RR: Hi, Hiroko. I recently saw you in The Jaws of All Are Red With Gore! [a collaboration between drag performer Silk Worm, movement artist Frank Leasing, and Hiroko Tamano]. I have attended a num- ber of Bare Bones Butoh shows over the years. And I’m guest-editing the Dancers’ Group publication In Dance . The theme of the next issue is “go back and get it.” Or, how do we engage with our past to shape the future? Would you be interested in contributing a piece of writing? What is on your heart and mind at the moment?
and practice potlucks. Why do I want to find a writer on YOUR page? To capture your thoughts! Who are you? What lights you up? Where do you want to go? I am moved to draw out this dancing Hiroko voice. 2 The equal point of dance is the start and end. The drop out of the womb. The drop dead. 3 100 years from now I imagine the bog buck moth will have flickered out. Their wings, like their habitat– the once flourishing bog buckbean fields–dust. And so it goes in the dance of life. One sheds, one exits, one adapts. Your turn! How would you answer your own questions (and a few others)? HT: 1 What makes you want to step out on the written page? When making a dance piece, words and noise-sounds build im- ages inside dancers’ bodies. Each alphabet has its own world. When the alphabets connect, they produce a common meaning. (It is a kind of Chemistry.)
3 100 years from now. What can you imagine of our World, our life?
Nutritious water lets the innocent seeds wake up.
Eager to exist like weeds. Dandelion! Wanna take a seat where you’re sprayed with the splashed water by a thirsty wolf.
As far as following those words and sentences, what makes everything connected?
8 Why are Butoh and Drag perfor- mance wonderful compliments?
Originally, there is no such thing as something belonging to something. Each and every life respects its own dew drop like life.
Vibrations )))))))))))))) That’s it!
Good & Bad are equal. So, carry no judgment. Zen-zen! (none at all).
Both have honesty and myth.
When I say something, the sound releases into the air and keeps spread- ing. Even though it gets thinner and harder to hear, the waves keep going. Finally, it reaches the skin of our Universe and bounces back.
RR: I love your Japanese lessons. More please! Are there characters for Honesty? Myth? Butoh? Drag? HT: Drag: 薬・ Inside of bushy tree, there is a happy bird singing. くすり・ This weekend we will review Koichi Tamano’s choreographed work “Swamp” (1979). We plan to dedicate it to SF Zen Center’s first annual Butoh & Zen Event.
The morals are in common. Trust leads to peace of mind.
What about many stories from masses of bodies?
4 Where does movement begin and end?
From the beginning, why do we have a body?
The sound keeps traveling back across the Universe and reaches me.
Starts at the birth of our
When light moves, shadows change the form to a two dimensional world.
Universe. Ends when the perfect silence meets the pure black space.
It takes about 200 years, about 7 generations of human life.
HT: Good questions read out good answers.
In our daily life, those strange two dimensional lives are connected to three dimensional objects. When I walk down a street, my shadow con- nects to the shadow of a tree on a sidewalk. So, I extend this black flat myself into Tree.
5 What is the origin of Butoh?
200 years later, my human body is already gone, so the sound affects my 7th generation children. I look back on my fortunate life. 200 years ago, who was my ancestor who said the words of love? On the other hand, misfortunes might be an appeal from our ancestors. It must be solved. That is why chant- ing prayers keeps existing for thou- sands of years. Panting happily, a girl shakes her body, seems to have just arrived over a desert.
I have questions for you.
Sincerity, Sympathy & Care. 愛 (ai): 3 legs spiral up to Heart (心). The 3 legs are Past, Present & Future. 心 ( kokoro) is the spinning disk in side of our chest. It has 3 fire flames: one in the center, and the right and left end have one each. When the 3 spaces and times spiral up into the heart, strong beams are released above. Put yourself on the beam.
1 What makes you want to step out into the wild field to find a writer on your page? 2 Dancing has lots of different forms, but what is the equal point? 3 Our World has been changing so much in the last 200 years, 100 years, 50 years, 30 years, 10 years even. 100 years from now, what can you imagine of our World, our life?
Hiroko
< Nice Rain Today
RR: It was wonderful attending the first-ever butoh performance at the Zen Center. My friend who is a Zen practitioner was really excited about bringing in a butoh performance because she said there is so much sitting in Zen practices, but not that much movement. How could this joint meeting open up both butoh and Zen practices, do you think?
Then, both agree we are the same.
Rewind: Three dimension – Two dimension – One dimension – Zero dimension…
Forward: Three dimension – Four dimension…
6 How have you resettled Butoh in the Bay Area?
Try to imagine a four dimensional myself.
Hiroko:
Writing letters is good practice for Dancing & Life.
HT: Thank you for sending Wind to me.
RR: OK, this is exactly why I invited you to write – you challenge me! 1 What makes me want to step out into the wild field to find a writer on my page? We cut across diverse dance land- scapes and encourage new growth on these pages. The community is invited in through the kitchen door where they see dance makers’ raw ingredients–fresh verbs, process
In 1976, the “Japan Now’’ exhi- bition at SFMOMA was the first BUTOH appearance in the USA, by Koichi Tamano. In 1979, we settled in Berkeley, CA. So many people support each other…ALL we were YOUNG!
Three dimensional me must be a kind of shadow of the four dimensional me. It may be a floating Amoeba, a space Fungus. While sleeping, dreaming, imagin- ing, meditating…we travel through our own dark space to go somewhere or to something. Unexpected visitors come. Fifth dimension! Oh! I don’t know. Telepathy might be common sense there.
Words fall into the infinite depth of her body.
2 Dancing has lots of forms, but what is the equal point?
Writing is awakening my brain.
From the depth, words rise up, meta- morphose into many different matters. Strangely her body blows and shrinks. View “fissioning Moon” again & again = view my body getting kneaded up from one cell…then find the extraordinarily miserly in the back- room of a sheep-pen.
Dancers’ soles are on the Earth. Dancers’ heads are pointed to the sky. Gravity holds the dancer’s body on the surface (skin) of the Earth. And at the same time, an anti- gravity wave released from the core of this planet waves through the dancer’s body and extends out to outer space.
Zen Center’s gig was very good timing.
It was a clear step for each person. Zen is mindful and But-Oh! is windful.
7 What are your hopes for the future of Butoh?
Zen is a wild thing originally. Hi . I will send you more very soon. [later that night. Subject line “BUTOH:”]
Soil starts absorbing spring-sun and melted snow water. Winter snow melts, changes shapes and disappears.
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WINTER 2023 in dance 9
in dance WINTER 2023
In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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