About Kazuo Ohno
Takao Kawaguchi
photo iina naoto
これまでの上演歴
2013年08月 日本・東京 d−倉庫 「ダンスがみたい！」フェスティバル初演
2013年10月 日本・横浜 BankART Studio NYK 大野一雄フェスティバル
2015年02月 日本・横浜 BankART Studio NYK 「Dance Archive Project 2015」
2015年09月 韓国・光州 Asia Culture Center Theatre
2015年09月 ドイツ・ミュンスター Theater Im Pumpenhaus
2015年09月 ザグレブ・クロアチア Pogon Jedinstvo
2015年11月 日本・京都 京都芸術劇場・春秋座「ダンスの創造的行為をめぐって」
2016年05月 ベルギー・ブリュッセル クンステン・フェスティバル・デザール Dynastiegebouw / Bâtiment Dynastie
2016年05月 スペイン・ビルバオ アルオンディガ・ビルバオ AZkuna Zentroa Auditorio
2016年06月 ポルトガル・リスボン アルカンタラ・フェスティバル サンルイス市立劇場
2016年08月 インドネシア・ジャカルタ 第8回アートサミット・インドネシア ジャカルタ劇場
2016年08月 インドネシア・ジョグジャカルタ ジョグジャ・ナショナルミュージアム
2016年09月-10月 アメリカ・ジャパン・ソサエティ（ニューヨーク）、セカンドワード・ファンデーション（ハドソン）、フリンセンター（ヴァーモント）、アイオワ大学（アイオワ）、マサチューセッツ大学アマースト校（マサチューセッツ）、REDCAT（ロサンゼルス）、アンディウォーホル美術館（ピッツバーグ）
2017年01月 フランス・ノルマンディー カーン国立振付センター
2017年02月 スペイン・サンティエゴ FESTIVAL DE INVERNO DE TEATRO, DANZA E ARTE EN ACCIÓN
2017年02月 オーストラリア・メルボルン Dancehouse
2017年04月 メキシコ un desierto para la danza
2017年05月 メキシコ Festival Internacional de Danza Butoh en América Latina. Cuerpos en Revuelta
2017年08月 Vienna,Austria ImPulsTanz - Vienna International Dance Festival
2017年08月 Berlin,Germany TANZ IM AUGUST
2017年08月 ポーランド・ワルシャワ Theater Institute
2017年09月 ポーランド・クラコフ Manggua Museum
2017年09月 ブラジル・サルバドール Teatro Velha Vila
2017年09月 ブラジル・カンピーナス SESC Campinas
2017年12月 日本・埼玉 Saitama Arts Theater
2018年10月 Paris, France Théâtre de la Ville de Paris - Espace Cardin
2018年10月 スペイン・マドリッド Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
2018年10月 フィリピン・マニラ Power Mac Center
2018年10月 タイ・バンコク Chang Theatre [Pichet Klunchun Theatre]
2029年10月 日本・山形 山形ドキュメンタリー映画祭[山形まなび館]
2019年11月 台湾・台北 Camping Asia
2023年11月 イギリス・ロンドン Rich Mix / INTERNATIONAL BUTOH DANCE FESTIVAL
Artist Statement
I never watched Kazuo Ohno dance on stage, not while he was alive. But now I see him in photographs and videos. It’s always very beautiful, and though I cannot explain it well, I feel a certain affinity for the twists and undulations of his movements. It even feels sensual. Maybe I have a similar quality within me?
A star in the modern dance scene in Japan’s post-war era, Kazuo Ohno performed a number of very unique dance works. When he encountered Tatsumi Hijikata, the chemical reaction between the two gave birth to butoh dance. In the ten years following Ohno’s retirement from the stage, he made The Portrait of Mr. O and two other films with director Chiaki Nagano. In 1977, at the age of 72, Ohno made the spectacular comeback to the scene with “Admiring La Argentina”. From then on he went around the world performing and helping the rest of the world discover butoh. He remained active dancing until he passed away in 2010 at the age of 103. Hijikata described Ohno as “dancer of deadly poison, capable of striking with just a spoonful” while others have described his work as a “dance of soul.”
In this performance entitled “About Kazuo Ohno” which has caused a controversy within Tokyo’s dance establishment, I set myself the task of literally “copying” the dance of the butoh master from video recordings of the premiere performances of Ohno’s early masterpieces including “Admiring La Argentina” (1977), “My Mother” (1981), and “Dead Sea, Ghost, Wienerwaltz” (1985).
