Ah, and that should be Sankai Juku, not Senkai Juku.

I was pleasantly surprised by Senkai Juku’s ability to combine the beautiful and the grotesque into a powerful performance. I found their minimal set and use of sand to be particularly impressive. The continuous stream of sand filling the stage was very striking, and the large sanded areas reminded me of Zen gardens, the dancers bodies creating the garden patterns. I’m unsure of the intentionality of that, but with Japan’s history of Zen Buddhism, I found it plausible. An audience member near me, who was Buddhist, also commented that many of the dancers’ movements resembled Buddhist prayer and meditation poses, a thought that also ties nicely into the show’s themes of life and death. The dancers interactions with the sand (rolling, running, sifting through it) also suggested an intimacy with the environment or a “dialogue with gravity” in an elegant way, while the streaming sand made time a omnipresent force of its own. They connoted much with a minimalist set—very impressive. And while I found the moments of more meditative movement to be extremely beautiful, the grotesque, ridiculous aspects of the dance were equally striking. Those rapid, almost violent sequences and gaping mouths combined with the show’s moments of peace to suggest the beauty and absurdity of life and death in a succinctly powerful way.
I couldn’t help but try and imagine what it would be like to be a Butoh dancer, as the performance seemed to be quite a transformative experience for the dancers. As a woman, however, I had to wonder: why is Butoh traditionally performed with male dancers? Will Senkai Juku or other modern Butoh dance companies ever incorporate female dancers in the future, or does tradition trump inclusivity? Overall, a wonderful, powerful performance.