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Special Affects : Compositing Images in the Bodies of Butoh

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Special Affects : Compositing Images in the Bodies of Butoh Special Affects Compositing Images in the Bodies ofBut oh Michael Homblow Submitted in accordance with the regulations for Master of Arts Thesis University of Technology, Sydney 2004 Certificate of Authorship I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as fully acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. Signature of Candidate '<::!-- 1 Acknowledgments Many thanks to my supervisors, Douglas Khan and Cathryn Vasseleu for their incredible patience and invaluable comments - Douglas during the formative phase of the research, and Cathryn for the writing and submission stages later on. I would also like to acknowledge my proofers for their corrections and suggestions (Stephen Gapps, Margaret Mahew, Andrew Hornblow and Stevie Bee). My utmost gratitude goes to the cast and crew of my short film,pneu babe/ (see credits on DVD, inside back cover), as well as my butoh teachers- in particular Min Tanaka, Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, Gekidan Kaitaisha, Tony Yap and Yumi Umiumare. I would also like to acknowledge Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Antonin Artaud, and Tatsumi Hijikata, for inspiring this research. Above all, I am forever indebted to my friends and family, in particular my martial-arts teacher, friend and mentor John Michelis, my confidant and 'wing-man' James Lygo, my parents Andrew and Daphne Horn blow for their tireless support and encouragement, my dear brother Douglas, and my fellow traveler in heart Mariela Laratro. 11 Abstract This thesis examines how the relationship between 'the body' and 'the image' may be understood within the Japanese dance movement called butoh. The aim of the thesis is twofold- to investigate what it means to construct a body specific to butoh, and to consider how the image in butoh may be seen to affect this body. In the first instance, I examine how the materiality of the butoh-body constrains or delimits its expressive capacity. In the second instance, I investigate how the materiality of the butoh-image performs a generative function, to stretch the bounds of this body and the limits of its expression. As far as theorising the butoh-body is concerned, what interests me are the points of confluence that may be explored through the materialist philosophy ofGilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. I seek to demonstrate how the ideas ofTatsumi Hijikata (butoh's eo-founder) may be the discussed through the writing of Antonin Artaud, whose approach to the body influenced both Hijikata and the philosophy ofDeleuze and Guattari. As far as the butoh-image is concerned, I seek to show how Deleuze's cinephi/osophy may also inform an understanding of Hijikata's choreographic method of working with images, called butoh-fu. Here, I develop a conceptual model with which to probe the materiality of the butoh-image and the cinematic qualities of the butoh-body. This twofold approach stems from my own art practice as a filmmaker and performer. The initial impetus for the research emerged through an intensive period ofbutoh dance training, as well as the production of a short film. This film experiments with a dynamic interaction of performers, sculptural elements, plus digital and optical effects. In the thesis, I use the theory of complex systems and the ideas ofDeleuze, Guattari, Hijikata and Artaud, to discuss how the film may be imagined as a 'systemic narrative'. This approach explores the interactions between the filmic elements, to produce the narrative as an ongoing process of construction. This thesis is a work in progress towards two outcomes. The first of these is a diagrammatic model for butoh dance notation, to provide a graphic template for Hijikata's choreographic method. The second is a proposed video-installation, which may further implement the systemic narrative with a technical configuration that corresponds to the diagrammatic model. Through this research, I seek to develop my own praxis, which investigates a systemic approach to the embodiment of the image. 111 List of Illustrations Figure 1. Tatsumi Hijikata choreographing Kohichi Tamano 104 (in Waguri and Kohzensha, 1998). Figure 2. Tatsumi Hijikata, Rebellion ofthe Body, 1969 104 (in Waguri and Kohzensha, 1998). Figure 3. Tatsumi Hijikata, Rebellion ofthe Body, 1969 104 (in Waguri and Kohzensha, 1998). Figures 4- 7. Michael Homblow, video performance, Doujunkai Die, 105 January 2003. Figures 8 - 11. Michael Homblow, Shinjuku I Kabuki-cho street performance, 106 December 2002 I January 2003. Figure 12. Constant Nieuwenhuys, New Baby/on (in Sadler, 1998). 