Critical world-building through a Butoh-lens

The presentation 'CRITICAL WORLD-BUILDING THROUGH A BUTOH LENS' is about how the unique the corporeality of Butoh creates ruptures to ontological hierarchies, producing a decolonized embodiment as a means of critical world-building.

Butoh imageries and creation of narrative

The presentation began with an experiential session introducing Butoh-fu imageries, aiming to defamiliarize, disorient and even decolonize the human form. These imageries, with their distinctive qualities, encourage participants to explore diverse corporeal expressions.

The ‘7 Worlds of Butoh’ in Butoh-fu serves as inspiration, highlighting the ever-evolving and rhizomatic nature of Butoh movements in multiple forms. Audience members were invited to create unique narratives by embodying these imageries, using non-human elements as agents to craft ruptured and transformative narratives.

Butoh’s corporeality and Critical world-building

Critical world-building involves an analytical approach that examines and interprets fictional worlds through a holistic lens, considering context, narrative, and thematic structures. Butoh's corporeality aligns with this concept in terms of its ontology.

By reconfiguring the human body in a Surrealist form, as Hijikata Tatsumi stated, ‘Butoh begins with the abandonment of self’ (Klein, 1988:34), undergoing continual metamorphosis through ‘anatomical refusal or transformation’ (Barber, 2005:32-33).

Born from societal crises and injustices, Butoh o`ers an ontological revolt of the body, challenging the epistemological and anthropocentric perspectives; it also flattens the ontological hierarchy by creating rupture through non-human agencies. From a relational ontology perspective, Butoh further contributes to critical worldbuilding. The concept of Ma, originating from Shintō Zen, refers to the ‘in-betweenness’ that ‘exists at the threshold of corporeal experiences’ (Bellrose, 2018:164). Ma fosters an empathetic sense of ‘one-self’ and ‘other-as-self’ (ditto), intensely interrelating human and non-human elements to give rise to ruptured inter-corporeality.

Butoh & World Architecture

The discussion also explored parallels between Butoh and World Architecture – a concept that extends world-building by focusing on structural, functional, and aesthetic aspects of imaginary worlds. This approach critically examines how worlds are designed and interconnected to create meaningful narratives.

Min Tanaka: ‘I do not dance the place, I am the place’ (Marshall, 2006:56).

Through ruptured embodiment, the Butoh body transforms from being in the space into the place, hosting a narrative that embodies critical world-building. Di`erent worlds interconnect holistically, fostering experimental and experiential narratives, forming what is proposed as ‘body architecture’ that Butoh encapsulates. The presentation concluded with Richard Wilson’s ‘Turning the Place Over’, illustrating how architectural spaces can be transformed into surreal and dynamic environments. This example resonates with the notion of how Butoh disorientates the ‘body architecture’ to create new narratives.

References:

Barber, S. (2005) Hijikata: Revolt of the Body. Chicago: Solar Books.

Bellerose, C. (2015) BEING MA IN MOVEMENT: SPACE-TIME IN BUTOH, SOMATIC PRACTICE, AND DURATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART (Doctoral dissertation, York University Toronto).

Klein, S. B., (1988) Ankoko Buto: The Premodern and Postmodern Influences on the Dance of Utter Darkness. New York: Cornell University East Asia Papers.

Marshall, J. (no date) Performance Paradigm 2 (March 2006) Dancing the Elemental Body: Butoh and Body Weather: Interviews with Tanaka Min and Yumi Umiumare. Available at: https://www.performanceparadigm.net/wpcontent/uploads/2007/06/6marshall.pdf