1.    Introduction: purpose of this study

 　In this presentation, I attempt to consider the genealogy of Butoh, as Hidenaga Otori proposed. I agree with his suggestion that we should rethink Tatsumi Hijikata’s focus on the “dead body” and Ko Murobushi’s notion of the “outside,” as well as their differences. As is widely known, Hijikata died in 1986. However, Murobushi continued to perform Butoh for about 30 years after Hijikata’s death. In other words, it is impossible that we would ever consider the age of Murobushi’s activity as the age in which Hijikata founded and danced Butoh; it is clearly different. Hijikata did not refer to the concept of the “outside”; this word and notion is particular to Ko Murobushi. Regarding this unique notion, I would like to propose a dividing line between Murobushi and Hijikata and a point of view to the signification of the dead body-inutile body that Murobushi proposed in his Butoh works.

　　　When we think about Murobushi’s outside, this notion shows us various facets. It is probable that Murobushi referred originally to Michel Foucault when utilizing this concept; however, Hidenaga Otori referred to the unique Japanese notion of Takao Haniya’s displeasure with the law of identification. I consider this notion to regard the power of standing outside of subjectivity. It negates the relation of “I am I”; in other words, “I am not I.” According to Otori, this idea is the root of Butoh. However, we should note that simply achieving a state of extase (ecstasis in Latin, “standing outside of ourselves”) or ecstasy is not the method that leads us to truly move toward the “outside.” As Otori explained, in the age directly following the war, there was a historical nothingness or emptiness as Japan’s linear history was in many ways severed. In such a situation, in order to rise up again, it is necessary to adopt a sort of paradoxical attitude, which has been articulated as “the dead body standing still desperately.”

   It is certain that Murobushi chose his starting point as a dancer based upon Hijikata’s celebrated manifesto, “Butoh is the dead body who is standing still desperately.” However, I suppose that Murobushi continued to create other versions of the depiction of the dead. In fact, Hijikata noted Murobushi’s uniqueness as early as 1977 when he saw Murobushi’s “Mommy,” and carefully evaluated Murobushi while criticizing the other Butoh dancers. Following this early work, Murobushi began to gradually stylize and commodify Butoh. Murobushi’s “Mommy” was based on his own personal research and ascetic practices, which he held deep in the mountains, the “outside” of ordinary life. Here, we can already begin to notice Murobushi’s tendency toward the notion of the “outside.” I propose that Murobushi continued to maintain the tradition of Butoh while updating its signification of the dead in ways that differed from Hijikata, introducing the notion and praxis of the “outside.”

   How was this notion realized ideally and physically? In this presentation, I will refer to preceding studies, including that of Italian dance scholar Katia Centontze and French sociologist Jean Baudrillard, as well as Japanese philosopher Kuniichi Uno.      

2．Rebellion(s) of the bodies: From the age of “the Society of the Spectacle” to “simulacrum”

 In her essay “Resistance to the Society of the Spectacle: the “nikutai” in Murobushi Ko,” Italian dance scholar Katia Centonze focuses on the parallel relationship between political affairs and the avant-garde arts in 1960s Japan. She regards Butoh as one of the rebel movements that guards against the regime of economic value and the commodification of arts. At the same time, Butoh is the movement that negates the techniques established in traditional Western artistic dance. Centonze positions Murobushi’s works as rebellion against the “Society of the Spectacle,” which has developed globally since the 1960s along with the development of mass media. As for the Society of the Spectacle, the concept proposed by French activist Guy Debord, Centonze summarizes as follows: “Debord treats the end of the art world with its progressive integration into the capitalistic order, as the ‘loss of all human mastery.’”

   When we consider Butoh as a form of resistance against the “Society of the Spectacle,” we may also infer that Butoh can help in recovering the aliveness of the human or human mastery based on this strategy of anti-dance, anti-spectacle, although this would paradoxically seem like an attempt to emerge the dead.

