The words in his diary from before he passed away were able to convey it. “Although I have one body, and one brain, at the same time, at all times I have multiple selves that are thinking with their minds, feeling the ground with their fingertips, and sweating from their thighs and underarms that are living in multiple dimensions.”

I would like to think that there are multiple of Ko Murobushi, and that one of them had passed away. Coming into contact with dance and dancers, I learned this thing called the “courage” of dance from Ko Murobushi. Every time he danced, I believe that the content of the dance was to find a new courage. It was not the courage to stand on stage, or the courage to continue dancing. It was to find a new courage every time he danced. Regardless of whether it was dancing impromptu, in any case, it was to stand where there is nothing, and throw his body down. To throw the carnal into the spot. It is better for both the material and the apparatus to be poor. The materialism of the carnal is the basis. Courage is also the will of materialism.

Certainly, he had been in the middle of his travels when we met by coincidence in Paris and in Rome, but even in Tokyo, there was always the lightness of being “on the way.” The weight of the materialism of his dance was contrasting.

He was a philosophical dancer who had studied philosophy. One of his last dances was titled “Ritornello.” The ritornello of the whistles of children, the cries of birds, and the calls of merchants are involved with the forming of territory. A dance that is a ritornello has the potential of participating in the forming and dismantling of territory that is at the forefront of every dimension. He continued to believe that dance had a significant obligation in this world.

I re-readed a text that Hijikata had sent to Ko Murobushi once. “Within your Butoh is another fierce inaction, the aspect of an act of inaction; that is what I saw as well.” Yes. What Hijikata had expressed as a “fierce inaction”, perhaps I tried to voice as “courage.”

Although I deeply regret that we can never meet again, I will always continue to receive the courage of your dance.