笠井叡　舞踏をはじめて　＜20＞

Akira Kasai Begins Butoh <20>

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 October 1981, in the second year of the Stuttgart Eurhythmium, the company decided to tour all over Japan. I participated as a member of the stage group.　

The Eurythmy school had a stage group attached to it, and I had the opportunity to perform on the stage often while I was still in school.The stage group also performs overseas, and I have come to Japan with them on their Japan tour. Ms. Roku Hasegawa was the organizer of the tour, and as one of the producers, I was assigned to act as a bridge between Japan and the group.

When the Japan tour was decided, we discussed the possibility of inviting Mr. Ohno, my Japanese teacher, to join us, so he and Else Klinck, the head of the Eurythmy School, decided to dance together in a workshop.The venue for the workshop was Studio 200 at the Ikebukuro Seibu.

Ms. Else is an instructor of eurythmy and I have leaned from her. Ms. Else's father is Dutch and her mother is a local from Borneo.When Borneo was a Dutch colony, her father met her mother there and she was born.Her father wanted to raise her in Europe, so he took her back to the Netherlands by boat taking many months.Therefore, unlike a native German, Ms. Else had a face that was a mix of European and Asian, and had a unique atmosphere.

During her visit to Japan, she visited Sendai, Kyoto, Kyushu, and other cities in Japan in addition to Tokyo.The venue for the Tokyo performance was the Nippon Seinenkan.Ms. Else danced a solo word eurythmy, the stage group danced Beethoven's Spring Sonata for violin, and I danced a Japanese haiku in eurythmy.That was the first time Ms. Else danced in Japan.Mr. Ohno was going to perform with Ms. Else in a workshop, so he thought he would read through a lot of material before going on stage.But when I asked him about it later, he told me that he had lost the materials.

I think it was the first time for the audience to see eurythmy. At the time, Steiner's pedagogy was just beginning to attract attention in Japan, and the number of people interested in eurythmy as the most important educational process in the classroom was increasing. However, few people in the dance world, such as butoh dancers and ballet dancers, were interested in eurythmy.

Graduated from the Stuttgart Eurhythmium after a four-year course. I began working as part of a stage group.

In their final year, students present a piece of eurythmy as their graduation project.

I presented two works.The first was a solo piece using the piano piece "Kozto" based on Bartók's symphony, which Bartók liked because of its Eastern European earthly power, oriental sentiment, and gypsy music influence. The other was a work of words, using the German poet Novalis's "Hymn to the Night".

There are three main paths for students who graduate from school: those who join stage groups, those who become educators, and those who use eurythmy in therapy. I joined the stage group as a natural progression, having attended their performances since I was a student.

It is a tradition at the school that several graduates join the stage group each year, and I joined the group with three of my classmates.It is like a ballet school where graduates join a ballet company attached to the school.There are about 20 members in the stage group.Some of the teachers who taught us at the school also belong to the group. The number of performances is about 50 stages a year, and the annual program is usually fixed which include annual - repertory - like pieces and some new pieces. There are various solo and group pieces, but I usually perform solo.One of the reasons for this was that it would not look good physically to have an Asian among the Europeans, and I think I danced to Schubert's music most of the time.

If I was not extravagant, I was paid enough to make a living from the stage group activities alone.I was with the stage group for three years.To be honest, I had no intention of staying with the group forever, but I intended to make it one of my experiences. It was a time when I was very troubled. I had no intention of going back to Butoh, and I also wondered if I could do something in the world of eurythmy, so I was in a kind of limbo.

In the case of ballet, for example, various works are created based on the physical training and techniques that have been cultivated in the traditional style of classical ballet. However, what I encountered at the age of 19 at Mr. Ohno's place was the exact opposite: improvised movements that did not involve any physical training, but simply transformed what was happening inside me into movement. I was always unsure how to combine these two different things, style and improvisation, in my mind.

Given two opposing styles, classical style and improvisation, one would normally choose one or the other. However, I seem to have a greedy streak and want to master both. If I enter the world of classical world, I will build my body in that style until I am satisfied with it, and if I enter the world of improvisation, I will pursue it until I am satisfied with it. If I don't pursue both, I will not be able to find what I want to do. I don't know if this is good or bad, but I think it is my characteristic.

I was in Germany for six years, from 1979 to 1985. What I ended up gaining there was an awakening to the power of words and music. In the case of classical ballet, a work cannot be created without the use of pa, and I cannot explore my own movements on my own.

In contrast, eurythmy pursues a new classical form, and since it moves by putting stylized words into one's own body, it starts with form. Once the form is determined, one can gradually acquire the energy that flows within it.But not the other way around. Without form, we cannot awaken to the power of words. In Germany, I immersed myself in the form from morning to night.At first I could only understand the form, but gradually the flow of the power of the form began to emerge. For six years, I was immersed in the world of form.It was six years of being in the movement of form.

I could contact with new parts of the body that I could not have known in Japan.I had the feeling that there was a way to go to the deepest part of the human body, not through classical ballet, but through a completely different path.That was the most significant thing I gained in Europe.The reason I felt the urge to return home was because I could certainly hold that within me.I feel very happy that I was able to acquire the neo-classical power of eurythmy in my body.

Continue to Akira Kasai Begins Butoh <21>.

 

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