Sennichimae Blue Sky Dance Workshop

Sennichimae Aozora Dance company, a butoh dance company from Osaka, held a two-hour company workshop today as a part of the "Hot summer in kyoto" festival. I saw their performance last October at Art Theatre Db, so I went to watch the class.

The first three people were women that I saw in the performance "Jazzzzz" at Art Theatre Db. I never got around to writing about the performance. It was good. I thought it was a critique on gender, but after I talked to these women today, I learned that it had no meaning and was more an experiment in form, making dance the same way that one would make free-style jazz - the addition of new movements as new instruments, and a progression of slow-fast-slow. Well, those three women are members of Sennichimae, and they came to lead the class. Wow! Connections.

Next, came the students- five people. Two older women, one middle-aged violinist, and two dancers in their twenties. We were in a big black box theatre space. For the sake of answering the question, "what is a butoh dance class like?' I will now recount the class in detail. For people who read this (elizabeth and my mom), skim until you get to the part where the Sennichimae director buys me a cream soda.

Akadama-sensei, the company director, began the class by asking everyone to sit in a circle and introduce themselves. Then, he introduced his plan for the class. He said that Kazuo Ohno is good, but his dance is all feeling and little form. He prefers Hijikata's type of butoh. He mentioned something about Laban. He said that the class would start with the basics, finding the 人間のじさいの体, which seems to be Japanese for "the neutral body."

He said that the next part would work on transformation, へんしんすること. He gave becoming a flower as an example. First, one must think "what kind of flower? sakura? etc?" and grasp an image of the flower. And then, a collection of images can create a story. He said things about what happens when you transform, but I didn't understand them. Using images, he would teach them a small piece.

The class was led by Inakichi. They all use stage names, and Akadama chose this name because Ikanichi is the name of a senior geisha. She was the dancer I admired the most in "The end of water."

First, she started with jumping up and down with no force, letting the body be loose, and then with hips moving side to side. This is the toy water balloon exercise we do in Ima-san's class.

Then, hips moving to each diagonal to the fullest extent. She said that "the body is like a bag, and just this point (hipbone) goes forward." ”ななめ引っ張ります。” Then, a circle. The chest stays over the feet while the hip separates. Ima-san also does this one.

Then the chest separates to each diagonal. The diagonal is approached in a figure-eight pattern. The shoulders aren't supposed to move. I'm going to start just putting *Ima* next to things I have done with Ima-san. Ok. *Ima*

Next, shoulders tense up, drop down, roll forwards and backwards. *Ima*

Right shoulder rolls back, left shoulder, both shoulders, then drop in an exhale. *Ima*

Next, arms to sides and front and back. Roll head, move sideways, forwards, side to side, and diagonals. *Ima*

The body is a bag. When it inhales, it fills with air, and when it exhales it falls limp over feet. The body fills bag up with particles moving into the body from the feet. Variation: relax in the same way, but the breath pops the body upright onto heels with jazz hands. *Ima*

Take a wide second position plie, each person counts off ten plies. Heels go up, down,hold,drop. *Ima*

On hands and knees, raise the center of the back as much as possible with an inhalation, lower to the extreme with an exhalation. They went from slow to maniacally fast, and their bodies looked like balloons inflating and deflating. This is similar to Ima's "man as mountain" exercise, but a different approach. Then they took the shape into a circular motion.

With legs in front, point and flex feet alternately, raise pelvis. *Ima*

Next they sat in lotus position with their hands on their knees. Akadama-sensei intervened and instructed o keep the eyes half open and use the third eye, and he said something about the palms of the hands. He also said to focus diagonally down at the floor. They sat like this for a few minutes, and then folded their upper bodies over their legs. Rise, spiral body to left and right.

”おばあさん形やります” he said to signal that they would sit in a grandma-style seiza, with calves on outside of thighs. The upper body contracts and hinges backwards. ”たまごのかんじです”　he said to describe the egg-shape of their upper body. *Ima*

