AKEMI TAKEYA

Spoken Text – JAPONISM

In this traditional Japanese dance, the male dancer plays a woman emphasizing mood and emotion in a dramatic narrative about “Black Hair”, with which she recalls her lover, with whom she shared the night, while she is sleeping alone on a single pillow with her hair spreading out. She desires him and spends all the time with her melancholy memory. Time passes. Her chilled thoughts accumulate, while the falling silver snow is piling up outside. It seems like her hair is turning grey. In olden times hair was not only a sign of beauty, but also a sign of magical potency, sexual desire and power. And in this contemporary Avant-Garde, Post-War Dance, the male performer presents a girl who lives in his male body and tears off the darkness. He is the founder of Butoh, a Japanese art movement in the 1960s and 70s which came out of rebellion against traditional dance and theatre, influenced by Japanese aesthetics and western modern dance, particularly Mary Wigman. It’s never supposed to be simply “Japanese Art”. Now I am going to lead over to my story of the “Black Hair” and the “Girl”.
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He keeps one of his sisters alive in his body, and I keep my father alive in my body. He clings to me. As always, he buries himself deeply in my flesh. Stuns my centre of perception, which could make an end of those fantasies, which could react to that pain. I come to a standstill, whatever my father, this clinging thing, may do with me. He is wandering about in search of his body in my body.