Dancing Into Darkness
Butoh, Zen, and Japan
Published on 15. July 1999
290 pages
978-0-8229-9062-8 (ISBN)
Description
Butoh, also known as "dance of darkness," is a postmodern dance form that began in Japan as an effort to recover the primal body or "the body that has not been robbed," as butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata put it. Butoh has become increasingly popular in the United States and throughout the world, diversifying its aesthetic while at the same time asserting the power of its spiritual foundations.
Dancing into Darkness is Sondra Horton Fraleigh's chronological diary of her deepening understanding of and appreciation for this art form as she moves from a position of aesthetic response as an audience member to that of assimilation as a student of Zen and butoh. Fraleigh witnesses her own artistic and personal transformation through essays, poems, interviews, and reflections spanning twelve years of study, much of it in Japan. Numerous performance photographs and original calligraphy by Fraleigh's Zen teacher, Shodo Akane, illuminate her words.
Dancing into Darkness is Sondra Horton Fraleigh's chronological diary of her deepening understanding of and appreciation for this art form as she moves from a position of aesthetic response as an audience member to that of assimilation as a student of Zen and butoh. Fraleigh witnesses her own artistic and personal transformation through essays, poems, interviews, and reflections spanning twelve years of study, much of it in Japan. Numerous performance photographs and original calligraphy by Fraleigh's Zen teacher, Shodo Akane, illuminate her words.
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07/1999
University of Pittsburgh Press
€58.32
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Person
Sondra Horton Fraleigh chairs the Department of Dance at the State University of New York, Brockport. She is the author of Dance and the Lived Body and co-editor (with Penelope Hanstein) of Researching Dance: Evolving Modes of Inquiry. Her articles have been published in texts on dance and movement, philosophy, and cognitive development. She has been a guest teacher of dance and somatic therapy in America, Japan, England, and Norway. She has served as president of the Congress of Research in Dance and is a Faculty Exchange Scholar for the State University of New York. Her innovative choreography has been seen on tour in America, Germany, and Japan, where she has also been a visiting scholar at several universities.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Difference the Other Makes
- Forgotten Garden: Natsu Nakajima's Performance in Montreal
- The Marble Bath: Ryokan in Takayama
- My Mother: Kazuo Ohno's Class in Yokohama
- Shibui and the Sublime: Sankai Juku's Performance in Toronto
- My Mother's Face: Natsu Nakajima's Workshop in Toronto
- Shards: Saburo Teshigawara's Performance in Toronto
- Empty Land: Natsu Nakajima's Performance in New York
- American Mother and Shinto: In Ohno Village
- Liebe: Susanne Linke and Toru Iwashita
- Beginner's Body: Yoko Ashikawa's Class in Tokyo
- Tree: Min Tanaka's Choreography in Tokyo
- Amazing Grace: Kazuo Ohno's Performance in Yokohama
- Hot Spring: In Hakone Yumoto
- The Waters of Life: Kazuo Ohno's Workshop in Yokohama
- How I Got the Name "Bright Road Friend": With Zen Teacher Shodo Akane in Tsuchiura
- The Existential Answer: Interview with Butoh Critic Nario Goda in Tokyo
- Hokohtai, the Walking Body: Yoko Ashikawa's Performance in New York
- Dance and Zen, Kyo Ikiru: With Zen Teacher Shodo Akane in Tokyo
- Prose and Haiku on Japan
- Post-Butoh Chalk: Annamirl Van der Pluijm's Performance in Montreal
- Dust and Breath: Sankai Juku's Performance in Toronto
- The Hanging Body: Joan Laage's Performance in Brockport, New York
- Zen and Wabi-Sabi Taste: Setsuko Yamada's Performance in Toronto
- The Community Body: Akira Kasai and Yumiko Yoshioka in San Francisco
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
