dancedition

バレエ、ダンス、舞踏、ミュージカル……。劇場通いをもっと楽しく。

笠井叡 舞踏をはじめて <8>

大野一雄に学び、土方巽と交流を持ち、“舞踏”という言葉を生んだ笠井叡さん。その半生と自身の舞踏を語ります。

Akira Kasai Begins Butoh <8>

Akira Kasai studied under Kazuo Ohno, interacted with Tatsumi Hijikata, and gave birth to the word "butoh". He will talk about his life and his own butoh.

In August 1966, Kasai gave his maiden recital, "Butoh shu, The Crucifixion Virgin" at the Ginza Gas Hall. The program included "The Crucifixion Virgin," "Mother's Costume," "The Dragon's Forest," and others. The production was by Mr. Tatsumi Hijikata, with supporting performances by Mr. Kazuo Ohno and Ms. Tomiko Takai.

I had planned to give my maiden recital by myself, not relying on anyone else. However, Mr. Hijikata said, "I will choreograph it myself". I declined saying, "I appreciate the offer, but I want to do it alone, so this time I will do it......," Then he insisted, saying, "Then I will do the production." So I finally left it to Mr. Hijikata. Then Mr. Ohno said, "I will do the choreography". So I had no choice but to leave it to him, and the first half of the performance was to be choreographed by Mr. Ohno and I danced with Ms. Tomiko Takai, and the second half was to be a duo performance by Mr. Ohno and myself.

Solo performances that lasted only one night were rare at the time. I didn't think much about attracting an audience, but because Mr. Hijikata produced the piece, many distinguished people including Mr. Shibusawa came to the performance.

I had actually planned to dance a solo improvisation. However, I couldn't do the complete improvisation that I had in mind to create movements from scratch, and I couldn't finish what I wanted to do. Mr. Ohno's choreography was a 20-minute solo piece using "Aranjuez Concerto". As I danced on stage, I felt, "This is definitely not going to work". I was devastated by my inability to dance.

When the curtain came down, I could hear the audience screaming. My interpretation was that they were angry because the stage was so terrible. I was in the mindset that I wished the curtain would never come up. When I went out for the curtain call with trepidation, I found myself in a terrible situation: people were stomping on the floor and throwing money toward the stage. I didn't know what had happened. I thought I had failed, but actually I hadn't. Everyone was excited and making a lot of noise. I honestly didn't know what was so popular, and I still don't know. But the audience was happy.

I had a similar experience much later, when I danced a solo in Santiago, Chile, during a tour of South America in 2005. The Japanese embassy in Chile had been damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and we offered free admission as a relief measure. People come more than expected and many of the guests were unable to get into the venue. The atmosphere became violent when people were locked out, and the police had to intervene to stop them. I wondered if we would be able to open the show under such circumstances, but we managed to get the show on the stage.

When the curtain opened again for the curtain call at the end of the performance, the audience went wild. Everyone was so excited that they ran toward the stage. I was surprised by that. But I don't really know why that happened. So for me, I am not really sure what is good and what is not.

In 1967, performances continued: in April, I appeared in "Gessler Teller Group Theory"; in May, I presented "The Story of Miss O" at the 2nd Dance Exhibition produced by Ms. Tomoko Nakamura at the Toshi Center Hall; in July, I appeared in Ms. Tomiko Takai's Butoh performance "Keijijo Gaku".

"Gessler-Tellurian Group Theory” is a stage play directed by Mr. Hironobu Oikawa, with a script written by filmmaker Mr. Tetsuro Onuma and performed by Mr. Hijikata, Mr. Yoshito Ohno, and others.

Mr. Onuma took the stance that “everyone should do as they please,” and he gave us a lot of freedom to do what we wanted. It was a time when the Beatles were popular, and Mr. Hijikata danced a solo to the music “Imagine”.

Mr. Onuma requested, “I want Mr. Kasai to be a Chinese. When I asked him what kind of costumes he wanted, he again said, “Let it be free.” So I chose a woman's Chinese dress. I shouldered and carried a coffin for a child dead body from the audience and danced while opening the coffin. As I found out later, the Chinese Mr. Onuma had in mind was a Chinese hermit. I guess he imagined a Chinese hermit coming back to life in the modern age. However, I was dressed as a woman in Chinese clothing, with my body painted completely white, and I looked like a boy or a girl. I think it was quite different from the image of a hermit that Mr. Onuma had in mind.

