A main idea in butoh is that a persons personality comes from their subconcious, kill it and a new personality forms. It is constantly dying from changes and events in our lives and a new one is constantly forming. The constant cycle of a persons personality is the stimuli for butoh dances. Hasu uhno uses confusing poems to take away the consious mind to reveal the subconcious.They use white face paint to remove all signes of the character, the consious and netralise the mind. The puppet master walk is used to remove the performers self control. Tatshumi hitchakata creates a set vocabulary of movements within in a performcnce to show the different forms of the fish from seewead to the fish swimming. Butoh fu is manily about the transitions when you could walk through an invisable wall and when on the other side you turn into fire for example.
First lesson we watched some example videos to introduce us to the general style of Butoh. The whole class then spaced and lyed down on the floor. Andy then read out a story about Hiroshima were you are are people who are burt and preserved after then bomb. From this stue state you turn into dust that blows away and from the dust a plant grows. The flower then very slowly wilts and dies but then grows again. Throughout the lesson we were all asked to write down any questions we had about Butoh to enable us to understand the subject fully.
At the start of the next lesson we were lead through warm ups to help us prepare to use to embody different states and use different parts of the body.
The exercises are as follows:
- clapping and electric pulse.
- Running in a circle, heads hanging, arms waving, legs flopping, weight forward.
- Jumping from one foot to the other.
- Jumping sideways from foot to foot. Keep toes on the ground. Keep heels on ground.
- Whole body collapses over legs, (string from head).
- Collapses and wave up. Smaller and more frequent.
- Starting at the hips.Wave around the clock. (12, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 12, 11, 10, 9, 10, 11, 12)
- Chest forward and back. To the one side and to the other. Chest circles.
- Shake out
much like the Hiroshima story we did another abstract story :
A maiden discovers a waterfall. She washes herself in a torrent of water. The water turns to ice and she freezes. The ice melts and she walks again. The sun burns her skin and she ages rapidly. Her body turns to sand. A tree grows out of the sand. The tree turns into a maiden etc. Representing the never ending cycle of peoples personalities.
Next and perhaps the most memorable lesson was the fish Lesson. Where we learned a basic vocabulary of fish movements that would be used in a performance. We did a simular but much shorter exercise to the last lesson then we all sat around and watched Sankai fish scene. The most dominant thing was how slowly they were moving but they were all perfectly in time.
We then did a short movement sequence to warm us up and introduce us to the fish movements:
- forward rotation,
- backward rotation (legs over),
- arms out rock to left and right,
- bum rocking to crab,
- child pose.
- Lying on the ground the students are sand,
- swaying and swimming in the water.
- Sea weed begins to gather and float slowly upwards with the waves.
- Fish walk
- Fish Rise
- Injured fish
- The dying turns into sand and the cycle is complete
Our next task was to create our own abstract stories from a collection of photos. Many of the photos were very grotesque with insects that reflect devouring and recycling of flesh. In our group we tried to put our in a kind of chrinilogical order. Now that i can reflect upon it I see that there doesn't need to be an order that makes sense because Butoh isn't supposed to.
There is analysis at the beginning of this section. Regrettably, the rest of the section is merely description.
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