Butoh as art’s polyamorous act of love
DasLOT is hosting Vienna’s first Butoh Hybrid festival, and that is not an event to skip. A subjective review about how music, dance, visual art and a room itself come together and make passionate love in a way you probably couldn’t imagine.
The Hierophant, The Gate, The Lovers /// Jana Mack (c)
Butoh dance theatre is an art form known well by its community around the world. And Butoh Hybrid Festival, held for the first time in Vienna, gathered a crème de la crème of this community in dasLOT. The problem lies in the fact that an audience in the prevailing majority belongs to the world of Butoh as well. Even though the festival program invites everyone to take part, potential visitors outside the butoh community might feel overwhelmed, or fear the alienation due to the lack of expertise. However, I can assure you, alienation is not on the table.
The opening program was structured in such a way, that everyone could sink right into the world of Butoh. The opening vernissage welcomed the visual artists carefully chosen during the open call, and the works presented showed the versatility of Butoh art. And, like a basic training in the army, this vernissage prepped me for what was coming. Butoh is in the air: expressive paintings highlight the carnal nature of this art form; some video artworks point out the connection of butoh with nature: dead and a living; some videos, as one by Maruska Ronchi, tell the suspenseful mysterious stories in a butoh body language. All these art pieces call the visitors to acknowledge the world they are about to enter and prepare us for the main act: a dance-music-painting performance.
Thinking “ah, that is trans-media art, I know what’s it about” – would be a rookie mistake.
Imagine a dark, silent hall with a red circle on the floor in the middle of it. Like in an occult ritual, this circle holds the awaking spirits at bay, as well as keeps the wondering noses of the viewers away from the intensity that is about to take place within the circle. Dramatic light shines at this circle and outlines four figures: three butoh dancers (Maruska Ronchi, Suzi Cunningham and Liviana Angeloni), and a tarologist (Vanillery Garden). The whole ambience creates the atmosphere of anticipation in the crowd outside the circle. On one side of the performance area we can see a plain long canvas with an artist preparing for the sketching process; on the other side of the circle something from the world as we know it: the technical equipment belonging to the musicians Christian Tschinkel and Christoph Punzmann.
And so the performance begins.
Tarologist begins. As an experienced performative artist (in a way), she manipulates the timbre of her voice, to put us all in a sort of attentive trans: breathe in, breathe out. Her presence is vital for us to be able to feel the performance, to really get prepared for it. She talks about the tarot deck she is working with and explains the rules: three people from outside the circle can choose one card and a dancer to perform it. After these three choices have been made, and the tarot cards found their way to the dancers, she would explain the meaning. The Hierophant, The Gate, The Lovers (in this deck, “the lovers” has three separate cards. One of them shows the polyamorous love, and it is the one that has been chosen). Dancers should personify the cards and dance them, whilst the musicians and an artist must tune in with the dance and create the unity of arts.
And you wouldn’t have believed what had happened if you weren’t there. The room was vibrating. The sound of the coal on the canvas vibrates and creates the ripples of movement in the hands of the dancer. This vibration reforms, goes through the performer, and gets its finish in the electronic sounds of music. The musicians answer with their vibrations of the strings and cables and influence the colour or intensity of the light. All arts here are like impulses. The body screams, and so does the music. The light goes dimmed, and the coal paints softly on the canvas.
/// Jana Mack (c)
In the most intense moments, only the camera recording the show on the tripod, stood as a de-personified witness. Everyone else: performers, an artist, musicians, and the audience – are a part of the magic that is Butoh. It’s brutal, it’s versatile, it’s as life itself. It doesn’t leave anyone to be a stranger. Life involves every being, so does butoh, so does art.
It serves the festival well that its “home base” is dasLOT. Only a space so faceless and, therefore, versatile, could offer the possibilities vital for hosting a festival with no fixed form and all the substance. And I think the festival still has something to surprise us with. So, it is worth for everyone to visit the festival at least once, even if you know nothing about the butoh.
On a side note. An objectivity in this review is practically impossible, so I feel sorry if I failed you as your objective observer. The saturation of art during this performance was so heightened, it was impossible to stay in one’s own sane mind, let alone be objective.