The poet Mr. Minoru Yoshioka came to see this performance and was astonished that such a form of performing art existed. For Mr. Yoshioka, this was his first encounter with butoh. Since then, Mr. Yoshioka began to attend butoh performances, and that was the beginning of the relationship between Mr. Yoshikoka and Mr. Hijikata.

“The Story of Mlle. O” is a novel by French writer Pauline Léage, in which a woman named O is the main character. She is put in white makeup and placed as an object, and freely engages in physical relations with the people who come there. It is a form of sexuality that is not normal sexual behavior, but people are free to have it, and there can be infinite variations. It is a very beautiful novel written with a certain romanticism.

I asked Mr. Natsuyuki Nakanishi to do the art. Mr. Nakanishi made my body white and added color to it. To whiten the body is somewhat like dolling or materializing it. In my image, it is more like making the body white and putting makeup on it. At this time, I also danced a solo.

Tomiko Takai's Butoh performance, “Keijijo-Gaku” is based on a poem by Ikuya Kato, and is directed by Mr. Hijikata. The venue is Kinokuniya Hall, and the performers are Ms. Tomiko Takai, Mr. Kazuo Ohno, and Mr. Mitsutaka Ishii, with art by Mr. Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Mr. Akira Shimizu, Mr. Akira Tanigawa, and others.

When putting the names on the posters, Mr. Hijikata said, “Simply writing the names is not interesting. I'll put new stage names on performers”, He said, “I am ‘Nero Hijikata’ after the Roman Emperor Nero, Mr. Ohno is ‘Alexander Ohno,’ Mr. Ishii is ‘Caracalla Ishii,’ and Ms. Tomiko Takai is ‘Cleopatra’. Tomiko is “Cleopatra Takai,” and Mr. Kasai is ’Heliogabalus Kasai,’ the emperor who died at the age of 17. The names on the flyer are also that stage names. The flyer itself was very elaborate, made of silk-screen.

Ms. Takai was a student of Mr. Eguchi, and it was at his laboratory that I met her. Although we were not particularly close, Ms. Takai suddenly asked me, “Would you be interested in performing on my stage?” “What are you going to do?” I asked her, “I want to make the conductor's movements into a dance. Mr. Kasai has unique movements, and I want to put those movements on the stage,”she said. I didn't really get it, so I left the matter unreplied for a while, but she was very persistent. She insisted, “I really want Mr. Kasai to participate,” and we ended up practicing together. The piece, however, we created at that time was a different piece from the conductor's piece, and the new theme she had chosen was “grieving over the death of a child”.

But there was no place to practice. Ms. Takai asked me, “Mr. Kasai, do you have a good place to practice?” and we decided to practice at Mr. Ohno's rehearsal room. However, when Ms. Takai and I were practicing together, Mr. Ohno began to interject, saying, That's not right, you should do it this way”. He would suggest, for example, “Cover the face with plywood, draw a mouth on it, and make it hold a flower, in its mouth,” or “Put a broken human body like a doll in a baby carriage and make it cross the stage”. In the process, Mr. Ohno's sensibilities began to intrude on the performance. However, it seems to have made Ms. Takai feel pleasant, and it seems that the two of them get along very well. This piece was presented in July 1965 as “Nanny Car” at the 4th creative dance performance of the All Japan Art Dance Association.

国分寺にて。妻・久子と

 

Continue to Akira Kasai Begins Butoh <9>.

 

Profile

Akira Kasai

Butoh dancer and choreographer, who became friends with Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno at a young age in the 1960s, and gave numerous solo butoh performances mainly in Tokyo and elsewhere. In the 1970's, operated Tenshikan Butoh dance school where he trained numerous butoh dansers. From 1979 to 1985, studied abroad to study in Germany.Studied Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy and eurythmy. After returning to Japan, he did not perform on stage and was away from the dance world for 15 years, but returned to the stage with "Seraphita". Since then, he has given numerous performances in Japan and abroad, and has been praised as "the Nijinsky of Butoh". His masterpiece "Pollen Revolution" was performed in various cities around the world. He has created works in Berlin, Rome, New York, Angers, the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine de France, and elsewhere. https://akirakasai.com

 

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