"Phantom", a Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier, Jasper.

Silent Shout -Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier- (Jasper, Canada. Gustavo Thomas © 2013)

The Rocky Mountains are an impressive line of mountains which goes from the United States to northern Canada. Following one to another dozens of national parks were created in the two countries for the conservation of these natural wonders. As myself living in Canada considered a must visiting this place and this summer of 2013 went to the national parks of Banff and Jasper in the province of Alberta.

Very personal reasons (as always happens) took me there, but I kept the wish to do some Butoh improvisations in those landscapes full of snowy mountains, huge glaciers and beautiful lakes.

Performing Butoh in these places was not only for framing my work with a beautiful -or impressive- natural setting, but also entailed a real Butoh practicing in total relation with the basic teachings of  Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the creators of Butoh in Japan: the dialogue with the natural environment with our movement. Our body, in the thought of Hijikata, has been domesticated in every way through the life in the city, our movements are codified and we must seek break those codes (Kazuo Ohno spoke of moving our body with the impulse coming from the heart); a way to break those codes of movement is going back to our natural sources, places which by their unique force bring us back to our primordial state. That means, of course, hard work, practice and exploration, but since I started my work with Butoh I decided that this exploration with the natural sources should have a big importance in my professional life, a big importance in my own technical findings.  

I am a man born and raised in a city, so I could not go to find my sources to my original place out of the city -like Hijikata in the Akita region, for example-, but I can go to places where I feel impressed by their beauty or by their own force. Every improvisation in those places brings the source I'm looking for, it is an adventure and I feel how my body revolutionizes itself, feeling the soil, the wind, the sun, the extreme weather.

The walking phantom -Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier- (Jasper, Canada. Gustavo Thomas © 2013)

Weeks before this travel I had many rich and powerful experiences with several masters of Butoh, first in Japan with Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima and Seisuko, and after that with Denise Fujiwara, and Ko Murobushi who visited Toronto. All of them have a different interpretation of Butoh but they are also great teachers and guides, so I can find my own way of absorbing their teachings without any fight in my mind. Those teachings were practised in these improvisation in The Rockies and I felt great.

In this post I share one of the four improvisations I performed there, but my plan, if I find the time to edit everything, is to share the all four, of course.

With this video in the Blog you can see some photographs I considered of some value to illustrate better what I experienced.

Video "Phantom" 

Gustavo Thomas Butoh improvisation in front of Athabasca Glacier, Jasper

Phantom: Butoh Solo Improvisation in Front of Athabasca Glacier (2013) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

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 Solo Improvisation at Saurbaer Church Graveyard, Northern Iceland (December, 2013)

Here the video I extracted the photographs posted in this Blog some months before. Remember that the temperature in Saurbaer was almost minus 15 degrees Celsius with cold winds, so just I'm asking you to imagine that the movement of the camera is what filmmakers call "subjective shot" and not someone dying of cold.

As is common with my Butoh videos, the music you listen is not what I was listening in that moment (in this case none). Hope you like it.

Video

Butoh Solo Improvisation at Saurbaer Church Graveyard, Northern Iceland (December, 2013)

Butoh Solo Improvisation at Saurbaer Church Graveyard, Northern Iceland from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

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.

Long Shadows (A video from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Long Shadows (Photograph from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Long Shadows (Photograph from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

After some weeks I'm back in this Blog (where I expose my life and my theatre). As a first step I'm retaking the publication of videos from my Butoh Vlog. So many travels, parties and work (I must say it, with pleasure), had put on hold these videos and other articles I wanted to publish here.

I'm still thinking about the importance of publicly posting these documents of my daily training improvisations; I've received a very good opinion from those who have seen them and I appreciate it a lot.

As it's common in every post I clarify...:

This is part of my daily morning training, and nothing else. 

After walking and working with some postures and inner images, a short choreography emerges, that's what you see in this Butoh vlog.
The music you are listening in the video wasn't that I was working with during my training, it was added later during the edition.

Long Shadows (A video from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Long Shadows (Video from My Butoh Vlog) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

More photographs extracted from the video:

Long Shadows (Photograph from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Long Shadows (Photograph from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Long Shadows (Photograph from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

Long Shadows (Photograph from my Buton Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

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.

Das Lied Ist Aus (A video from my Butoh Vlog)

Das Lied Ist Aus (Butoh Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This is part of my daily morning training, and nothing else. 

