (Berlín. Octubre, 2023)
(1) Ella misma escribió en su cuenta de Instagram un tiempo antes de la apertura sobre la instalación en la que trabajaba:
“Cortina is my second large-scale installation after Líbrame del Mal (2020). Because of limited time and resources, as well as the nature of my work, I’m only able to produce these, few and apart. That also means that any time I do have, needs to be fully dedicated to them which limits my art production. However, these are the projects that make me get up in the morning. They are often misunderstood and not very commercially viable. But they are they reason why I choose to be an artist. So, even in the face of criticism-I choose to keep going.
This project has so far produced both physical and emotional pain and yet I am so excited to continue pushing myself so I can show it at the Mexican Embassy in Berlin in a few months. This work is incredibly meaningful to me because of, not just the time it has lived in my imagination, but the persistence and convincing I’ve had to do to have the support to show it out of the pure need to make it.
I often find myself internally fighting against the narrative of what Mexican art is. Often traditionalist and shy of moral complications. But I believe that where there is complication and conflict, art offers a space for dialogue. I’m so happy and proud to finally have the opportunity to give fruition to this personal narrative in a space that represents my country and has entrusted me based on what I stand for as an artist”.
(2) El Instituto Cultural de México, dirigido por Tadeo Berjón, escribió en su cuenta de Instagram sobre la pieza de Dominique previo al evento:
“The Mexican Institute of Culture in Germany & the Mexican Embassy in Germany are pleased to invite you to the presentation of Cortina, a large-scale installation piece by Berlin based Mexican contemporary artist Dominique Suberville.
Hanging from the Embassy’s three story atrium, Cortina is Dominique Suberville’s most recent work. Created using over 600 single candles, a lighter, medical bandages, and then sewn by hand, this 15+ meter work is both a symbolic representation of the body in time and a performative critique of institutional power.
Common in her work is Mexican society’s relationship to Catholicism as well as Suberville’s own experience as a medical and surgical patient throughout her formative years which often come into play as anchors and representations of institutional power. One stands for what society deems are the moral and ethical authorities, and the other, as the physical ones. Her work engages with how these have directly impacted her personhood, femininity, mental health, and sense of self in a larger context.”
In 2017, after taking a workshop with photographer Manuel Vason in Mexico City, I started a curious project I named just “Photo-performance”, with the aim of photographing my inner ghosts during the live movement of my Butoh performance. I published in my photography page the resulting photographs of the first exercises I made.
Since then my idea of working with photography during my live performance has evolved in a different direction, specially with the results of my performance event “The Inner Passing of Time” in Guangzhou, China in January 2021, a work where photography is an extended part of that live performance. There, I could work with the photographs taken by different photographers and create stories coming from the different perception of time they caught during my performance event. The time of the performance is extended and it’s still going till the moment the new spectators watch the photographers’s stories.
That for sure was not anymore catching ghosts during the performance.
When I had the opportunity to explore again The Inner Passing of Time in Dali in November 2021, I was not looking to use photography at all, but the photographs that Canadian photographer Husain Amer shot of my performance made me change my idea. At the end of the show he told me, “As soon as you started dancing I couldn’t stop shooting. I didn’t have the time to change settings, so many photographs could have the wrong focus or light. I’m going to give you the USB with all the photographs and you do with them as you wish.”
When I saw the files I found many interesting images with a clear focus, light, etc, -very good as documents of this specific show. But it was the others that attracted me the most: those photographs that were not clear, that were not focused, those that caught the outer movement blurring the image, but most important to me, those what I believe caught the “inner movement” of my work on stage.
I decided to work with those “errors” with Francis Bacon’s work in mind when processing each of the photos. Bacon’s images were a very important influence in Hijikata’s inspiration for his Butoh-notation, and it is now a very good inspiration for this series of the project I’ve named “Baconian bodies”.
