The meeting between Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen, a curious note.

Hans Christian Andersen

Henrik Ibsen

In Ibsen’s Biography by Michael Meyer, Meyer reconstructs a curious meeting in London between two giants of Literature, Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen. The whole text is a curiosity, it depicts very well, in a real situation, those two extreme personalities, that child-like and frivolous Andersen and the reasonable and self-assured Ibsen, but also is full of simple funny anecdotic details which make reading literature (or theatre) history a big pleasure:


"Hans Andersen was eager to meet the new dramatist, having apparently forgotten their brief encounter in 1852. On 11 August (1870) he noted in his diary: "Fru Melchior told me that the poet Ibsen was dinning today with Carl Bloch, and expressed surprise that I had not been invited. I was put in a bad humor by the thought of how little attention B.  had paid to me." "I wasn't there," he wrote the next day to Henriette Collin, "but would have liked to have been invited, to see at last this Norwegian poet who doesn't like the Norwegian." A week later he got his wish, when Moritz Gerson Melchior, a politician in whose eighteenth-century house overlooking the Sound Andersen had, by generous arrangement, a permanent suite of three or four rooms, gave a party for the two writers. Andersen tried to prepare himself for the meeting with a little homework, and the result depressed him. "Read Peer Gynt," he noted in his diary fro 18 August, "which is written by a mad poet. One goes crazy oneself reading this book. The poetry isn't good either, there is something sick and distraught about the whole thing. Am sorry I read it, as Ibsen is coming here this evening fro the first time. I've never seen him; he's said to be taciturn and gloomy." But the occasion passed off unexpectedly well, for the diary continues: "After dinner he arrived with Bloch, and made a good impression … He talked well and amiably. We all liked him."

Andersen's diary conceals how close the evening came to being a disaster. According to John Paulsen, who had the story from Ibsen himself:

"Many of the city's most notable personages were among the guests. Everyone had arrived and was ready to sit down, but no Andersen descended from his room upstairs. A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour; a nervous restlessness settled on the company, and the hostess looked unhappy. Message after message was sent up, but he still did not appear. The hostess quietly went upstairs, but returned with a more worried expression than before. he would not come down. No one said anything to the guest of honor, but Ibsen sensed what was afoot. Andersen did not like to be with people of whose sympathy he was not sure. When people mentioned strange authors he would naïvely ask: "Does he admire me?" The atmosphere grew more embarrassed. It was now three-quarters of an hour past the appointed time for supper. The host and hostess were at loss what to do. Were they to sit down without Andersen?
Then Ibsen saved the situation. He took his host aside and asked to be allowed to go up to Andersen's room and speak with him. The host nodded and showed him the way. A minute after, to the joyful surprise of the company, the two great writers entered the room arm in arm, Andersen evidently deeply moved, smiling through his tears. He was like a small child who has got his way.
"But what happened between you and Andersen in his room?" I asked Ibsen. Ibsen smiled at the memory. "I embraced him and paid him a casual compliment. He was moved and, as he returned my embraced asked, 'Then, you really like me?'" Ibsen added: "It was one of the pleasantest evenings I have ever known. Andersen could be lovable and entertaining as few other men when he wanted to be."

Andersen was delighted with his new acquaintance. He wrote to a friend that he had found Ibsen "very amiable, unassuming and pleasant. I like him a lot, but Peer Gynt not at all."

*Ibsen Biography. Michael Meyer. Page 323.
 

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Exploring Internal Body Zones (Zonas del Cuerpo). Video 3. Neck and Seventh Zone.

Working with body zones: Neck and Seventh zone (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

This is the fourth of a series of posts where I expose videos (recorded by me) showing the acting exploration of different Body Zones (Zonas del Cuerpo) and combinations of them.

Those who already know about González Caballero's acting method will understand what I meant with Zonas del Cuerpo, but those who don't know anything about this acting method maybe it is better first to go to this link and take a little look (it is in Spanish): http://agcmetodo.blogspot.com/2007/04/el-apoyo-zonas-del-cuerpo-el-cuerpo.html.

