Is “Butoh” not but a single idea that is managing to survive as a subject of faint irony?
That kind of half-heartedness becomes completely crushed. For example, even if one can no longer call it “Butoh,” Ko Murobushi’s dance was unbelievable. In any case, it was a continuation of significant scenes. Murobushi’s body and the audience’s perception were met with various critical aspects one after another in due time. The aspects took on a certain nature of incidence, and without a doubt it was a “witnessing.” An overused idea is, in no way, dead, but constantly awaiting an opportunity to revive itself.

At the start, right from the very beginning, thrusting away from the pillar and falling down face up, the back of his head hits the floor! He easily grabs the audience. It skillfully broke the frame of the arts with its performance from beginning to end. He represses movement to the farthest limit and stands. As if a different life form filled to the brim with energy was squirming inside a bag called “skin,” some parts were rigid with power, while other parts were open and relaxed; it was as if both extremes were being controlled in a deviant way using the entire body. Surprise cannot be suppressed. Murobushi is evidently battling with the body (or something unknown, but most definitely with something).

And on top of that, he talks! To describe it as “talking to himself” would put too much distance between him and the audience; nevertheless, these mumbled words completely closed in on themselves and were incomprehensible to others. If that is the case, then what is the weight in his voice? Indeed, if the dancer’s entire body is being put at stake, then raising one’s voice must also be dance. However, with that said, this life-or-death battle of solitude that builds a relationship with the audience, yet at the same time severs itself from them, vividly portrayed the interpretation of that behaviour called “dance” and the bottomless abyss of the body. Something like an autonomous, raging whirlpool that no one can touch. A single battle. The audience cannot take their eyes off of it and are only swallowed by it. The true body does not reject wordification, but holds it down and suppresses it.