Then I could notice that I was working again with those “ghosts” of my first exploration with the Photo-performance; those photographs of 2017 also were “Baconian bodies”. I saw that the line of this exploration is still there and I’m happy that is getting clear as a project. That’s why I started a new website that join the two projects (and those that come in the near future) to show the results:
Butoh is a mysterious, dark and difficult discipline, it is elusive and complex. Its borders are blurred, it emerged within the world of dance but it is very close to performance art and theater itself. Visually it seems identifiable due to the unique way their performers are used to make up their entire body in white, but that is not an imperative, a Butoh dancer can go naked and without makeup or masked and with huge and quirky costumes. It seems that most of his movements are slow and dense, but it is not an imperative either, the impulsiveness that they feed on leads to enormous variations in speed and quality of movement and energy.
Butoh was created in the 1950s as part of the avant-garde movement around the world, it was initiated as a response to the enormous weight of tradition in Japanese performing arts and as a counterweight to the North American cultural invasion that caused the defeat of the second world war. Butoh emerged as part of a rebellious urban subculture in Tokyo, tackling scandalous issues, and looking for a new body with no cultural codifications in its movement.
Today, 70 years later, the spectrum of their creative themes and goals has expanded in such a way that it has been dissolved inside the consumer society and inside neo-hippie, holistic and ritualistic movements; but a good part of its underground and anti-establishment vibe remains. It is no longer Japanese, it is created and re-created all over the world with the freedom contributed by different individuals from different cultures, and being anti-traditional, of course there is no tradition to follow.
Butoh is also a performing art of dedication and commitment, of honesty and encounter, of artistic and personal manifestation. Butoh speaks of the entire universe in its own movement, of religion in the only way our individuality can refer to it, of philosophy as if the source of philosophy were knowledge by movement, of the intangible soul that impulses the movement of any person, of life and death always flowing around each other. The boundaries between the real and the magical are blurred in this dance. It is a dance that comes from digging into nature, into the other, into our bodies, and yes, our souls. Butoh wants to bring back the sensual movement of our memories, of our ancestors, then we dance with our inner presences and with our inner ghosts.
Butoh is an artistic language communicated by dancing the inner self and the primary impulses of the body.
I know – if you are not like me – it could be tiring to do this, but the action of making sense of the past throughout a continual revision is, for me, of the same importance as planning the future. So, I’m doing this.
After a 2018 full of attempts and a few successes (The Year I Left Behind), the year that’s just ended was full of creative work and presentations, full of achievements.
January
I received a photograph, taken in the nineties in Mexico City when I was working in “Escenología”, a performing arts research institute and publishing house directed by researcher Edgar Ceballos, where my dreams of being part of a theatre company that provided the group atmosphere and creativity inspired by Jerzy Grotowski’s and the Odin Teatret’s work were almost realized. What I did achieve during those years was a very powerful and deep technical and ethical education coming from many sources linked to Grotowski and The Odin Teatret (we worked with Eugenio Barba, Julia Varley and Roberta Carrieri, just to name a few), but especially our principal and main training coach, Jaime Soriano, himself a direct disciple and collaborator with Grotowski. The contact with the different researchers Edgar Ceballos was meeting and publishing (in books and magazines) gave me, of course, a performing arts culture I was dreaming to have. Watching these photos pushed me to address the problems of working in Guangzhou; this energy and impulse came directly from the source, no doubt about it.
These are two different photographs, both with the same spirit I was talking before: one, a general photo taken when Teatro Potlach came to Escenología to have a look at our work and give us some feedback; the second one, taken during the rehearsal of a piece we never premiered. Of course, the photos are cropped a bit so you can see me better.
January/February/March
Japan again!
I was expecting this moment since 2014. I had saved enough money (Japan is super expensive) for the flight, accommodation, food and fees. I was close to Tokyo (Guangzhou is less than 4 hours away by plane). I really needed to see master Yoshito Ohno and dance with him again at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio. And I wanted to get in touch again with all the other masters that are working in Tokyo: the great Natsu Nakajima, Yuri and Seisaku (there I had the opportunity to meet and train with Yumiko Yushioka), and Kudo Taketeru. I had the chance to have a basic workshop with Takao Kawaguchi about his experience with “About Kazuo Ohno”, and a surprisingly interesting class with two colleagues from Yoshito’s workshops, Mutsumi and Neiro.