Next, the three dancers demonstrated the piece, after which Akadama-sensei explained it. Oceanic music was playing, and they began in fetal position. Akadama-sensei said that the first shape was something to do with the mother- I think he said that the dancer is in the mother's womb and feeling the liquid around it. Their bodies hardly moved at all, except for a gentle roll from one side to the other. Akadama said that when it looks like they are not moving, they are. It actually takes a lot of inner movement to move that slowly, and a lot of energy to focus on that transformation. As they did this, their fingers and feet would flicker as if they were probing idly. I heard Akadama say ”かんせつから、目”　and I think that means that there are eyes coming from their joints? Like they are looking with their whole bodies. Next he said that "Slowly, slowly, the body gets bigger" until the women are sitting upright- except their spines are relaxed and their head hangs downard. Akadama called this the ”にんぷの形。” In this shape, the students were told to ”くうかん目がめます”　or to look at the space. The energy from the space causes the Right elbow to raise. The arm straightens skyward so that it looks like the body is suspended from a rope. Then, the body moved like those hollow flags that fill up and fall as the wind blows. I could swear that Akadama said that the arm becomes a boa- a snake. I'mnot sure about that. But I am sure that he said that the body moves like a "flag in the wind," and I was impressed that they communicated that idea so clearly with their bodies. Akadama said that next, from the tip of the dancers' feet, energy entered the body and raised their arms by both elbows. Then, they turned quickly. Akadama explained this motion, which he called まりかた, as definitely not ballet. The right foot and left foot take weight alternately - the right foot is always flat, the left foot is always on demi-point.

Next, they did the slow walk series. Ima-san does these, too, but uses a few different images. Bascially, there is a horizontal line going through the dancer's forehead and her center,and she must walk along these lines of energy and keep her head stable,as if she were balancing something (he referenced ikebana here) on it. During the walk, the moment of weight transfer from one foot to another cannot be seen, so that the body is one continuously moving unit. It is similar to the smooth walks and turns in nihon-buyo, in which the lower body looks like a floating kimono rather than human legs. As the women walk with utmost concentration, they look like monks. Akadama mentions a line of energy that extends sideways, and the women walk in a triangle formation, together, to feel this line.

After class, he explained more about the use of imagery to the students. He says that the butoh dancer uses and image to get a feeling. The choreographer would not say "oh, do a sad thing" or "do a happy thing," but instead would say something like "it's raining and you are drenched" in order to get a certain effect. So all of the dancers have the same image and feeling, but it may take a different form or shape when they embody it. Megumi, one of the twenty-ish dancers, remarked how this is a large difference with ballet; in ballet, she said, each dancer uses a different approach to get to the same shape.

Afterwards, I ambushed Akadama and two of the dancers (Inakichi and Ayame) as they left the building, managing a clumsy "Hello, thank you for emailing me, I'm Caitlin." They were really kind, and we started walking down the street together as I asked them many questions. Akadama-san and both dancers were born and raised in Osaka. We went into a fancy cafe and ordered drinks. We talked about all sort of dance things. Ayame told me that there are many modern/contemporary dance companies in the kansai area, but said there were only five major butoh teachers. She named- Toru Iwashita, Masami Yurabe, Tenko Ima, Kuritaro (Kobuzoku Arutai), and Akadama. Except Akadama is not his real name- he is really Iku Otani, and he is the Executive Director of Dance Box, the dance NPO for Osaka city. Dance Box is the organization that runs Art Theatre Db, the dance venue I frequent. It all comes together. Inakichi, or Aya, is the director, and Ayame is a volunteer. We talked about the difficulty for dance in Japan - DanceBox only receives 1/4th of its funding from the government - that leaves 3/4 of the support to come from fundraising and concerts. Wow. And they work together often with JCDN, the dance NPO that operates in Kyoto. Sennichimae Dance have been together since 2001, but DanceBox was founded in 1996, so that is where Inakichi and Akadama met. Before that, Inakichi mostly did contemporary dance and theatre. I don't know much about Aya's dance background, but I know she likes Kansai comedy a lot.

We took the subway together and waved goodbye. They are performing at New York's PS 122 from October 18-21. Below is information and pictures about the piece "A Bowl of Summer" that they will perform there.

Danse de Gonzansu

Danse de Gozansu, a monthly dance performance at the Kyoryukan, ran full speed on April 22nd. The line-up was a hurdy-gurdy player, the gaijin dance group Tricycle performing "333", a pantomime, Peter Golightly on the trapeze, and Ima Tenko-sensei. The hurdy-gurdy-ist talked and played forever; the gaijin group was me and my two friends being supernatural people; the pantomime demonstrated the relationship between dracula and a morning glory; Peter did some modern dance stuff; and Ima-san was startlingly and amazingly beautiful. Her dance, entitled "Quo Bodis- doko he iku?" was inspired by conversations with retired prostitutes. The first half seemed to be her as an old woman, and it contained more conventional movement to traditional Japanese music. The second half was more experimental, modern-butoh fusion, as she portrayed a young woman.

I saw all of it from the viewpoint of Tricycle, as I sought to portray the demon-goddess Lucy and her interactions with the demon Choranzon and the bodhisattva Vajrasattva. Below are some visual aides of the day:

Cara is painted white ...