If you want to see the last post of this series, follow the links bellow:

- Sexual and Seventh zones: http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2011/11/exploring-internal-body-zones-zonas-del.html

- Chest and Seventh zones: http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2011/11/exploring-internal-body-zones-zonas-del_24.html

- Head and Seventh zones: http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2011/12/exploring-internal-body-zones-zonas-del.html

The process of this exploration is very simple: in front of the camera, and only my face, I must work in the inner concentration of one Body Zone (Zona del Cuerpo), with different levels and positions within the same zone, then I combine it with another zone (in this case the seventh zone, known as the crown, the only one with which all zones in this exploration will be combined).

As the only thing exposed on screen will be my face, no other part of the body will react to the impulse coming from the concentration on the body zone, only the face.

These videos are also part of my Butoh Vlog (http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/p/gustavo-thomas-butoh-vlog.html ) therefore it is important to clarify that I'm not listening to any piece of music during the explorations or recordings, nor any movement within the space will be the goal (as it is in Butoh). Even when that could mean for someone that it would not be Butoh, I still considered this exploration as part of my training in this discipline because I'm working with inner images and impulses with muscle movement as reaction of it, and that's one of its principles.

I believe the results (and the process itself) of these explorations will be very interesting for those who want to follow them, watching, studying or carrying out the exploration as well. For myself I'm opening another door in my own acting work, and I'm sure it will be the same for others who want to venture into this acting method and its infinite possibilities for exploration.

Gustavo Thomas Butoh Vlog (Oct 26, 2011): Internal Body Zones Training Part 4. Neck and Seventh Zone. (NO SOUND) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.
Gustavo Thomas Butoh Vlog (Oct 26, 2011):

Internal Body Zones Training Part 4: Neck and Seventh Zone.

Working with Internal Body Zones (Zonas del cuerpo). This time working with Neck and Seventh zone, the crown (Zona de la cabeza y séptima zona).
Diferent positions concentrating attention inside the zone. From intensity in low level till climax and back to low level.

This is part of a daily training, I don't have any aesthetic goal in doing it (even when using a video effect or choosing a particular part of that training).
This is a document of my daily artistic life.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Butoh Workshop With Jocelyne Montpetit in Montreal, Québec.

Gustavo Thomas and Jocelyne Montpetit. Montreal, Québec. 2011.

The decision to travel to Montreal was clear: Yoshito Ohno would perform at L’Agora de la Danse and I wanted to see him on stage; as I knew Jocelyne Montpetit lived there, I hoped that she could give one of her workshops during the period that master Ohno would be performing.  And so it was, as part of a 4 weekend workshop, I took 4 very productive sessions (two weekends).

It is known that if one does not work with a teacher (whether it be Jocelyne Montpetit or Yoshito Ohno) a longer time, like at his/her studio every day, for example, there is a danger that each of those "short" workshops that one is taking in this or that place could be the same as others you have already taken before. I did not consider it such a big problem in my case. I'm still in the very base of the pedagogical work of Butoh and a renewal of what I had taken with Montpetit would be a reinforcement, or at least one good review.

I'll do a simple (but not hollow) description of the 4 sessions, because I wanted to include them all in this post:

The sessions were conducted in an imposing building, the old library of Montreal city, today the offices of the National Arts Council, in one of several studios or rehearsal rooms that are very well adapted for performing arts works.

Ancient Montreal Library. 2011.

Ancient Montreal Library. 2011.

Jocelyne Montpetit was usually there before our sessions, rehearsing or working with others students. Close before 3 pm she would come to greet us and invite us to enter to the classroom.

Each session lasted 2 hours, from 3PM to 5 PM and there was always music to work.  Jocelyne usually gave an indication with a very small theoretical framework or story according to the objective of the exercise to come. Her comments after each exercise were always general (perhaps another story concerning the purpose of the exercise), and only in very special cases were there comments directed at a specific person.


Session 1: Golden threads, wind blows and eyes on the forearms.


- Walking with the image of golden threads which pull from the center of the body and arms (a thread in each finger) to the sky and, once we are at the highest point, on the verge of crashing down, the same golden threads pull us down, taking all our body (and fingers) to the ground.

- Walking while the wind hits parts of our body. We would have to open the body itself to the wind, as if there was a hole in our torso where the wind could pass. This was an idea of Kazuo Ohno: "open the body."