My goal was to have a total immersion in the current Japanese Butoh world, and you bet I did. I took lessons almost every day (sometimes two different classes in different parts of the city or between two cities in one day) from the end of January till the beginning of March. I went to see dozens of performances, listening to conferences and talks, homages, exhibitions, and I even paid two visits to the Hijikata Butoh Institute at Keiko University where researcher Takashi Morishita gave me all the facilities to feel in that place like in my own personal library. One day, on my way to the Hijikata Institute, I passed by an area of old bookshops, where I found a good edition of the book “Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses” by photographer Eiko Hosoe, with images of Yukio Mishima – both very important figures for Butoh in Japan.
My last day I interviewed Master Yoshito Ohno about his work life and his ideas of an uncertain future after his heart attack, which partially paralyzed his body.
At the moment I was writing this year’s revision I learned that – exactly one year after this visit to Japan – master Yoshito Ohno, the dancer who with Tatsumi Hijikata gave the first Butoh performance in history, son of the great Kazuo Ohno, has passed away. I am sad and I have a terrible feeling of being lost. I know that, little by little I will only feel thankful for all that I learned by listening to him and dancing with him. My thoughts and love are with his wife, his daughter Keiko and all the Ohno family, as well as with my colleagues, friends and people close to the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio.
My life in Japan literally nourished on Butoh.
Of course, I cannot show here my whole experience in Japan, but these photographs will help me share part of it. Also, there are many other posts in this blog about my experiences during that trip:
March came with a surprise trip to Mongolia. I probably don’t have much to say about me and Butoh during this trip, but there was a lot about this culture I’ve always been interested in, especially its throat singing and the shamanism of the north of the country. Both (throat singing and shamanism) are very much the source of performing arts as a biological body in performance
The highlight of that trip was a shamanistic ritual on frozen Khövsgöl Lake. You can read about my whole experience in the post I dedicated to it. (link)
In Ulaanbaatar I went to listen to throat singing at a very tourist-oriented performance. Nevertheless, the technique was there and it was spectacular. I was also lucky that, during a camel festival in the south, in the village of Bulgam Sum, in the Gobi desert, I got to listen to some villagers singing some improvised traditional chants in an ankle bones match. You can listen to part of the chanting by following this link: https://soundcloud.com/gustavo-thomas-teatro/canto-y-juego-gobi-mongolia-2019
April
While I was preparing two Butoh pieces and one photography exhibition for June, I went to see one of China’s iconic natural marvels, staying at Jima village, near the city of Yangshuo in the the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. There I did two interesting improvisations with incredible natural settings as background. Sunsets those days were spectacular, so I timed one of those improvisations to happen as the sun set. I can say it was magical, because it really was.
May
In May I devoted myself to the creative process of the performances and the photo exhibition, and also added the task of transcribing the recorded interview I did to master Yoshito Ohno and then translating it to Spanish. While doing some research on Yoshito Ohno, I found some other interviews and materials of his autobiography that helped me understand the important role this man has played in the creation and promotion of Butoh since the very beginning. I started posting some of those findings as quotations and commentaries on my own personal experience of training at his side.
The Mexican Consulate made good on its promise and offered me its events hall once more to show the second phase of my photo-performance project “Pride, Chinese Style”, which this time I called “Qipao, A Gender Game”. Like the year before, my collaboration took place during the LGTBQ Film Festival different consulates in Guangzhou organize. My performance and the photography exhibition were in fact the opening to one of the film screenings. This second phase gave me the opportunity to work again with Wing (Ho Hoiwing, en mandarín He Hairong, 河海荣), this time as male model wearing a qipao, stepping up from documentary photography to a stage concept: what’s the fuzz when a man wears a women’s iconic dress? The results were pretty good, I think, and the reaction of the people who attended was fantastic.
The photo-gallery shows first the photographs I showed at the exhibition, and then the photos of the performance at the consulate.
