People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s...
Posted: 10/31/14
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People Are Talking: UMS presents Sankai Juku: UMUSUNA:
Butoh does not contain pirouettes, jazz squares, or beautiful costumes. Instead, brace yourself for shaved heads, sand, screaming, and confusion. While viewers of traditional dance performances respond in awe, viewers of butoh react with shock. In my opinion, Sankai Juku’s butoh performance was not aesthetically pleasing, nor do I think it was meant to be. The dancers made jarring expressions, the intense volume of the music at times hurt my ears, and many of the dance moves were repetitive. However, by doing so, this performance was inherently human. Painted in off-white and sporting shaved heads and exposed upper bodies, the dancers looked as if they had emerged naturally from the earth covered in clay. Without flashy costumes to distract the audience from the dancers’ gestures, it was easier to focus on what the dancers were attempting to convey. The human experience. In the real world, as this performance demonstrated, our appearances are flawed, many sights and sounds can be painful to experience, and many of our actions are repetitive. In one scene, four dancers stood around a stream. They dipped their toes in the water and witnessed their reflections. To me, this scene exhibited curiosity and calmness. The dancers slowly moved around the stream in silence, observing it with intense focus. I viewed their movements similarly – with patience and without distraction.