- Walking as if blind: our eyes in the head do not work anymore, our eyes are now in the forearms, and they lead our walking. We move towards where our eyes in the forearms look. Jocelyne asks us to walk in different levels, to the sky and to the ground. Our movement is slow, careful, gentle. For the first time I have a much more sensitive perspective of Maeterlinck's play "Les aveugles".

The exercises are long, a long time is dedicated to each one of them. Jocelyne, during the exercise, approaches and sometimes gives directions, sometimes touching parts of our body and provoking a different movement, more directed at what she believes is the purpose of the exercise. Sometimes, very rarely, someone in the group speaks or even complains about an indication, but that is exceptional, generally all our work is silent.

The music is varied and uniquely beautiful, profound and inspiring: Arvo Pärt, Maria Callas, Jessy Norman, some pieces of Latin Blues, Fado, and so on.

Jocelyne likes to work in groups.  The same exercise is repeated in small groups, dividing the whole group in two, or all together with a final indication of movement, as if she were directing a choreography.

Butoh workshop with Jocelyne Montpetit. Montreal. 2011.

Session 2: A sheet of silk in the hands, a soap bubble that should not be broken, the blind and the wind blows again.
 

- Moving with a sheet of silk in our hands, an imaginary sheet of silk with a small bubble in the middle. Our feet are as soft as the silk in our hands. Jocelyne talks about Noh theater and tells us about that child that had to learn to walk smoothly for years to make his debut, coming and going unnoticed for an entire 5-hour performance.

- Walking with a large soap bubble in the hands, a continuous movement with that bubble in different levels of high. Attention to the other soap bubbles, some are already on the ground and we should avoid breaking them. There should be an exaggerated attention to the whole space, the space itself is a soap bubble, we must avoid breaking the space.

Jocelyne recalls how in Japan, waiting for an appointment with an blind acupuncturist, there was a child playing quietly in the middle of the waiting room; when the blind acupuncturist opened the door and came forward, he gently stopped when he felt the child playing on the floor, then continued walking around the boy... With that attention we should move throughout the space.

- Walking as if blind with our eyes on the forearms again: we did it alone, in small groups, with the entire group split in two.

- Walking with the wind hitting us. Again we work in small groups, different levels of wind force hitting us; at times the wind pushes a particular part (the shoulder, for example), then the whole torso, sometimes we fall to the ground because of the power of the wind blowing; when we come back to walk, we do it facing it, its force against us.

Butoh workshop with Jocelyne Montpetit. Montreal. 2011.

Session 3: Bones movement, a carp moving inside our body, a million small flowers on the ground, and Ophelia with long hair, moved by the river flow.
 

- All movement start where our joints begin. Hijikata called it "movement of the bones". One special way to move, a way of being fully present during the movement. The idea of moving from the joints is not a technical idea, it is not a doll or robot that moves, we would have to find the soul of the movement of the bones.

As to being present while moving, Jocelyne recalls that Kazuo repeated the same question to his students during the improvisations: "Where are you? Where are you?”.

- Being moved by a carp swimming in our body. This is another story of Kazuo’s: when Kazuo’s mother was dying, she told him she felt something like a carp moving inside throughout her body; without thinking about it, she had taught Kazuo a new way of moving on stage. A carp should lead our movement.

- As we move we have to avoid crushing a million tiny flowers in the ground, we should be delicate and light. It is an image by Hijikata, to silence the movement of the body.

- Walking mixing the inner movement of the carp, and avoiding crashing that million tiny flowers.

The music, as usual, is deep, sensitive, charming. The energy is perceived in all of us; my walking is very delicate and sensitive, emotions run freely.

The difficulty of working with these two images is part of the challenge of the Butoh conceived by Hijikata: Multiple images provoking different movements simultaneously. Jocelyne remembers that one of Hijikata’s collaborators was able to manage up to 60 images in one sequence.

Jocelyne speaks about images and mixes that word with "visions"; sometimes images are visions, sometimes visions are images.

- We are Ophelia, Shakespeare’s Ophelia (even though our images inevitably are mixed with those by the painters who have also recreated the character). In the river, inside the water our immensely long hair is pulled by the river flow. There is no acting, but living the image. The music by Arvo Pärt, so beautiful, creates a blast of emotion, mixed with the strength of Shakespeare’s scene.

