“When Michelangelo was asked how he created a piece of sculpture, he answered that the statue already existed within a marble. God had already created the Pieta, David, Moses… Michelangelo's job as he saw it was to get rid of the excess marble which surrounded God's creation.”

Butoh master Akira Kasai describes consciousness as energy. In his Ephesus Eurythmic dance technique, he teaches students to activate inner/outer listening senses and to generate the energy of consciousness. Then, the energy of consciousness moves you. He often discusses with us, “I dance or I am danced”. In Butoh, I have to make myself fully available for that to come in.

I imagine Michelangelo listening internally, so carefully to create the Pieta and David.

In dance, the patterns and habitual movements are the marble, consciousness is the sculptor. It is interesting that in Japanese culture, Goddess “Kannon” writes as “観音” which means the “Seer of Sound”.
A dancer chiseled by the Seer of the Sound...

A Prayer for World Peace a short art film directed and performed by Mariko Endo, videographed by Fred Hatt, music composed by Dary John Mizelle. Text by Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, permitted to use by M.A.Center.

A founder of Butoh, Tastumi Hijikata observed people with disabilities carefully and pondered upon dance aesthetics and movements. Hijikata said, "Western dance begins with its feet firmly planted on the ground whereas Butoh begins with a dance wherein the dancer tries in vain to find his feet"

Butoh starts by asking what is moving you? A student delves into a body with imagination… is it the earth such as rock, lava, soil or water that is shaping and moving your body? Is it human emotions like sadness that barely hold you up?

"In other forms of dance such as classical dance, the movements are derived from a fixed technique; they are imposed from the outside and are conventional in form. In my case, it's the contrary, my dance is far removed from conventions and techniques ..."

-Tastumi Hijikata

Many years ago, I had a chance to study with a nationally recognized Yoga teacher Matthew W Sanford. Mr. Sanford has been paraplegic since the age of 13. He explains senses as a “consciousness which 'hums' throughout an awakened body”. While I was taking a wide legged standing pose, he gave me an adjustment by putting his hands on top of my femur bones with gentle pressure. I started to feel as if my bones became thicker and vibrating. It was a clear, awakened sensation in my bones, but not muscular at all. Then he smiled and said, "You see? That is how ‘I’ feel my legs". He who has been paraplegic since the age of 13 feels his legs in such a way!

"It is the unveiling of the inner life"

-Tatsumi Hijikata

What is a Body? How much more to reveal the inner life within?

My work is profoundly rooted in Japanese Butoh.

Butoh was founded by the Japanese choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata in the late 1950s. His technique is a development of a path that ties the body and imagination.

"All of dance starts with two slender legs but Butoh starts where you cannot stand up although you are trying very hard" stated Tatsumi Hijikata.

His dance does not take for granted that legs are part of the body. He perceived every part of the body as a function of itself: legs are for standing and arms are for grabbing. He let every part of the body be reborn through his dance aesthetic.

"In European Modern dance, the dancer is the 'subject', and the manner that they interpret a piece is an expression of their individuality. However, in Butoh, this concept is reversed," wrote Akira Kasai, another important Butoh pioneer who studied with Hijikata, in The Dance in the Future. 2004.

The Butoh dancer has to become a body without any thought and focus upon what is causing the movement. 'What moves you' is always prioritized rather than 'What you think to do'. When a dancer quiets his mind, and instead allows the imagination to lead movement, then he will be engaged in a universal mind. Only at this moment will the audience be free and witness to a genuine human condition. Hijikata named this dynamism "Butoh".

To complete his own style, Hijikata looked back to his childhood during World War ll. He talked about his brothers going away red faced from their final sake toast and then coming back as a box of ashes. "In Tohoku, there is a baby in the basket sitting by the rice farm. He is crying because the grown-ups are all working in the soil, cold wind blowing their cheeks. They are too busy to take care of the baby. The baby is crying and crying and then he starts to eat his darkness. He nips the darkness out to eat it. Butoh was born in this initiation of devouring hopelessness for survival".

Perhaps, Hijikata witnessed a real strength of human beings in the dark: the deepest desire for Life, and tried to transmit it to the performance.

Tatsumi Hijikata’s last words were, "There is a bright world like a musical theater beyond the dark tunnel".

I inherit his vision and desire to see it.  

Mariko Endo© Cultural Statement 2016.

Edited by Tomoko Kawamoto (Public Information Manager at Museum of the Moving Image).