July
As you probably already know, LGTBQ public activities are prohibited in China. That’s why it was only possible to show my project “Pride Chinese Style” inside of a foreign consulate in Guangzhou. I was advised that it was possible to present my exhibition and performance outside the consulates if I announce it as a private event without an open public publicity or ticket sale. So, I did it. This second presentation of Qipao, A Gender Game was at Jueyuan 1985, a beautiful 1920s brick house in the historical neighborhood of Dongshankou. The performance was a little different from the first show at the Mexican Consulate, Wing and Atta (my model and the one of the dancer directors of the Tango house) participated mixing their Tango with my Butoh. I was lucky that a good photographer was there to take these beautiful documents of that night.
August
Invited by Jasmine, an enthusiastic Chinese woman who owns a few independent venues in Guangzhou, to do a performance at her Café Theatre “Zhile” (知乐), I started my new project (at that moment, I was envisioning one called “Study of the Properties of Water”). I worked on my own and also had some meetings with Michael Garza, a friend and United States bassoonist who plays for the Guangzhou Symphonic Orchestra. I had to put a brief pause on that work to make a trip to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, to an area close to the borders with Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and home to one of the most culturally vigorous – yet politically conflicted – Muslim minorities in China, the Uyghurs. The region is known also for its amazing natural beauties. On my way from Tashkorgan to Kashgar, near the lake Bulungkul, I did a short improvised performance with a background of amazing icy blue waters and enormous white sand dunes and snow-capped mountains.
August/September
Michael Garza and me decided to apply ourselves to the creative process during all of September and up to our presentation, after the National Day holidays. I decided to fuse together two projects, “Study of the Properties of Water” and “The Passing of Time”, and this was the long final name of the work. Michael worked on 10 very powerful pieces for bassoon, some classics, some by contemporary Asian composers, while I worked on my inner story with inspiration coming from paintings of different states of water by Chinese Sung dynasty painter Ma Yuan and the idea/impulse of time passing inside my body.
Here you have some documents about that intense creative process.
October
“Study of the Properties of Water and the Passing of Time” was performed at Zhile Art Space in Ersha Island, Guangzhou. Our 50 minute-long bassoon and Butoh performance was done before a full house and with what I can say great success. The attention and response of the public was deep and emotional, and the Q&A session afterwards passionate. I totally loved the experience.
The photographs were taken by several of the spectators present.
November
At long last! “Languid Bodies”, my Butoh and Video piece created in Mexico City in 2014 together with video artist Omar Ramírez. With one failed attempt in 2018 (when the show was cancelled by the police an hour before the performance due to a misperception of its content), in November 2019 I presented it at the Mexican Consulate as part of the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination Violence against Women. Undoubtedly, no context would have been more ideal for this kind of piece.
The events hall of the Mexican Consulate is not a theatre in a proper sense, but I managed to transform it into a very basic stage, with some unavoidable visibility problems. The public was a mix of foreigners and Chinese. It made me happy that the video created by Omar, even though projected in a small format, made a very strong impression in the public and was well appreciated and even put at the same level of relevance as the Butoh piece itself. I’m personally very fond of this work and I felt more than blessed by the response to it here in China.
December
After an invitation by Jasmine, the manager at Zhile Art Space, to participate at the Guangzhou Outdoor Arts Festival (lucky me!), I created “Masks”, a 50-minute Butoh and physical theatre performance. The GOA Festival 2019 attracted hundreds of spectators every day during all December, and the day of my presentation was no exception. I was afraid to face the monster, but that was no monster, it was a beautiful creature, attentive and open to be touched.
The night after the performance I wrote:
“Deeply satisfied with Masks’ presentation yesterday night at the GOA festival in Guangzhou. A very special outdoor setting, I would say spectacular. A huge audience (something like 400 people), attentive and with great response to my work. It was broadcast online throughout China on two different channels and, from what I know about just one of those channels, more than 4000 people were watching the performance.“
Also, there was even a Korean artist among the public that drew what she saw during the performance.
