Freiburg, October 29th - first day of performances

1, 2, 3...

On the first day of Festival's performances, which continued to be friendly and intimate, we had the chance to see three shows: (interestingly one solo, one duo and one trio: 1, 2, 3!). The first one was a piece by Christian Stuebner and Alex Wenzlik - Delta 40. Christian Stuebner, who since 1990 has been participating in Butoh workshops, especially with Mitsutaka Ishii and Stefan Maria Marb; as well as taken part in theatre projects, has placed his image on stage as a silver spectrum, one side of the ying and yang, also a paradox and contrast to his stage partner, Alex Wenzlik. Alex, from Nuremberg, studied dance and dance-therapy in Munich and Freiburg, and during eight years has been focusing his investigations on Butoh, performing as a soloist and in groups. The night of October 29th is their premiere and opened the festival in Freiburg. Alex, in contrast to Christian, was evocking a bronze figure who was existing in total connection and dependence with the other performer. Their piece was above all imagetic to me - the effects of the shinning silver and bronze on their skin brought me the disparities, the paradoxes, the contrasts of life, and reminded me that they are ONE, they are part of one bigger project which humans are the greatest participants. Balance vs. Unbalance, Ying vs. Yang, Youth and Maturity, different corporealities and qualities of movement - at the end of the performance, all became one. The bodies needed each other, like the real seeks its image into a mirror and longs for answers for its own existence. They mix, they collapse, they touch and mark each other. In a while, silver became bronze and bronze became silver - the complexity was actually simple, the Ying and the Yang were finally facing their fate, and going towards a new cycle. Non-pretentious, beautiful, simple, imagetic and powerful. Totally worth to be seen and to grow in size and energy.

The second one was a piece by Flavia Ghisalberti, Ezio Tangini (performers) and Frank Heierli (musician). Three very strong pictures were seen on stage, sharing distinct sentiments - the two first performing and the third playing the cello, which became (for my perspective) an interesting physicality sharing the stage with the two others. Down-a is the tittle of it and a refrain composed by an italian madrigalist. The performers share that their piece is about the guilt of the human soul: ¨each character is, in his own way, a distinct one soul entrapped in a guilty net¨. So... Two different solos were suggested for the audience, but it is known that Butoh as well as most of the contemporary art forms offers more than its intentions and give the audience the possibility of connections and intercessions of images, sensations and memory. In other words, the two solos + the music performance became one tension under the perception of the audience. It is out-of-control not to see it as one complexity and create links in along this net. Strong, tense and chaotic. The music and live sound design gave the liveness we usually miss watching scenic events.

Grigory Glazunov performed the last piece of the night, called ¨a shadow¨. I met Grigory  two weeks ago in Helsinki where he was collaborating with Finnish dancers and performed in a site-specific project: they danced in a construction site, under the snowy weather of a Finnish autumn. Seeing Grigory this time made me  realize the vitality, transparency and plurality of his work. His solo, on the first day of the event in Freiburg, ended the sequences of performances in a brilliant way: manipulating a broken umbrella, he owned the stage and silence and movements with perfect flowing  transitions from one actions to the other. It was the poetic part of the night. Poetry + technique + humbleness is a combination that never fails, even when it seems to. Sensitive.

In one night, few words: paradoxical unity, nonverbal tensions and improvising poetry.

BUTOH OFF - butoh dance festival in Basel and Freiburg

During the days of October 22nd to November 3rd is happening a Butoh Festival in between the cities of Basel (a cute Swiss town by the borders of Germany and France) and Freiburg (a very student-friendly and happy town in the midst of the Black Forest). This is a bold initiative by Flavia Ghisalberti, Anna Ganzoni and Lucie Bertz to decentralize this art form from the main capitals in Europe, such as Berlin and London, and to bring a breath of life into the butoh scene by inviting young dancers, mobilizing the local community and facilitating the creation of a fresh, colourful and creative network of butoh dancers, students, artists in general, audience and and media.

I experienced the last days of the festival in Basel and now trying to participate more effectively in the Freiburg phase of it. Despite the festival being a small scale one and with no much resources,  a more intimate, friendly and hospitable atmosphere make all the difference and that turns out to be very positive, and not a limitation.