Jocelyne splits the group in two, women and men; one group watches the other. She loves how our movements look.

Gustavo Thomas. Butoh workshop with Jocelyne Montpetit. Montreal. 2011.
.

Session 4: A "Dandelion", moving bones, the carp, a million flowers, and Ophelia who dies again.
 

- We have to become a dandelion and use the onomatopoeia "Puff!" as an idea of expanding the body, exactly as dandelion expands when the natural time comes. A long exercise, with enough time to feel the flower, its characteristics, giving time for dilatation, for “expansion”, for that "Puff!".

- Moving the bones, leaving the bones move the body; lightening the body while walking.

Hijikata said that a butohka’s body should be like a corpse, a dead body that gets its life on the move.

- The carp moves us, swimming within our body; and walking on those millions of tiny flowers that we do not want to crush.

Repeating the same exercise, but never repeating it, each time we have to search for the life of the movement, feeling the carp once and a thousand times.

I remembered watching and enjoying some carps swimming at a little pond inside  a restaurant in Kyoto, and also, during my movement I recalled another carp, at the beautiful pond of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, drawing a curved line in the water before coming to me and opening its mouth asking me for food.

Jocelyne talks about images, visions, about different ways of seeing life. She recalled another myth about Hijikata: he used to chose his collaborators depending on their poetic vision of the world; he showed them a bowl of miso soup and asked what they saw there, and depending of their response he worked with them or not; if they saw a bowl of soup, they were rejected, if they saw images or symbols, they were accepted. A myth, explains Montpetit, but a myth that exemplifies the need for a poetic vision in the Butoh artist.

- Ophelia turned out to be an exercise of almost a whole hour. Her long hair was hit by the current and carried as far as possible. As this was the second time doing it, we could spend more energy in the movement of the river flow over our long hair. A very sensitive exercise, but long, tedious at times, perhaps an endless movement. Tabula Rasa by Arvo Pärt made it feel epic, tragic.

Jocelyne again insisted on splitting the group in men and women, watching each other; then all together but in a certain position. Was she already staging something or only doing something for her personal enjoyment? I don’t know and I didn’t ask her.

That was the final exercise, and it a very good end.

Jocelyne Montpetit and Gustavo Thomas at the end of the
Butoh workshop. Montreal. 2011.

I returned to Toronto with the idea of retaking my daily training with all that I could assimilate during those 10 days in Montreal, but it wasn’t possible: the Ophelia exercise left a physical sequel in me, an neck injury that has lasted more than a month (with several visits to the doctor). No problem, I’ve been waiting for many years to be free and create through Butoh, now I can spend some holidays resting and thinking about everything. In Spanish we say:  “Esos son los gajes del oficio”. (*)

(*) Which translates literally as “Those are the perks of the trade”, although it’s meaning is closer to “It comes with the job”.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Ibsen at War: "My book is poetry; and if isn't, it will become such."

Ibsen's original draft of Peer Gynt. Act V. (Photo from H. Ibsen Biography by Michael Meyer.)

After the publication of Peer Gynt in 1867, in his motherland, Ibsen was attacked as no other author before, attacked because of his style of poetry, his subjects and his strange idea of theatricality (even when Peer Gynt wasn’t conceived for the stage). But that wasn’t the Ibsen of some years before, immature and choleric, who didn’t know how to reply any attack; Italy, the exile and the success of his “Brand” had given to him a self-assurance that nobody in Norway could brake in the future.

After Peer Gynt was published Henrik Ibsen has become a monster.

The next is an extract of a letter to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (December 9, 1867) as a reply of all those critics:

"Dear Bjørnson, (…) My book is poetry; and if isn't, it will become such. The conception of poetry in our country, in Norway, shall shape itself according to this book. (…) However, I am glad that this injustice has been flung at me; it is sign of divine aid and dispensation; anger increases my strength. If there is to be war, then let there be war! If I am not a poet, what I have to lose? I shall try my hand as a photographer, I shall deal with my contemporaries up there, each and all of them, one by one, as I have dealt with these language reformers; I shall no spare the child in its mother's womb, nor any thought nor feeling that may have motivated the actions of any man who shall merit the honor go being my victim. (…) Do you know that all my life I have turned my back on my parents, on my whole family, because I could not bear to continue a relationship based on imperfect understanding?"(1)

Ibsen is capable to assure that his own text would become in Norway the concept of poetry itself (and it was almost true), and it wasn’t what his critics called errors and mistakes. Who can assure that?