107 Figure 13. Bruegal the Elder, The Tower ofBabe/ 107 (in Steiner, 1975). Figure 14. Gerhardt Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1995 107 (in Obrist, 1996). lV Contents Introduction i. A briefdescription ofbut oh ii. Aims, methods and review 3 iii. Chapter summaries 8 Chapter 1. The butoh-sei of a butoh-bwo 13 A generative limit i. The limit ofcruelty 14 ii. The root ofsuffering 15 iii. lmmanence and difference 16 iv. Emptiness is standing 18 The actual and the virtual i. Shadows in the event 20 ii. Doubling the real 22 iii. Shades ofa dark luminosity 24 iv. The crack in the surface 25 Harnessing the event i. Killing the body 27 ii. Death is living 30 iii. A whirlwind gobbling pain 32 iv. The impersonality ofan impowered dead-body 34 A conceptual model i. Facets ofthe FACE 36 V Chapter 2. The biocine ofbutoh-fu. 40 The image and language i. Catching the sense 41 ii. The metaplastic membrane 44 Percepts and affects i. The skin ofa hitogata 45 ii. Sensations and tactile particles 49 iii. Clay-body 52 Butoh and Cinephilosophy 54 i. Particles ofproprioception 55 ii. Nerve circuits 57 iii. The forgotten landscape 60 iv. A sense ofcrisis 62 Time and thought i. Time dancing 64 ii. The dark crystal 67 iii. The thinking body 69 Chapter 3. pneu babe/ as generative system 73 Systemic narrative i. The premises ofan open set 75 ii. The Hero Chair 77 iii. Vector-particles and wave-forms 78 iv. Warp and woof 81 V. The settler-phantasm 82 vi. Ghosts ofthe pneu 84 Vl IlL Butoh-fu schema i. Towards a generative interFACE 87 ii. Systemic features: a. Vectors cope 88 b. Transforms 91 c. Transfer modes 93 Video-installation 94 i. Platform and tableau 94 ii. Phantasmagorical pandemonium 96 iii. Destroying the tower 97 iv. pneu babe/ 99 Conclusions 100 Butoh Dance Workshops 103 Illustrations 104 Glossary 108 Appendices Conceptual models 123 Butoh-fu 125 The Ohno Studio 129 Bibliography 131 DVD (see inside back cover) ''pneu babef' (8 minutes duration) Vll ..... Introduction The origins and influences of the Japanese dance called butoh often appear as formless and complex as the dance itself. Its period of gestation and emergence in Japan during the 1960's was a tumultuous time of artistic experimentation, alongside other art-historicalluminaries such as the Gutai Group and the Little Theatre Movement. But apart from the popular art-criticism of its post­ apocalyptic aesthetic as a response to the Hiroshima bombing and the political fervour surrounding the Allied occupation, many commentaries often fail to articulate the philosophical undercurrent of its emergence -merely scraping the skin of the 'butoh-body'. The focus of this research is to examine the relationship between what is meant by the 'body' and the 'image' within butoh. Firstly, butoh develops a radical scrutiny of the body's expressive capacity through an interrogation of its materiality. Butoh does not take 'the body' as a given, but goes about constructing a specific butoh-body- seeking to capture its singular butoh-quality, or butoh-sei. 1 Secondly, one of the processes involved in this construction is a choreographic method called butoh-fu, devised by the movement's eo-founder, Tatsumi Hijikata.2 Butoh-fu (translated as 'butoh-score') is defined as a notational system for "physicalising images through words" (Waguri, in Waguri and Kohzensha, 1998).3 This system involves placing images 'inside' or in relation to the butoh-body, while also affecting and transforming this body according to the tactile, temporal or spatial qualities ofthese images. It is the defming characteristics of a butoh-body, in terms of its qualities and methods (butoh-sei and butoh-fu), which constitute the main thrust of this research. i. A briefoverview ofbutoh Butoh is an avant-garde performance movement founded by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno in the late 1950's, both of whom were trained in modem and classical dance but who sought to give their own iconoclastic response to the chaotic times in which they lived. Kazuo Ohno is widely 1 Japanese terms are italicised, except for 'butoh'. 2 See Illustrations ofHijikata performing and choreographing (figures I- 3). 3 Hereafter, Waguri and Kohzensha are given as W&K. All contents in the CD-ROM and booklet, Butoh Kaden (W&K, 1998), are unpaginated (including essays by other butoh-scholars and commentators). 1 recognised as butoh's co~founder, 4 although it was Hijikata who gave the movement its name and a choreographic method (butoh-fu). Hijikata demonstrated a pronounced radicalism, rejecting traditional aesthetics of beauty as well as disciplinary boundaries, seeking to redress the burden of modernism with an intense or primordial state of being, and a capacity for transformation. Although the positing of a signature style is anathema to the spirit of butoh, the hallmarks of Hijikata' s dance were readily apparent in the rawness ofhis first butoh performance, Kinjiki: Forbidden Colors (1959).
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