Workshop are placed along the afternoons and are mostly facilitated for the artists who are performing in the evenings and were invited for the festival not only from this reagion but from all over the world: emphasizing the presence of the Japanese dancers Yuko Ota, Maki Watanabe and Ghyohei Zaitsu; and the Russians Grigory Glazunov and Natalia Zhestovskaya, and Europeans such as: Lucie Bertz, Flavia Ghisalberti, Frank Heierli, Marianella Leon Ruiz, Albrecht Joseph, Peter Damian, Beni Weber, Taca, Christian Stuenbner, Gaetan Sataghen, Enzio Tangini and Alexander Wenzlik.

The effort of Flavia, Lucie and Anna have to be acknoledged, I just have to congratulate them for it has been a success so far and a promising event for next editions. I came to volunteer, see the performances and attend some of the workshops, but ended up meeting old butoh friends and making new ones. Let the network be human, let people dance, let BUTOH OFF Festival be a success.

The Flowers of Ken Mai

It's already the last day of the month, and I've been planning to write down here about my second Butoh workshop experience of my little project for this year and I procrastinated, and I procrastinated like I never procrastinated before... This is such a strong word, uh? - procrastination. But come on, release yourself a bit from the system... why not procrastinate a bit? 

This post is in homage for Ken Mai, a creative Japanese soul who moved to Helsinki in 2006. On the days 06 and 07 of March I went to Turku to take his Butoh workshop. I travelled there with actually no expectation, I was tired from the classes and the huge amount of work back in Helsinki, and thought it was a good idea to get to know this multifaceted Japanese artist based in Finland. I first heard of Ken Mai when I was taking that workshop in Gottingen with Tadashi Endo, there was a sweet Finnish girl who suggested me to google his name as soon as I arrive in Helsinki. That was what I did: googled it, contacted him and got invited for his workshop.

The exchange with those Finnish dancing people was tremendous, I honestly can't express how blessed I am to be part of those two days of workshop. Everyone was present in the exercises, meditations and improvisations. I tried most of the times to be part of it but also to come out of the group and then to have the privileged experience of just observing them dancing. In a demonstration of one of the exercises Ken Mai was dancing with a sunflower, and in the dance the person was supposed to share the flower to one another and so on. I found it really powerful, especially because it was clear that he wasn't manipulating one object (the sunflower), but the flower was leading his dance - maybe a dance to welcome springtime? - That reminded me of Tadashi Endo's Butoh MA - when the dead was leading us to dance. But hey, that flower looked very alive, although it was dead too. Ken Mai once said that how pretty a dead flower is - actually I don't really remember him saying those words, but I guess he said something like that: dead nature is beautiful.

When I stepped back from the rest of the group to observe and take some pictures, I realised that he had led everyone in such a simple way, that they were very engaged to their dance, even though some of the instructions were not very clear to some. There was a moment that I could only see hand, fingers, feet and toes - and that together with the music that was playing was very touching and powerful.

I made some notes on a piece of paper about those 10 hours of workshop + many other hours of talking, walking, having a coffee and taking the train together back to Helsinki, I will be copying the notes down here for the next days. 

That was a happy weekend for me: I met incredibly good and generous people there. Hope to keep in touch you guys somehow. It all seemed that Butoh wasn't the most important issue there, but encounters. Thank you Ken Mai, thank you all the participants, thank you Turku.

It isn't difficult, you simply dance it.

- Daddy, I invented a poem.
- What is it called?
- The sun and I - Then almost at once she recited: 'The chickens in the yard have gobbled two worms but I didn't see them.'
- Really? What do you and the sun have to do with the poetry?
She looked at him for an instant. He had not understood...
- The sun is above my worms, Daddy, and I wrote my poem and didn't see the worms... - Pause. - I can make up another poem this very minute: 'Oh sun, come and play with me.' Here's a longer one:
'I saw a tiny cloud,
poor little worm,
I don't think she saw it.'
- Those are pretty verses, my little one, very pretty. How does one compose such a charming poem?
- It isn't difficult, you simply say it out loud.

from "Near to the wild heart" by Clarice Lispector. (it was just on my night stand today).

