“Archetypal Bodies” 8

Butoh Part 2

Elaborating on the last post about Butoh, Maggie and I experimented with a text-to-performance approach to explore our Butoh bodies. We used a Butoh-Fu “Gaki, The Hungry Demon” by Hijikata and an excerpt from my work “VENT!”. Butoh-fu is butoh’s notation system. “Fu” means something written, scored, or recorded. For Hijikata, the body is a metaphor for words, and words are a metaphor for the body. At this stage of the research, I wanted to focus more on how to connect stories and thinkings into a performative state, rather than free explorations until the end of time. (the latter will be preferable)

To practice deeper into our body language, this exercise was limited to dances for bones and joints. We were in the hallway that my first blog post was mentioning.

“Gaki, The Hungry Demon” Butoh-Fu by Hijikata

The Gaki demon is only made of skin and bones.
His skeleton is only covered by skin.
The bones are rattling and the dry skin is rustling.
Hardened nerves cover the bones of the skeleton.
Collapsing joints trace movements like those of a beggar.

Hair, teeth, pieces of dry dirt and pus become attached to the skeleton.

This turns into two different Gaki.
The last demon becomes an old woman knitting something.
The old woman then becomes a blind man laughing
with his forefinger pointing at something.
This in turn becomes a crying woman.
Raising her shoulders, she becomes a mask.
The mask is now too heavy and sinks within itself.

I liked the enclosed feeling of the hallway for this practice. Everything is closer, and I can listen to the ambience of micro-sounds, excluding the outside world. The narrow space also amplified my energy and created a feedback loop of introverted sensing. Perfect spot for Butoh practice.

I didn’t think too much while improvising. I let the text guide my body in becoming the multiple Gaki. The only thing I’ve thought about was my starting position. In Chinese, Butoh (舞踏) means literally “Dance Step”. The second word, 踏 (Step), means to me, to the ground and connected to the earth. It’s important that our bodies are connected to the ground and utilise the kinetic force provided from the bottom up. Gaki are hungry ghosts that live in horrible torment and constant suffering. They have bloated, bulging bellies and tiny, inefficient mouths and throats that feed on children.

When Improvising, some body postures that I held created feelings inside, and those feelings generated impulses in guiding me through the rest of the text. The knitting woman was in an “I give” archetypal gesture, but the imagery of “I give” in this instance was, “I give” blood and suffering, rather than “I give” flower and comfort.

“VENT!” (act 1 monologue 1)

as i snap the crooked legs
the black echos are bouncing in a cube shape corridor the post-mortem of this cockroach is telling me
that the darkness is getting colder

all my life
in a fetus position
hair grown like a lawn on my back i can feel the wind is changing

i feast on whatever i can in front of me
dust, cockroaches and sometimes even screws

i believe there is something up here or down here
something, but i don’t know
i can hear them

everyday
i crawl through the ducts following the source of sounds

and when i finally saw them
i knew
they are my maker
those were the voices in my head and teaching the things that i know i shall now heed their call

and accept their blessing