I’m so grateful to Jasmine, my favourite Chinese producer, and to AG, the director of the GOA Festival, who believed in my work. I feel I’m a very lucky person.“
And the festival article reviewing the performance was very kind to me:
“Mexican Butoh artist Gustavo Thomas, who currently resides in Guangzhou, presented the piece “Masks”, created by him specifically for GOA. The artist’s mysterious and strong cross-cultural performance firmly held the attention of those present, from children to adults. His piece received enthusiastic applause.“
The year ahead is – as is usual in my life – unpredictable, but I’m feeling that I’m learning (and starting to use what I’ve learned) to work in a very unpredictable surrounding. I have at least three projects in the making and some collaborations with other artists.
“Naturally, the older I grow, the more experienced I become. My body can’t stay still. There’s no point denying that as we grow older, our bodies gradually wither away. Yet, irrespective of our physical state, life is ever present. That’s why I believe it essential that dance reflects the reality of ageing. All and well for younger performers to dwell upon the physical aspects of dance, but for older performers the spiritual aspect dominates. With a minimum of physical exertion, we can sustain ourselves until the very end. At a younger age we don’t need to concern ourselves with that reality, but we should be mindful of it. The essential thing is that dance embody the cry of the newborn, this comes about with repeated training and discipline. A mother’s love for her child manifests itself without the slightest thought. Younger dancers need to realise that. By concentrating only on the technical aspects, their dance will not engage us. Dance has to confront us with the question: Why are we here? If we stifle our feelings, we won’t get through to the audience. Crying plays a cathartic role. We should cry until we’ve shed all our tears so as to spiritually renew ourselves. I wonder the secret of health lies in our capacity to live life to the full. As I grow older, my dance evolves in a way that reflects this reality. My physical force is on the wane, my flesh slowly withers. I’m now experiencing things that I never did previously, with each and every step I’m learning something new and experience aspects of life that I didn’t in my younger years. It’s quite a revelation. In my youth, I had youthful passions, and so too in my later years. I’m not saying that one of them is better. They are essentially different. One has to embrace them accordingly, when young, one dances in a spring like way, as I reach the closing years of my life, my dance should convey the reality of my years, the older I get, the more my dance needs to embody the cry of the newborn. An elderly performer whose work doesn’t reflect this reality should give up.” (1)
So powerful words based in a more powerful and deep experiences! What can I do with this as a practical approach in my work?
Of course, at the beginning, the idea of embracing ageing was closer to me and I was aware of it during this week’s trainings, putting all my attention in my physical effort, in my physical pain, in my physical limits because of my age; but as the passing of the days I started to bring other texts and ideas while re-reading Kazuo’s words: “the cry of the new born” was then acquiring major importance, probably because it was action more than words, a closer physical image to any other of that speech.
In the video “Beauty and Strength: Kazuo Ohno” produced by the NHK, Kazuo Ohno decided to start with a peculiar scene: at his studio during one of his daily workshops he’s giving a speech on how dance should be like the cry of a baby that communicates in a primeval form with his mother. For that purpose he asked to bring one of his grandsons to the studio and let him play freely with Yoshito and him in a total improvised dance. The image is clarifying and powerful because we can see how the child is free in his behaviour with the two adults who are dancing but playing with him at the same time. It is a mix of improvised lively chaos and strong artistic structure. The scene itself could not be memorable, speaking in an artistic sense, if we don’t ask ourselves why Kazuo decided to start a video, produced by the NHK on his successful career, exactly with that improvisation, (even risking his position as a remarkable performer) if not because that was a concrete illustration of what Butoh and dance was to him, a real introduction fo all his work. There was no cry, but the point was clear to me.
I remember then that experience Eugenio Barba depicts in one of his texts about a horse brought to the stage in an almost forgettable play he was watching when he was a child, and how that incursion gave it an idea of total life in the middle of a dead stage full of actors. We all know that same feeling when a child is on the stage and steals all the professional work of the actors just because he/she is more alive, because he/she is not trying to do anything, he/she is there.