Drawings by Juliana Capibaribe. :-)

Energy of Pink, unplugged

Energy of Pink, unplugged - was an exhibition in Ruhrgebiet in 2009, where the German painter Claudia Schmidt shared a bit of her ever-crossing connections between Butoh and Visual Arts. She considers her paintings as extreemly fragile shapes - keeping them together only by energy. This is the point of contact between her dance and her Butoh paintings, this is the agreement.
I had the chance to dance with Claudia in the last Tadashi Endo's workshop in Gottingen (jan 2010), and had access to her work - which made me think about how Butoh is everywhere and definitely not determined to a mean of art, basically because Butoh is, above all, an attitude. I see no harm in appropriating culturally Butoh for visual arts, theatre, films etc, actually this is very interesting in my oppinion. I hope along this year to be able to develop a substantial thesis, part of my MA, and understand more how cultural borrowing or appropriation becomes part of an identity of an artist. Why is Butoh so vunerable? and influencial?
Anyway, feel free to go through Claudia Schmidt's work here and please visit her personal website and her manager's website in Frankfurt.
The first painting is called "Durchlass - Form" #8(Let through-Shape), 2010
50 x 60 cm, Acrylic on canvas. This second picture is from her studio, there you can feel the exact proportions of the paintings, usually large, and of course you can imagine that it requires a total commitment of the whole body when painting them. Colours and shapes are indeed performative, for Claudia: energy. If she paints with the same viceral movements that she dances... I would love to experience seeing her painting... Can you identify Butoh in them? Check how independend white, black, blue and pink behave - for me, these powerful shades remind me of some of my dreams when the world looks blured and I can dance with the shapes making everything that has vertices get round and irregular. I guess this is what both Claudia and I want, in a dream, in a dance, in a painting, in life.

Keep moving - leaving Gottingen

Having a least 5 hours of training per day, listening to german without understanding a word, sleeping in a sleeping bag at the Butoh Centre, begging for the germans in the workshop not to open the doors and windows too much for the (freezing) 'fresh air', writing on my blog, long hours talking and getting to know amazing people: german, turkish, french, czech, japanese, finnish etc - all that was the context of last week. I realized that Butoh despite its aesthetic principals, promotes a reunion of people who don't speak the same language, people who believe too much but are sick of religiousness, people who are generous, who share food and time, people who don't care if one day will perform in front of hundreds or not, people who respect the others' bodies, people who are eager to learn but also to share what they learnt; I could just qualify these people for hours. I dedicate this post to you, everyone who participated in the workshop. I see Butoh in everyone, in your quotidian daily lives, thank you!

Today I left Gottingen. 5 years ago I was introduced to Butoh by Tadashi Endo when he performed 'MA' in Fortaleza, and now I'm having this opportunity to let my body be introduced to it, reflect on it and produce knowledge for my performances, academic works and in every single attitude. I came to Butoh with a little sadness, and contrary to what people find in religions and medicines I haven't got better... But I learned to dance it, to dance my sorrows - it is not to heal, I don't want it to heal, it's to dance - as simple as it is. 'Dance, when you're feeling sad.' (Endo) Thank you too, Tadashi.

Thank you Hijikata, thank you Ohno.

