Opening poem for manuscript: The History of Butoh

The History of Butoh

In 1959 a revolutionary performance occurred in Tokyo, the collaboration of two dancers, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Former students of a Japanese protege of German modern dance founder Mary Wigman, their dance was titled after Yukio Mishima’s famous homoerotic novel Forbidden Colors. Originally called Ankuko Butoh: The Dance of Darkness, this revised form was called simply, Butoh. The performance caused an uproar.

I am the wood floor

upon which they moved
A union of light and dark
shaped by fossils and ancestors

What emerged was this: a necessary push and pull
Unbodying of the physical
Images of the interior self

Through no technical prowess
No pretty postures or controlled emotion
no ballet slippers

This was not about lifting off the earth
This was dancing below the earth
The living communicating through the dead body

How did they become the dead body?
They shaved their heads
and painted their bodies white

White makeup went on
and the mask came off
The canvas was to be danced from the inside out

And while I have felt their weight
channeled their movement
You, reader, may never see
the same image as the dancer