When I was at Kazuo Ohno Studio in Kamihoshikawa, Yoshito Ohno let me watch some family videos about Kazuo’s performances. One specially brought my attention: it was a performance Kazuo gave at a seniors care house. After one or two musical pieces dancing, wearing those characteristic old women dresses, I saw a moment of brightness (if I can say that), a moment that changed all my perception of what I was watching in that moment. Difficult to explain, the only thing is I can say is that it was if like a door was open at that moment and some energy or light come out from Kazuo’s body, moment that lasted for no more than two minutes I remember. Was that “the cry of the new born”? Now I believe it was, and also Barba’s horse and the child playing.
That moment is not a technique itself but an advice, it’s actually a research, a continuous research in our practice of Butoh. Like that moment of truth Peter Brook talks about when rehearsing (See his video “The rope”). The director and the actors should work and rehearse not because they have to repeat everything, but because they are waiting for the moment when life becomes action, when it comes out from the source, and everything we do on stage should be in a state of awareness to catch that moment.
My training then became, this week, a structure of physical movements, exercises, rehearsals of my inner choreographies, my art crafting, while waiting for that moment. My work only counts if I am aware of the real research, if I am aware of the moment I can be in communication with the cry of the newborn and be like a light, with the moment a horse enters to the scene stealing all the attention with his body full of life.
(Journal of my Butoh training week. Last week of August.)
A principios de este 2018 apenas estaba por establecerme en Guangzhou, mi nueva ciudad, cuando Haydé Lachino me invitó a escribir un artículo para la revista que ella dirige en México, Interdanza, revista que se ha convertido en poco tiempo bajo la dirección de Haydé, en un referente de la danza en México, entre muchas razones por su profesionalismo y conocimiento y porque es un proyecto que financiado por el gobierno es totalmente gratuito y electrónico, es decir prácticamente al alcance de todos aquellos interesados en la danza.
La propuesta del artículo era sobre mi encuentro con el Butoh, y no podía caerme más a la mano, porque estoy en el proceso de crear mi primer texto teórico (personal) sobre la creación dentro del Butoh, así que una introducción como esta me fue de primordial importancia para definir las razones de mi interés y mi práctica dentro de esta disciplina que ahora ocupa la mayor parte de mi vida creativa.
Por supuesto que el artículo se lee en la revista misma publicada en el número 54 del mes de agosto de este año, a través de este link: El camino de los maestros muertos (Interdanza) pero quería, como siempre, hacerlo patente en mi blog como una exposición del documento mismo.
Kazuo Ohno: “On coming off stage I feel much better than before I go on. Before I complain of a backache, or a sore neck, but these all seem to disappear once I step out on stage, it’s like a panacea for all my pains and woes because body and soul move unite and move as one, this bring joy and comfort to the audience and moves them in a meaningful way. In this sense, dance act as a doctor for both performer and spectator. It’s like a cure-all for our ailments. It fully revitalizes me.”
Jerzy Grotowski said that one of the origins of our profession is the “shaman”, that magician-doctor that performs in front of the sick with the goal of healing the body and soul.
It is also a common idea among our profession (performing arts) this healing process during acting or dancing or singing, and it is possible that the cerebral state we reach during our performing involves the liberation of substances related to different processes of self-healing, or at least some kind of sedatives like the body liberates during rituals or trances.
It is interesting that Kazuo Ohno felt the same way just because dancing with the idea of doing it with body and soul united. What it is perhaps more interesting for me is that he says that the result of this union of dancing with body and soul together “brings joy and comfort to the audience and moves them in a meaningful way”. It is where the performer and the doctor-magician mixed together. Here, we find a technique of “projection” on stage in Kazuo’s Butoh, to reach the spectator without thinking on it, -just as the movement coming from the inner impulse-. If we work/dance with our body and soul united then the result will inevitably be healing and touching, to our selves and to the spectators. What else do we want?