Usually characterized as largely improvisational, Ohno’s dance is unique not only for his age but also for the distinctive features of his body and movements which are essential to his dance. An attempt to copy his dance as it is, no more no less, means nothing but to suspend whatever interpretation the copier may have as well as his own beliefs, and to project himself onto the forms and shapes of the old dancer as exactly as possible. The closer it gets, however, the clearer the gap becomes, minimum but inevitable no matter how hard he tries to diminish it. The paradox here is that this very gap, nonetheless, highlights the very distinct characteristics of the copier. Copy is original.
The viewer layers the reminiscence of Kazuo Ohno onto my body, and those who don’t know Ohno’s dance, their imagination of it. The multiple images of Ohno and myself merge, surface and recede in turn. “About Kazuo Ohno” is, in a sense, a duet I dance with the illusory image of Kazuo Ohno.
photo iina naoto
Why Butoh? Why Kazuo Ohno?
Butoh now or never !
It is over half a century since butoh was born through the encounter between Tasumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno across the 1950s and ‘60s. Today this form of dance art has spread throughout the world, influencing and inspiring many artists in butoh and beyond. It seems the genre is regaining attention in the international contemporary dance scene at the moment, with choreographers such as Boris Charmatz and Xavier Le Roy—just to name a few—creating works inspired by and/or with reference to the butoh. Now, however, with the death of both Hjikata (1986) and Ohno (2010), the original form of the art cannot be witnessed any more, and those who have direct experience of the form are fewer and fewer. Young people, especially, cannot have had that kind of direct experience. Now or never, I thought, if I want to inherit the rich, fertile ground of body exploration that Hijikata and Ohno left to us.
Butoh BIG BANG – Encounter and exchange between Hijikata and Ohno
In 1977 after a decade of silence, Kazuo Ohno re-debuts in the dance scene at the age of 72 with La Argentina Sho (Admiring La Argentine), followed by two more masterpieces: My Mother (1981) and Dead Sea, Ghost and Winnerwaltz (1985). The one who directs Ohno’s shows is none but Tatsumi Hijikata. A fertile ground is born where two opposite currents meet, that’s where those masterpieces were created, and from there Ohno sets off to the international scene and tours around the world until he dies in 2010 at the age of 103. It was there in those works, I believe, where butoh reached a point of completion of its original form, in a sense. Of course, butoh, in the hands of Ohno’s and Hikikata’s many followers, keeps growing and developing in many different directions. Soon after this re-encounter between Ohno and Hikikata, the latter dies, and this collaboration between the two butoh masters comes to an end. Yet, it is precisely this fertile ground of butoh to which I return—to engage in the heretical act of copying.
Copying Kazuo’s dance from the video
My approach was to literally copy Ohno’s dance from the video recordings of the premiere performances of his three masterpieces. In copying from video recordings that are themselves copies—or perhaps even copies of copies of copies, I work in direct violation of what the Master meant when he said “if there is the heart, the form will follow.” Despite the fact that Ohno’s inner world (his soul, emotions, heart) is what has been considered essential and integral to his expression of dance, to Ohno’s “dance of soul,” I marginalize such subjectivity to embrace the abject copy. Also rejecting the traditional concept of “kata” or ideal form in Japanese traditional aesthetics, I focus instead on the very tangible forms on the video screen, and wear them as if putting an armor or a costume on my body. Putting it in another way, I fit my body into such forms like pouring hot iron into the mold. As heretic, I challenge Kazuo Ohno on the outside, from the outside.
Butoh is about Becoming
If Butoh, as Hijikata says, is about “becoming” something other than yourself (in this case, it is to become Kazuo Ohno), first of all, in order to “become” something, one ought to empty one’s self. In the process of rehearsing, I thought: Without ridding of my “self” and offering my body as an empty vessel for “it” to come and inhabit within, I won’t be able to become “it”. I can do nothing else but persist loyally copying/building the form/vessel, and wait for Ohno to inhabit my body. It will be only then and there that we might be possibly be open to perceive the electro-magnetic waves coming from the universe of the now-defunct Butoh guru, Kazuo Ohno.