He knew he was at war if he wanted to be the most recognized author in Norway, and that famous sentence about photography that many of us are used to identify as Ibsen’s start in Realism became his chant of battle: “I shall deal with my contemporaries up there, each and all of them, one by one, as I have dealt with these language reformers; I shall no spare the child in its mother's womb, nor any thought nor feeling that may have motivated the actions of any man who shall merit the honor go being my victim.”

We only have to recall his most important plays to see that those words were accomplished.

Ibsen also made a very hard confession about turning his back to his parents and family; coming from a very provincial background, with no intellectual or artistic links, all his relatives were mere obstacles in his way to fame as a writer (since his adolescence he never saw any of them again). Only a man with all his goals in mind, ready to fight any battle to be the number one in his world could write in that manner.

He wanted it, he fought for it and he got it. He was monster.

(1) Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Double Day, 1967.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Min Tanaka's The Rite of Spring at L'Ópera Comique(1987)

Min Tanaka

Some discoveries are worth sharing immediately, and it is what I'm doing now with this video of a 1987 Min Tanaka's production at L'Ópera Comique, The Rite of Spring.

I knew a little about Tanaka's work thanks to Jocelyne Montpetit, the Butoh dancer; she met him during the 80's in Japan and even worked in his company. Last November during the workshop I took with her in Montreal she told me about someone who has posted The Rite of Spring in Youtube, and that could be a very good example of Tanaka's work if I wanted to understand the words she transmitted about him.

For some stupid reasons I forgot the tip and it was till today that I accidentally came to that Youtube link. Of course I cannot talk more about Min Tanaka's work, but you must know that he's considered one of the most important heirs of Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of Butoh, but also a very important dancer and choreographer independently of his relation with Butoh.

The Rite of Spring was staged one year after Hijikata's death, and was considered totally a Butoh production (at least by Westerner's eyes), that style of Butoh coming from Hijikata's branch, the dance of darkness o Ankoku Butoh. Other thing was coming at the same time with Kazuo Ohno and his Butoh of light, as some have called Ohno's Butoh.

Please enjoy this whole recording of The Rite of Spring directed by Min Tanaka in 1987:

 The Rite of Spring part 1/7

 The Rite of Spring part 2/7

 The Rite of Spring part 3/7

The Rite of Spring part 4/7

 The Rite of Spring part 5/7

 The Rite of Spring part 6/7

 The Rite of Spring part 7/7

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Exploring Internal Body Zones (Zonas del Cuerpo). Video 3. Head and Seventh Zone.

Working with Head zone and Seventh zone (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

This is the third of a series of posts where I expose videos (recorded by me) showing the acting exploration of different Body Zones (Zonas del Cuerpo) and combinations of them.

Those who already know about González Caballero's acting method will understand what I meant with Zonas del Cuerpo, but those who don't know anything about this acting method maybe it is better first to go to this link and take a little look (it is in Spanish): http://agcmetodo.blogspot.com/2007/04/el-apoyo-zonas-del-cuerpo-el-cuerpo.html.

If you want to see the last post of this series, follow the links bellow:

- Sexual and Seventh zones: http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2011/11/exploring-internal-body-zones-zonas-del.html

- Chest and Seventh zones: http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/2011/11/exploring-internal-body-zones-zonas-del_24.html

The process of this exploration is very simple: in front of the camera, and only my face, I must work in the inner concentration of one Body Zone (Zona del Cuerpo), with different levels and positions within the same zone, then I combine it with another zone (in this case the seventh zone, known as the crown, the only one with which all zones in this exploration will be combined).

As the only thing exposed on screen will be my face, no other part of the body will react to the impulse coming from the concentration on the body zone, only the face.

These videos are also part of my Butoh Vlog (http://gustavothomastheatre.blogspot.com/p/gustavo-thomas-butoh-vlog.html ) therefore it is important to clarify that I'm not listening to any piece of music during the explorations or recordings, nor any movement within the space will be the goal (as it is in Butoh). Even when that could mean for someone that it would not be Butoh, I still considered this exploration as part of my training in this discipline because I'm working with inner images and impulses with muscle movement as reaction of it, and that's one of its principles.

