The Flowers of "Akusho"－－Japanese Butoh Dancer-choreographer Hata-Kanoko's "Akusho" Aesthetics
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Yu, Yi-Jen
Abstract
Since 1959, the first piece of Butoh in the world Forbbiden Colors (Kinshiki) was premiered by Hijikata Tatsumi (1928-1986) , over the past decades, Butoh has developed into a representative genre of Japanese modern dance and avant-garde theatre, and started to gain its international reputation in 1980s. As the features of traditional Japanese performing art adapted in the body forms make Butoh distinctly “Japanese” to the western audience, the rebellious posture of Butoh also becomes a seeming response to the call of post-modern trend rising in American and European theatre, the “darkness” inside Butoh, which is originally illustrated by Hijikata with the phrase ”eastern north”, came to lost eventually.
In 1998, the student of one of Hijikata’s successors Kuritaro, Japanese Butoh dancer-choreographer Hata-Kanoko made her visit to Taiwan. During the ten years between 1998 and the presentation of her work Fleur du Mal in 2009, she has presented most of her Butoh works in Taiwan under the cooperation with Taiwanese performers. Compared to the mainstream of Butoh that tends towards bourgeois style, Hata-Kanoko refuses any kind of subsidization, insisting on staying in margins with the oppressed, dancing for them and their history. This leftwing marginal political position has become even clearer after she came across Losheng Sanatorium, a former isolated hospital for leprosy patients built in Japanese colonial period whose location is now threatened by the construction of Taipei Metro. The painful memories within these patients’ bodies made Hata-Kanoko confronted the extremity against which she has been trying to fight. Two of her works created after then, including Fleur du Mal, are all about Losheng, for the patients in Losheng, and presented inside the sanatorium.
This study follows Hata-Kanoko’s self interpretation towards Fleur du Mal, using the concept of one kind of special entertainment district in Edo Period Japan “Akusho” to approach Hata-Kanoko’s Butoh works. From this view, we can discover that Hata-Kanoko’s journey to Taiwan and Losheng Sanatorium is not just a coincidence, but a series of movement pursuing the margins, in other word, the “Akusho. Her creation is a practice of summoning, presenting “Akusho”, her Butoh aesthetics can also be demonstrated as “Akusho” aesthetics. The study focuses on the piece celebrating Hata-Kanoko’s tenth anniversary in Taiwan Fleur du Mal, examines both its performed text and the experiences of Taiwanese participants, seeks to explicate the inner textures of Hata-Kanoko’s “Akusho” aesthetics, which may include the traditional Japanese culture of “Akusho”, the booming avant-garde theatre movement in post-war Japan , and Hata-Kanoko’s experience in Taiwan. At last, its purpose would be finding out what these practices has accomplished and explore the possibility of the birth of “Taiwanese Butoh”.
Subjects
Butoh
Hata-Kanoko
Yellow Butterfly Flying to the South Butoh Company
Akusho
Japanese post-war avant-garde theatre
Type
thesis
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