After walking and working with some postures and inner images, a short choreography emerges, that's what you see in this Butoh vlog.
The music you are listening in the video wasn't that I was working with during my training, it was added later during the edition.

Video:

Das Lied Ist Aus (Butoh Vlog. Oct 2nd, 2012) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

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.

 

Greensleeves (Video from my Butoh Vlog. Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Greensleeves (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This is part of my daily morning training, and nothing else. 

After walking and working with some postures and inner images, a short choreography emerges, that's what you see in this Butoh vlog.
The music you are listening in the video wasn't that I was working with during my training, it was added later during the edition.

Greensleeves (Gustavo Thomas Butoh Vlog. Oct 1st, 2012) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

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.

Youthful Illusions (Video from my Butoh Vlog. Gustavo Thomas. 2012)

Youthful Illusions (A video from my Butoh Vlog. Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This is part of my daily morning training, and nothing else. 

After walking and working with some postures and inner images, a short choreography emerges, that's what you see in this Butoh vlog.
The music you are listening in the video wasn't that I was working with during my training, it was added later during the edition.

Youthful Illusions (vals)

Butoh Vlog (Oct 1st, 2012): Ilusiones juveniles (Youthful Illusions) from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

If you want to see other videos form my Butoh vlog you can go to the link: "Gustavo Thomas Butoh Vlog" on the upper part of this page

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.

"A short memory" (Video from my Butoh vlog. 2012)

"A short memory" (From my Butoh vlog) (Gustavo Thomas © 2012)

This is part of my daily morning training, and nothing else. After walking and working with some postures and inner images, a short choreography emerges, that's what you see in this Butoh vlog.

The music you hear is not what I was listened to when I was in the training, it was added later.

 

Butoh Vlog (Sep 13. 2012) Un pequeño recuerdo from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

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.

In Between, Butoh and Dance Performance by Yoshito Ohno and Lucie Grégoire at L'Agora de la Danse, Montréal. (2011)

In Between, by Yoshito Ohno and Lucie Grégoire (Montreal. 2011)

I was very excited about watching Yoshito Ohno for first time live on stage (at L‘Agora de la danse); my only experience had been through videos and inside his father’s studio (the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio), but he was only teaching and sometimes performing minimal chains of movements. Wednesday November 16th 2011 was the day to see him performing in a real production.

In Between is a project, a part of a trilogy (the second part) that Yoshito Ohno has been working with Lucie Grégoire since 2008. Lucie works mainly with modern dance techniques, but she’s been very close to Butoh and also works with it. Master Ohno follows his father's (Kazuo Ohno) teachings as well as his rich experience working (at various times) with Tatsumi Hijikata from the 1950’s till 1970’s; he is a real heir of those Butoh creators.

Lucie Grégoire and Yoshito Ohno performed In Between with several solos and duos, little by little mixing their personalities and techniques. My interest was, obviously, in observing all of Ohno’s movements, but Grégoire was so powerful and the whole piece of such great unity that it was impossible not see both works.

In Between is the encounter of two cultures of body movement, Butoh and Modern Dance, but also the encounter of two artistic personalities. None of them left aside their personal background, style of movement or ways of seeing their own performing art, but their encounter is successful, it reaches a union of a very high quality.

Yoshito Ohno's style of Butoh is simple, clear, we could see and differentiate each action in his work; his movement was so concrete that we could keep our attention on his eyes, his hands or his legs without missing other parts; he knows very well how to direct our attention. His hands were specially strange and beautiful, with almost no movement in them but always charged with energy. We feel him trembling and we never stop watching him.

There were two types of music, two epochs (actually several), and their images gently exploded in front of us. I cannot forget the movements of Grégoire’s back and arms, as well that infant dressed like a rabbit (or a rabbit itself) Yoshito offered to us.

One to one the solos became duos and their physical speech resulted comprehensive and simple: it doesn’t matter what exactly they were talking about, we observed their music, their past, their dreams, we could see their own relatives on stage.

Yoshito Ohno and Lucie Grégoire. In Between. (Montreal. 2011)

Like a ritual, they looked for their ancestors, for their own ghosts. And what we see at the final scene, two charming ghosts coming from the past in a lovely union, is one of the most beautiful and simple images anyone could ever see on stage.

We were pleased and we were happy at the end of In Between.

Slideshow of In Between at L'Agora de la Danse (Montreal. 2011)

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.