I never watched Kazuo Ohno dance on stage, not while he was alive. But now I see him in photographs and videos. It’s always very beautiful, and though I cannot explain it well, I feel a certain affinity for the twists and undulations of his movements. It even feels sensual. Maybe I have a similar quality within me?

A star in the modern dance scene in Japan’s post-war era, Kazuo Ohno performed a number of very unique dance works. When he encountered Tatsumi Hijikata, the chemical reaction between the two gave birth to butoh dance. In the ten years following Ohno’s retirement from the stage, he made The Portrait of Mr. O and two other films with director Chiaki Nagano. In 1977, at the age of 72, Ohno made the spectacular comeback to the scene with “Admiring La Argentina”. From then on he went around the world performing and helping the rest of the world discover butoh. He remained active dancing until he passed away in 2010 at the age of 103. Hijikata described Ohno as “dancer of deadly poison, capable of striking with just a spoonful” while others have described his work as a “dance of soul.”

In this performance entitled “About Kazuo Ohno” which has caused a controversy within Tokyo’s dance establishment, I set myself the task of literally “copying” the dance of the butoh master from video recordings of the premiere performances of Ohno’s early masterpieces including “Admiring La Argentina” (1977), “My Mother” (1981), and “Dead Sea, Ghost, Wienerwaltz” (1985).

Usually characterized as largely improvisational, Ohno’s dance is unique not only for his age but also for the distinctive features of his body and movements which are essential to his dance. An attempt to copy his dance as it is, no more no less, means nothing but to suspend whatever interpretation the copier may have as well as his own beliefs, and to project himself onto the forms and shapes of the old dancer as exactly as possible. The closer it gets, however, the clearer the gap becomes, minimum but inevitable no matter how hard he tries to diminish it. The paradox here is that this very gap, nonetheless, highlights the very distinct characteristics of the copier. Copy is original.

The viewer layers the reminiscence of Kazuo Ohno onto my body, and those who don’t know Ohno’s dance, their imagination of it. The multiple images of Ohno and myself merge, surface and recede in turn. “About Kazuo Ohno” is, in a sense, a duet I dance with the illusory image of Kazuo Ohno.

For a better understanding of the piece,

The soundtracks for the dances are from the original video recordings of Kazuo Ohno’s premier performances of the respective show.

During the decade proceeding the premier of Admiring La Argentina, Kazuo Ohno collaborated with the Japanese avanguard filmmaker Chiaki Nagano to create three 16mm films the first of which is entitled The Portrait of Mr. O (1969), followed by The Mandala of Mr. O (1972) and The Book of the Dead of Mr. O (1985). It is said that during this period Kazuo Ohno was searching for his own style of Butoh. The opening scene of Kawaguchi’s performance has been inspired by the concept of the films and what they represent in regards to his career rather than Ohno’s actual acting in the films.

In the video scene of this piece, the hand puppet of Kazuo Ohno is manipulated by his son Yoshito Ohno. It was recorded at Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio, located in Yokohama, japan.

Scene titles of About Kazuo Ohno are:

0- The Portrait o Mr. O (1969)
1- Death and Birth, from Admiring La Argentina (1971)
2- The Fetus’ Dream, from My Mother (1981)
3- The Gipsy Baron’s March, from Dead Sea, Winner Walzer, and Ghosts (1985)
4- The Episode of the Creation of Heaven and Earth, from Dead Sea, Winner Walzer, and Ghosts (1985)
5- Dream of Love, from My Mother (1981)
6- Puppet (video)
- intermission -
7- Daily Bread, from Admiring La Argentina (1971)
8- The Marriage of Heaven and Earth, from rom Admiring La Argentina (1971)
9- Tango - Flower, from Admiring La Argentina (1971)
10- Tango - Bird, from Admiring La Argentina (1971)
11- Chopin, from My Mother (1981)

I have never learned butoh before. I didn’t get a chance to watch Tasumi Hijikata or even Kazuo Ohno on stage before they died. Rather, across the many years of my career, I’ve dedicated myself to creating stage performance pieces in fields closer to what’s called “media arts” or “performance theater.” Perhaps my aspirations to work freely across many genres are what pushed me in that direction. My focus has always been on the relationship between my self and space outside. In 2012, I had an opportunity to develop a piece based on the texts of Tatsumi Hijikata, Yameru Maihime (La Danseuse Malade / The Ailing Dance Mistress). This was my first contact with butoh, but my approach was still extroverted. But, I’ve reached a point now where any movement forward requires my stepping into the real of the interior, into the relationship between the mind and the body. This is what has made me want to get in touch with and look into butoh, especially what they call the Kazuo Ohno’s “dance of soul.”