Drag me

There was a moment in one of the workshop sessions that we were told to dance freely, after a hard intensive warming-up. Commands of a sleepy body were told and as well as dancing ‘not disturbing the fog’. I was very introspective and of course due to the latest happenings, very sensitive. It was when in the middle of my dance Tadashi asked us to let our dead to drag us. For me it was firstly difficult to imagine ‘my dead’ lead my movement since I don’t believe they can do a thing to me... I emptied my mind and started moving, sleeping body and dancing in the fog, enjoying each moment, each centimeter seemed one hundred meters. Then I accepted the fact that my mother (recently passed away) could drag me somehow, she was the first one I pictured. Part of me is part of her; it’s in my skin, organs, cells, DNA. It was absolutely out of control not to renounce my own command and let her lead me. It was a special time, a time for images, memories and remembrances – all led me to my dance. All body committed to the moment, muscles and bones thinking and building up knowledge. It wasn’t important to know where my mother would bring me; I wasn’t even afraid or happy to where I could possibly end up. Feet all connected to the ground being dragged, it was difficult to walk, it was the end but also the beginning – how a baby starts to place his right leg after his left one, having his all body working together, even face, for one project: walking.
Dancing with memories is being something really emotional to me. Last picture that I have of my mother was before she had been cremated, and I dared to touch her head, and it was cold. My dance was as cold as her head, but dancing that wasn’t a weird thing, maybe it is now when I’m writing but it wasn’t in that moment. Inside its coldness was the warm and chaos of my blood and fluids. Drag me, n’importe pas where you lead me, I want to go, I want to move (even still). Dancing the darkness and my dead ended up being pleasant – darkness is there, and we can touch it. Life needs death and death needs life. I remember one sentence Tadashi said: ‘you can’t change life but you can change the direction of your life’.
These themes: death, dancing our darkness and with our dead, deserve a less superficial approach than this one I’m doing. It’s a pity I have few minutes a day for internet access during this week, but I hope these ghosts will remain in my mind for the next days and weeks, so I can explore them in a better way here.

Sleeping body

We were improvising with random music, the only command was to try shaking your body as much as you can but very minimum. In the middle of the exercise Tadashi asked us to do it with foggy hands and foggy face. No one did what he meant. Afterwards he explained himself as he described how a ‘sleeping body’ is like: sleeping body is the body of the true masters, they don’t need to have a defined body and present themselves very ‘awake for the moment’ – they save energy for the right time. They never start things at 100%, skin, eyes, members are dancing but in a way they aren’t even disturbing a fog; inside there’s a carnival and a war. He joked that the students are those who appear fit and ready to dance… Butoh is open for the unexpected: everything can happen from a sleeping body, if your body is apparently ready, then there’s no surprise. Now, strong pain on my neck.

Throwing a stone in a lake

This is the picture I now have of when a performer enters a stage. The actor/dancer doesn't need to appeal to provoke a change in the audience. And with no transformation of the stage or the audience there's no meaning for the presence of the performance. It's waste of time for both sides. If the performer is the rain, wind or fire, it doesn't matter how gorgeous his movements are, if there's no transformation of the environment, there's no value. Butoh is therefore constituted of a dance which everyone can dance - the difficulty of the movement and the sophistication of the choreography aren't important. Although there's charisma involved - this is more difficult to understand if you are born with it or you can grow it somehow, I haven't made my mind yet about that. Kazuo Ohno, definitely, has charisma. On today’s class, Tadashi was telling us a story about the celebration of Ohno's 100 years old: In Tokyo, many Butoh dancers were gathered together (also with other stiles' dancers, friends of his) in 1997. Each one of the performers did a small performance for him; it was a very emotional reunion. At the last part of the show Kazuo was brought to the stage on his wheel chair by his son where all performers were, a collective performance started happening, and he... slept ;-) Kazuo Ohno slept on stage during the performance. Suddenly, after a moment, before he wakes up he moved his fingers, one technician put a song - all audience was perplex by the sublime performance Ohno was doing. I can picture in my head how beautiful only a small movement, on the right time, with the right music could be. And everyone was affected. Remember about the stone and the lake? Kazuo Ohno was a stone, he almost didn't change himself, but around him were reverberating waves among the other performers and the public. After today’s exercises I have pain…

First impressions.

I arrived by mistake at Tadashi Endo’s home, I woke him up ringing the bell, he came to me with a sleepy face, asked me to wait in the living room where two cats and a poster of La Argentina of Kazuo Ohno were, and called a taxi for me to go to the right place – The Butoh Centre. After waiting in the living room he started talking about his last visit to Brazil and plans to go back there to perform and be involved in a film. Last year his film was nominated at the Berlin Festival, he lamented his filme (cherry blossoms) didn’t win anything, who won the big prize was the violent Brazilianfilm ‘Tropa de Elite’. First impressions now at the Butoh Centre, I guess I woke up the other participants too, they are from all over. I am jet lagged and tired, ready for my first day of workshop.