I believe the results (and the process itself) of these explorations will be very interesting for those who want to follow them, watching, studying or carrying out the exploration as well. For myself I'm opening another door in my own acting work, and I'm sure it will be the same for others who want to venture into this acting method and its infinite possibilities for exploration.

Gustavo Thomas Butoh Vlog (Oct 25, 2011): Internal Body Zones Training Part 3. Head and Seventh Zone. (NO SOUND) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.
Gustavo Thomas Butoh Vlog (Oct 20, 2011):

Internal Body Zones Training Part 3: Head and Seventh Zone.

Working with Internal Body Zones (Zonas del cuerpo). This time working with Head and Seventh zone, the crown (Zona de la cabeza y séptima zona).
Diferent positions concentrating attention inside the zone. From intensity in low level till climax and back to low level.

This is part of a daily training, I don't have any aesthetic goal in doing it (even when using a video effect or choosing a particular part of that training).
This is a document of my daily artistic life.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

大野庆人 Yoshito Ohno's Butoh Open Class in Montreal (2011)

Yoshito Ohno and Lucie Grégoire at LADMMI, Montreal. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

If last April I had traveled to Yokohama with fears of exposure to nuclear radiation from Fukushima plant, why not face Montreal’s cold autumn this time? Master Yoshito Ohno had told me he’d come to Canada in November this year to perform “In Between” with Lucie Gregoire, a French Canadian contemporary dancer, as part of a trilogy they both have been creating since 2007. My experience in Yokohama had been crucial in my artistic path, so I did not hesitate at any point in going to see the show and if possible take a few more sessions, and so I went.

Two days before his performance, Yoshito Ohno’d gave an open Butoh class for students at LADMMI, L'École de Danse Contemporaine. It would be a class for students, yes, but some interested outsiders were admitted.

LADMMI is part of an art schools complex very close to the Place des Arts de Montreal, but independent from it, in one of the main shopping streets, Sainte Catherine. The building, in a forties style, has been remodeled to host art and dance schools and work spaces for everything having to do with bodywork and design; LADMMI is on the third floor and you can take a look from the street itself while some of the classes are happening.

BELGO, Montreal (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

LADMMI, Montreal (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

The wait was long, since I had to be there early to make sure I was included among those coming from outside (in the end, we were only three outsiders). So that gave me time to wander around Sainte Catherine, observe some classes at the dance school and eventually discover the difference between my view of Butoh and that of a school of contemporary dance. Obviously, for the dance school, Butoh is a complement to the training of its dancers and, possibly, a way to develop a style in dance. For me, Butoh is a performing art in itself.

Classroom at LADMMI, Montreal. (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

Yoshito Ohno arrived with his wife, a translator, Lucie Grégoire and the school principal; we were waiting for him, among a huge mass of students with different levels of training. Lucie apparently had transmitted some knowledge of Butoh to her groups, but not all of those students had had contact with Ohno’s discipline.

Master Ohno, obviously, didn’t remember who I was.  He finally did it when I mentioned April, that I was Mexican and that I had taken his workshop in Yokohama.  These are the curiosities of certain re-encounters, which I enjoy a lot.
I guessed Master Ohno would repeat most of his common exercises: the flower, the prayer, working with silk, etc. But the presence of dance students made me think  I’d experience a kind of pedagogy of Butoh I did not know till that moment, a Butoh introductory class; and that was what he did.

It was an interesting class as a reminder of the rules of this art form, but also an example of teaching people these bases without having previous contact with Butoh.

Yoshito Ohno during his Butoh Open Class at LADMMI, Montreal (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

Posture

The first thing Ohno (with help from the French translator) said was that we should understand the Japanese characters of man, heaven and earth, to identify our body as in the middle of two forces. He emphasized the image of a line passing through the center of the body to the crown and pulling us up, while the feet were “roots” that pull towards the earth. The chin pointing down and our gaze forward. With that posture, we were to walk. “Amazing Grace” was the first piece of music we worked with in this class.

He made a special comment about the hands; he spoke of the strength of the hands and fingers to remain together, with minimal separation. Then he took the idea of how those hands, that position, the chin down and the line between heaven and earth, were a hell to reach a presence on stage, a link between opposing forces.