...by Ima-san!!! Someday I hope to have a "shironuri" (white makeup) experience.

Choranzon, by Adam Rose.

Tricycle! Cara Conroy as Vajrasattva, Adam Rose as Choranzon, and me as Lucy.

Dance Secrets

With a title like "Dance Secrets," the best entry would be a blank page. However, I will recount some of the conversations in the past week that have danced around the topic of dance secrets.

April 5th, class registration day at Kobe College, I kept running into Yuko. Yuko is a 23-yr old, 2nd year dance major at Kobe college. She has already graduated from an art university in Osaka and has choreographed and perfomed in various Osaka venues. Yuko can instill vibrancy in any choreography, and her movement carries a sensuous spark. I have often gotten lost in class from seeing the beauty she can feel in an ordinary, reptitive exercise. I saw Yuko in the library, reading an art book by a Japanese painter. We got on the topic of dance and her recent improvisational performance at an art gallery in Umeda. I said that I was delighted by her dance, and she looked like a little creature blissful in her immediate surroundings. Beyond that, I admitted that I did not know what to say, for this fact: I do not understand modern dance anymore. When people perform modern dance, I am not sure who they are or what motivates them.

Yuko gave me a simple formula- form plus feel equals dance. Dance is a coupling of form, the codified movement in class that teaches the toolbox of the body, and feeling. Feeling is “せいしんてき” or the “spiritual, mental, psychic, inward.” Through the feeling, the dancer is free to explore “自分のやりたいこと” what one wants to do. People forget feeling, which Yuko described as “love and living,” but they are reminded of it all when they see modern dance.

When Yuko dances, her mind runs in two simultaneous modes: an awareness of her outer environment- like the air, the weather, and her physical surroundings- and an inner awareness that monitors her body alignment and her next movement direction and body shape. A modern dancer adventures in her immediate location using the tools of her body to the fullest extent. She is so free to change her own shape while investigating the shapes around her that the dancer is lost in them. Not lost in a negative way- Lost in her situation in the same way that a person can be lost in bliss. The dancer reaches a dreamy, blissful, vibrant state and invites the audience to join them there. That is a modern dance secret.

Before dance class yesterday, Ima-san imparted a butoh dance secret: 100% consciousness in each moment. Almost all movement in class has a strong image association that changes the inside feeling of the body. We are concentrating heavily on becoming a toy balloon filled with water and hanging from a string, or feeling a ball in our center separating from our chest. These exercises assist the mechanics of the body but also create a meeting of our concentration and our movement, of our body and our soul. Consciousness is attained. However, when Ima-san says 100%, she means a full realization of our bodies. She spoke of how the materials that make up our bodies have existed from the beginning of time, of our DNA and family lines which go from our mother to our mother’s mother, ad nauseum. This history must all be danced. The dancer must transcend her everyday 21st century self and realize the fullness of her being. It’s almost like the dancer becomes a god. A connection, a force emanates from that being onstage.

For comparison’s sake, I can connect the two in this way: A modern dancer is a being lost in a dream. A butoh dancer is an entity who has slashed the dream and become one with existence.
After class, Ima-san made tea and told us the meaning of white paint in butoh dancing. She had a photo album when she was 20-yrs-old and had her first butoh experience at a one-week byakko sha workshop in the mountains of Kyoto. When she used white make-up for the first time, she said that it was a gate, a symbol of change for her. She likened it to a coming-of-age ceremony. She also said that when she puts on the white, an old Japanese face appears – the white paint removes her modern face. The meaning is different for everyone. Hijikta’s wife Motofuji said that the white make-up is the powder of dead people’s bones. Dancing in white make-up signifies dancing and living for all of the people who died, especially in reference to the massive deaths of World War II. Ima-san’s old teacher said that the white make-up creates a blank canvas.

Ima-san spoke of her 14 years in Byakko sha, a second-generation butoh company like Sankai Juku. She danced with them from 1980 to 1994. The studio that we use for class used to be the Byakko-sha studio, and twenty of them all lived under the same roof. They were very poor, and cooked meals for all of them for around 20 dollars a day. The teacher seemed to be a bit domineering – taking their money, encouraging them to do club shows to raise more money, and discouraging members of the group from having relationships. Due to this and other reasons, the group disbanded in 1994. The stories were amazing to hear. Now, Ima-san is working with the group Kiraza and has been living in Kyoto for 26 years. She is an awesome and mysterious lady, who probably has many secrets. Secrets!