Training
Keeping it simple I’ve only worked with the idea of unite body and soul: listening always music in a random way I started from breathing imagining being impulsed to movement, then to walking, then reaching different levels between the sky and the earth. Probably didn’t think more about body and soul, but the initial idea was working in every moment. After some time entered very in contact with my inner lines of movement forgetting probably the breathing part, because now images were taking part of as basic elements of the impulse. Images were sprouting inside and outside the body, following the music, the rhythm of images following the rhythm of the music, until realizing I was doing some kind of free improvisation.
I didn’t have spectators and I didn’t have any ache before starting my training, so I couldn’t say that Kazuo’s technique worked, but I know I felt good, satisfied, and in some way better. I’ll have to wait till that moment I expose myself on stage to the public again, and probably, during my Butoh, I’ll become not only the healer but the healed too. Then Nietzsche, the great, will be brought to live and say: here you are, the poet and the reader united has reborn again.
Now that I’m looking for a place to perform again my Butoh and Video work ‘Languid Bodies’ in China, I recovered a video from one specific performance show in Morelia, Michoacán, México, recorded in 2016.
Even though my Butoh performances are mostly improvised (but with a defined structure), I thought a short part of this video could work as a taste for the live performance.
This short ‘The languid fall’ is part of the third (of seven) section named Violence.
Kazuo Ohno: “I don’t try to hide my age, it is like if I was watching myself. I saw a book in Dresden that had the image of an old and tired horse; I felt as if my whole life was inside that horse.
In that picture the horse was moving; there was also an old tree and a fruit of life was sprouting from it. The horse ran on the fallen leaves of the tree, they watched him running. Where is that picture? It is within me. This horse runs inside me.” *
The drawing of the Old Horse. Still Photography from a video: Interview to Kazuo Ohno. NHK, 1993.
Kazuo Ohno saw this picture during the 1980s and he kept the image and the impression all the time with him. When Peter Sempel finally realized the documentary “Kazuo Ohno: Dance into the Light”* (he was filming Ohno during more than 10 years, I understand) Kazuo Ohno was ill but still dancing even when his legs couldn’t respond anymore. The images in that documentary show master Ohno from his 80s until almost his death around 100. At the last part of the documentary it shows to us one very old man with a deep inner world, almost in a perpetual state of inspiration or meditation, perhaps even pain. The image of the old horse was within him all the time and, yes, he was still dancing and the horse was still running inside him.
I’ve been training with these images and words for almost two weeks, and I have not had, at anytime, the feeling of being that old horse,-maybe that’s good, maybe not-. On the contrary, what was striking to me was the feeling of strength I was gaining with every day of training passing, as if those sentences were a kind of talisman to gain force. In one moment today, when iI was on the floor dancing without using my legs, like Kazuo in his last years, I thought that I was probably preparing myself for the years to come, for the illness, for the moment I will need the image of the old horse running on the young falling leaves of the tree. I felt motivated, yes, inspired by the old man-horse that master Ohno was.
Sometimes I have to assume my inner magic world, and don’t ask more reasons, and avoid logic.
I’m grateful that the words of the master are powerful and that power works for me.
*1-Interview with Kazuo Ohno in “Kazuo Ohno, the last emperor of dance” by Gustavo Collini Sartor. Original in Spanish:
Kazuo Ohno: “No trato de ocultar mi vejez, es como si me estuviese viendo a mi mismo. Yo vi en Dresden un libro que tenía la imagen de un caballo viejo y cansado; sentí como si toda mi vida estuviera dentro de ese caballo.
En aquella imagen el caballo se estaba moviendo; había también un viejo árbol al que le estaba brotando el fruto de la vida. El caballo corría sobre las hojas caídas del árbol, éstas lo observaban correr. ¿Donde se encuentra esa imagen? Está dentro de mí. Este caballo corre por mi interior.” (Entrevista a Kazuo Ohno en “Kazuo Ohno, el último emperador de la danza” de Gustavo Collini Sartor.)
*2-“Kazuo Ohno: Dance into the Light” by Peter Sempel. You can watch the whole documentary in youtube: https://youtu.be/9ZCVFaouZR8
(These texts -and experiences- are part of my daily Butoh training, trying to make some sense of something which probably has absolutely no sense.)
Gustavo Thomas Butoh Blog 