   Based on Centonze’s perspective, additionally, I would like to focus on French sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s point of view. I have three reasons for doing so. First, Jean Baudrillard was one among the spectators of Murobushi’s Butoh in France and he wrote a critique about Murobushi in 1985. Second, Baudrillard extends Debord’s idea of “the Society of the Spectacle” to its extreme limits in the highly consumptive contemporary society. Baudrillard’s observation exposes the more serious situation of the “loss of human mastery” in contemporary life. Third, Baudrillard is a thinker who believes in giving a special position to the dead or death, which seemingly is the most useless and undervalued thing in this highly consumptive society. 

    In 1985, Baudrillard discovered a unique aesthetic in Murobushi’s Butoh, which was in contradiction to the aesthetic in Western dance forms. He contrasts Murobushi’s shrinking and convulsive body to the extended and graceful bodies in Western dance. Additionally, he describes the relationship between the body and space in Murobushi’s Butoh and its difference from Western choreography. I cite a part of his critique here:

Butoh doesn’t try to occupy the abstract space unlike how Western choreography does, but attempts to return all the space back into the inside of the body. This is realized as serving the extraordinary bare body, on which is imposed a punishment of intense pain. It is never pleasure seeking, but cruel to our senses and imagination.

   Baudrillard’s testimony indicates that Murobushi’s Butoh, which is completely different from a typical Western dance, is not a decorative and comfortably consumptive spectacle for our eyes. We might consider it an experience that offers spectators a disillusion mingled with pain.

   Baudrillard also considered the domain of fashion or advertisement as a spectacle wherein bodies are meant for consumption. Although his thinking is similar to that of Guy Debord with regard to this, there is, however, a definitive difference between them. The word “spectacle” evokes in us the binary opposition of the structure in a theater: the stage and the audience. Here the spectator can keep a distance from the spectacle. In other words, in the 1960s, there was a relatively critical distance from and critical sanity against “the society of the spectacle.” This was probably the reason for the political actions that could be taken and for the avant-garde arts that could originate in this period. In this situation, remembering Hijikata, we may consider the dead body as immune to the code of commodification, in a sense, because it is an authentic body. In view of this, that is, the dead body as resistant to spectacle, there appears to be a certain validity to resist the commodification of the body integrated into the capitalistic order. However, Baudrillard points out that our age entered into the age of the simulacrum of simulation. According to this, our choices or actions, even if they are merely political resistance, will be immediately assimilated as simulations in the range of the assumption. This means that the simulacrum is already becoming the environment of our aliveness, and once we are caught up inside this system, it is nearly impossible to maintain a critical distance. I guess these situations led Murobushi to insist and emphasize on the “outside.” I am not sure whether Murobushi was conscious about it, but it is likely that Murobushi’s notion and practice of the “outside” corresponds to the shift from the 1960s’ society of spectacle to the 1980s’ society of simulacrum. In fact, a simple comparison of Murobushi and Hijikata reveals that Murobushi tended to drift toward the outside more than Hijikata did. For example, Murobushi went to countryside of Japan and established his company and theater in the 1970s although Tokyo was the hub of culture and arts. A point to note is that Hijikata stopped dancing in 1973, the period corresponding to the fading of the political rebellion in Japan. Murobushi became the first Butoh dancer who went to Europe in 1978, while Hijikata turned down an invitation from Europe and did not venture out of Japan. In contrast to Hijikata’s activities, particularly in the Japanese environment, Murobushi did not confine himself to Japan, but moved to the international scene. This could probably be why when we compare Murobushi’s Dead 1, quick silver, and Enthusiastic dance on the grave with Hijikata’s Hoso-tan or the Tohoku-kabuki series based on the Japanese tradition, we see that Murobushi’s bodies are free from Japanese particularities. Already these particularities had partly become the iconic image of Butoh abroad and as well as in Japan, Murobushi can avoid superficial stylization of Butoh.