I’ve copied from:
The Portrait of Mr. O, (a 1969 film by Chiaki Nagano)
La Argentina Sho (Admiring La Argentina) (1977): “La Divine” and “The Food of Everyday Life” scenes
My Mother (1981), the scenes of “The Dreams of the Foetus”, “Dream of
Love”, and the scene of two tangos and the piano of Frederic Chopin
Dead Sea, Ghost, Wiennerwaltz (performed in 1985 in Geneva), scenes of “The Ghost” and the Mass
Cast and Staff
Choreography: Kazuo Ohno and Tastumi Hijikata
Dance: Takao Kawaguchi
Dramaturge, Visual and Sound: Naoto Iina
Costumes: Kitamura Noriko
Lighting: Toshio Mizohata
Appearance in Video: Yoshito Ohno
Archive materials courtesy of Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and Dance Archive Network
Production management : Toshio Mizohata
Duration: Approx. 110 mins with an intermission
This performance premiered in August 2013 at the Dance ga Mitai! Festival, d-Warehouse, Tokyo, and then staged again in October 2013 at Kazuo Ohno Festival, BankART Studio, Yokohama.
photo iina naoto
Profile
dancer / performer
Takao Kawaguchi
While joining the Japanese multimedia performance company Dumb Type from 1996 to 2008, Kawaguchi independently did a number of collaboration projects, with sound/visual artists combining the elements of light and sound, and video such as: DiQueNoVes (Say You Don't See) (2003), D.D.D.- How Many Times Will My Heart Beat Before It Stops? (2004), Good Luck (2008) and TABLEMIND (2011).
Since 2008 Kawaguchi has been working on his solo, site-specific performance series called a perfect life until today. The most recent one “From Okinawa to Tokyo” was presented in February 2013 at the Ebisu Moving Image Festival at Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum.
In recent years he has created Butoh-related works such as: The Ailing Dance Mistress– based on the texts of Tatsumi Hijikata (2012), and About Kazuo Ohno – Reliving the Butoh Diva’s Masterpieces (2013).
Kawaguchi has participated in a number of collaboration projects including: true (2007) and Node – The Old Man of the Desert (2013) with Takayuki Fujimoto (dumb type) and Tsuyoshi Shirai; and Tri-K (2010) with Dick Wong (Hong Kong) and Koichi Imaizumi.
Besides, Kawaguchi was the director of the Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival from 1996 to 1999; translated British experimental filmmaker Derek Jarman’s book Chroma into Japanese (2003, Uplink); and starred in Edmund Yeo’s short film Kingyo which was invited to Venice Film Festival in 2009.
dramaturge / video / sound
Naoto Iina
Director, video artist. Aiming at linking the performing arts and media arts, Iina has established Dance and Media Japan to produce many projects combining media technology with dance inviting artists from overseas such as Mamuska art party from Ireland, the International Dance Film Festival, and the Post Theater from Germany among others. Iina’s work covers a wide range from video artist to theater director, dramatug and producer. As video artist, he has worked for The Spirit Play and King Lear, both directed by Sato Makoto, and Kawguchi Takao’s a perfect life, and as dramaturge for Kawaguchi’s About Kazuo Ohno. He has directed ASYL combining film, music and dance starring Nishimatsu Fuei and Terada Misako; and Shinobazu no Onna <Hidden Woman> starring Nishimatsu and Ohno Yoshito, among many others. Recently Iina has developed Kazuo Ohno Internet Video Archive.
producer / lighting design
Toshio Mizohata
Born in Tokyo. Since 1983 worked with Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio for all of Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno's major productions as administrator and lighting designer and toured worldwide. In the 1990s started to run Kazuo Ohno Archive and published numerous books and videos on his works including Workshops' Words (1997 Film Art Sha), and organized the historic concerts, Homage to Kazuo Ohno, marking his centenary in 2007 in Yokohama as well as Antony and the Ohnos, a collaborative performance of Anohni and Yoshito Ohno in 2010 in Tokyo. In 2004 joined in BankART1929 as a founding member to run the alternative space project in Yokohama where the Kazuo Ohno Festivals and Dance Archive Project happened until 2016. In 2017 initiated a non profit organization, Dance Archive Network for the purpose of promoting the first contemporary dance archive in Japan and networking the different archives internationally.
CONTACT
management
Toshio Mizohata
mizohata@canta.co.jp
Takao Kawaguchi
taakaawaaguu@gmail.com