quick silver !
A shapeless shape, knowing neither fear or joy,
that grows within a mold of ecstasy.
quick silver !
Like mercury that has exploded its strength away,
a wandering life that invades the unknown in multiple directions.
quick silver !
Like mercury that has killed its fire, used its strength to the last drop,
a shapeless shape that invades the unknown in multiple directions.

The metamorphosis of a moment…in vain.
Blinking weakly…feebly.

But in Butoh there is no history, there is only the continuity of the “white moment.” I need to stop to express my history. This paradox is the essence of Butoh.

They “do” dance as a profession. On one hand, we “become” dance as humans. At the same time we dance Dance, on the other hand, Dance dances us.

Butoh starts from what cannot but stand still, from what every dance has declared to be impossible. Butoh dancers listen to a suffocating lullaby in a cradle burning bright with flames.

Spasm digresses. It is a deviation. It does not exist anywhere.
It is impossible to catch and possess the zero degree of the sense of pain, the zero degree of the sense of touch and sight.
“It” as the hidden form is a laceration which comes from the outer part of the depth of the body.

Standing on that precipice of interruption, the layers of darkness pile up, the blood drips down, life emerges, bubbling up: I want to see it, I want to possess it. Life is inclining, the breath is laboured, the ship is inclining, a one-winged flight, an omen of death by drowning, of careering down from the sky, form decaying, the hidden coming to light
Edge, corner, margin, frontier, border, boundary of the being,
the smell of the corpse makes life stand out, stand out desperately.
The origin of Butoh is the intensity of this stance, and the trembling that is
Both the cruelty and humour
as the impossible necessity to move,
Which is branded upon the face of the precipice.
Therein lies the matrix of life.