We made several physical exercises as if pulling something and feeling the force, and then returning to the position and perceiving this new presence in us. This set of physical tensions initially left in us energy moving within us, and when standing, doing nothing, our body energy was charged without movement, what we call presence on stage.

The flower

In a case he had brought to the studio master Ohno had flowers for all, a lot of scented, artificial flowers. Then he spoke of the flower as the best example of what is standing between heaven and earth, in complete union. He asked us to move with the flowers.  At some point he talked about being the flower, but did not elaborate on it. And we moved along with the music towards our flowers.

He asked us to carry the flower as if we were wind, and at the sound of our steps he asked us not to make noise, even when walking quickly, giving an example by doing it himself, saying there was no need to disturb the viewer's attention from our objective; our steps then followed the flower in the wind.

He told us how, early in his career, asked his father, Kazuo Ohno, to teach him to dance, and he replied giving him a flower and saying, “look, you don’t have to learn to dance, just seek to be a flower. Move with the flower. Do this every day; one day you will feel that you are that flower and will not need to have it in your hand any more.”

The silk

Similarly, he took out from his case several small pieces of silk and gave them to us; each of us began to work with the idea of the strength and softness of silk, the strength and softness of our body. Moving from one state to another depending on the piece of silk we were stretching in our hands. That was our body and our interior; when strong, before stretching, as an adult, it was tense; as it stretched, it became soft, like a child asking for his mother.

As we were working on the technical aspects of the performance, he took from his bag Hokusai's painting “The Wave”.  And he tried to explain the idea emanated from the painting: the artist, who has a different view of things, can see far away and can see up close, like an insect. We had to represent that in order to move, we had to find different views of our work. There was a technical search, but we had to feel the technical work too.

The piece of cloth

Yoshito offering a piece of cloth (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

He gave each of us a piece of cloth, and we began to squeeze  at the same time that our bodies squeezed, twisting with the piece of cloth. It was tension by stress, and the feeling of the texture of the fabric was to guide us in our squeezing movement, we had to work those points as the source of our movement and whatever came of it.

He made short mention of his theory of “forte pianissimo”, where the most complicated thing for the butokah is not to exploit but to maintain the strength of a possible explosion within while moving gently or slowly.

Squeezing the fabric was his way of addressing the “forte pianissimo” idea while moving.

The tissue

Then he showed us the image of the wooden sculpture of the Buddha of Nara. He showed the same photo he had in his studio in Yokohama as part of a calendar.  Master Ohno made us note the sculpture's hands, hands that are never fully attached but are together within a separation the width of a sheet of paper.

He then offered us each a sheet of tissue paper and talked about the meeting of these hands together but separated, the same for our knees, and our arms in contact with the torso.

We practiced with that tissue paper for a while, but then he interrupted our work and asked us to add a pray to our movement; without further explanation besides saying that it wasn’t a religious thing, but a personal prayer, internal.

The music played for the final movement was the "Ave Maria" by Schubert, which his father always used in training and was the background music of one of his most famous pieces on the scene dedicated to his mother.

Farewell

At that moment, the time allotted for our class had run out and had to stop. Without saying more, Yoshito Ohno thanked us, saying that all the objects we worked with that day were a gift and we could keep them and should use them daily in our training; then he said goodbye. We all applauded to him, we were at a dance school and this is the way dance students are used to thank to their teachers.

Yoshito Ohno's 4 objects for work (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

Yoshito Ohno saying good bye to each one of the participants (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

Although Yokohama left me a profound and enlightening experience about Butoh, about its origins and technique, with this short open class in Montreal I discovered (or confirmed), from my point of view, the basis of the pedagogy of Yoshito Ohno for Butoh. 

Now I also had something really tangible, physical, to support my daily training, a support as simple as an artificial flower, a piece of silk, a cloth and a small tissue. They will remind me, while working every day with them as physical objects, every of Yoshito’s words, and will be witnesses of my own development.

Yoshito Ohno and Gustavo Thomas. LADMMI, Montreal. (2011)

The performance Yoshito Ohno gave in Montreal together with Lucie Grégoire, “In Between”, will be part of another blog post.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.