It is over half a century since butoh was born through the encounter between Tasumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno across the 1950s and ‘60s. Today this form of dance art has spread throughout the world, influencing and inspiring many artists in butoh and beyond. It seems the genre is regaining attention in the international contemporary dance scene at the moment, with choreographers such as Boris Charmatz and Xavier Le Roy—just to name a few—creating works inspired by and/or with reference to the butoh. Now, however, with the death of both Hjikata (1986) and Ohno (2010), the original form of the art cannot be witnessed any more, and those who have direct experience of the form are fewer and fewer. Young people, especially, cannot have had that kind of direct experience. Now or never, I thought, if I want to inherit the rich, fertile ground of body exploration that Hijikata and Ohno left to us.

In 1977 after a decade of silence, Kazuo Ohno re-debuts in the dance scene at the age of 72 with La Argentina Sho (Admiring La Argentine), followed by two more masterpieces: My Mother (1981) and Dead Sea, Ghost and Winnerwaltz (1985). The one who directs Ohno’s shows is none but Tatsumi Hijikata. A fertile ground is born where two opposite currents meet, that’s where those masterpieces were created, and from there Ohno sets off to the international scene and tours around the world until he dies in 2010 at the age of 103. It was there in those works, I believe, where butoh reached a point of completion of its original form, in a sense. Of course, butoh, in the hands of Ohno’s and Hikikata’s many followers, keeps growing and developing in many different directions. Soon after this re-encounter between Ohno and Hikikata, the latter dies, and this collaboration between the two butoh masters comes to an end. Yet, it is precisely this fertile ground of butoh to which I return—to engage in the heretical act of copying.

My approach was to literally copy Ohno’s dance from the video recordings of the premiere performances of his three masterpieces. In copying from video recordings that are themselves copies—or perhaps even copies of copies of copies, I work in direct violation of what the Master meant when he said “if there is the heart, the form will follow.” Despite the fact that Ohno’s inner world (his soul, emotions, heart) is what has been considered essential and integral to his expression of dance, to Ohno’s “dance of soul,” I marginalize such subjectivity to embrace the abject copy. Also rejecting the traditional concept of “kata” or ideal form in Japanese traditional aesthetics, I focus instead on the very tangible forms on the video screen, and wear them as if putting an armor or a costume on my body. Putting it in another way, I fit my body into such forms like pouring hot iron into the mold. As heretic, I challenge Kazuo Ohno on the outside, from the outside.

If Butoh, as Hijikata says, is about “becoming” something other than yourself (in this case, it is to become Kazuo Ohno), first of all, in order to “become” something, one ought to empty one’s self. In the process of rehearsing, I thought: Without ridding of my “self” and offering my body as an empty vessel for “it” to come and inhabit within, I won’t be able to become “it”. I can do nothing else but persist loyally copying/building the form/vessel, and wait for Ohno to inhabit my body. It will be only then and there that we might be possibly be open to perceive the electro-magnetic waves coming from the universe of the now-defunct Butoh guru, Kazuo Ohno.

The Portrait of Mr. O, (a 1969 film by Chiaki Nagano)
La Argentina Sho (Admiring La Argentina) (1977): “La Divine” and “The Food of Everyday Life” scenes
My Mother (1981), the scenes of “The Dreams of the Foetus”, “Dream of
Love”, and the scene of two tangos and the piano of Frederic Chopin
Dead Sea, Ghost, Wiennerwaltz (performed in 1985 in Geneva), scenes of “The Ghost” and the Mass

Choreography: Kazuo Ohno and Tastumi Hijikata
Dance: Takao Kawaguchi
Dramaturge, Visual and Sound: Naoto Iina
Costumes: Kitamura Noriko
Lighting: Toshio Mizohata
Appearance in Video: Yoshito Ohno
Archive materials courtesy of Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and Dance Archive Network
Production management : Toshio Mizohata

Duration: Approx. 110 mins with an intermission
This performance premiered in August 2013 at the Dance ga Mitai! Festival, d-Warehouse, Tokyo, and then staged again in October 2013 at Kazuo Ohno Festival, BankART Studio, Yokohama.