1. Ko Murobushi, dancing and writing

1-1. Introduction

Good afternoon, everyone. Nice to see you. My name is Hanako Takayama. I am very happy to be here. I would like to thank you for all the arrangements for this occasion. I have heard about this project at ImPulstanz for several years, and I am glad that it has been realized. I hope you have enjoyed the exhibition and the film screening so far.

What I would like to talk to you about today is simple: Ko Murobushi, a dancer himself, had a sphere of language. That sphere of language was very strong in him, not only limited to reading, but also writing. Ko Murobushi is known for his international activities especially after the 1980s centered in Europe and South America. What is remarkable is that he was not only doing his own performances but also workshops. And while doing such activities, he was also writing, and he pursued his own dance. I guess his encounter with Tatsumi Hijikata is well known and the influence of Hijikata makes us connect Ko Murobushi’s dance as Butoh; however, Ko Murobushi himself pursued, looked for, persistently and radically, what dance is by himself and that cannot be reduced to such an easy understanding related to Hijikata or Butoh. One of the complicating factors is his journal and workshop memos, written from the 1970s to June 2015, just before his death. What are words, language for a dancer? What is the act of thinking through language for the dancer? Especially when it could be differentiated from the sphere of the body itself? Is language the explanation or description of dance itself? Or is dance the expression of language? For Ko Murobushi, the answer is no. There is a clear and strange gap between dance and language for him. In some sense, dancing and writing moved in parallel—independent in form, yet inseparably linked in presence. What I want to share with you is this problematic.

1-2. Basic Information

Have you already read the text written by Ko Murobushi found in this blue exhibition booklet? It is not too long but not too short. It has a certain length. It is about the Rebellion of the Fresh by Tatsumi Hijikata. In the text, there is a reference to the singularity of the event posed by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, a French philosopher and translator. You can easily find his philosophical background. I want to say that his own text has the intensity of the words, which cannot be easily imagined from the wordless, simple movements of his body performance, though he of course used some cries or voices etc.

After his sudden death in Mexico in 2015, Murosushi Ko Archive Café Shy, launched out. Shy conserves various materials, but it is not just an archive. Its concept is wandering, and there are many hooks to trigger the visitors offering new hints in whatever field. What is apparently remarkable is the existence of the bookshelf. There are so many books, Bataille, Deleuze, Foucault, and many other French philosophers’ books and related Japanese books. That surprise naturally made me interested in his writing through Shusei, the excerpts collection of his diary published posthumously in 2018.

Now we are in 2025. The world is full of SNS and there is a very open but strange language space using the internet. Daily meaningless chatting is immediately diffused to all the people in the world. We are living in such an age. So I am wondering what kind of image you have when you hear the word journal, nikki. I guess it varies, but I guess the image of secret or intimate writing is a little far away now. In the case of Ko Murobushi, firstly, the journal was a part of his daily life; it was systemized using notebooks and writing by hand. However, even if it is a kind of chronicle, let us say that there are not so many descriptions about his daily life. Of course, we can find some traces of his life, but almost all the parts are about dance and thinking about dance. That is the outstanding characteristic of his writing. And I would like not to forget to add that such kinds of journals and workshop notes were not published while he was alive. That is, it was a totally intimate and secret writing.

Last autumn, the Japanese booklet of the excerpts of his workshop memos was also edited and published. You can check the original note images on the website of the archive. The total amount of the writing is huge and it tells us that writing was also a part of his life as dancing.

2. Faux Pas / Being fragmentary

2-1. Reference to “Faux Pas” in the journal

Well, the title of the exhibition Faux Pas is French. The English translation is “the misstep” which also means “making a mistake in manners”, for example, using the wrong fork. In French, faux means false and pas means step. Since we say il ne faut pas when we prohibit doing something, the pronunciation itself has resonance with prohibition. The second-to-last solo piece of Ko Murobushi was Ritournelle, and the last one was entitled Faux pas. What is interesting is that he used this word even using French in his writings in journals and workshop memos. Where does this word Faux pas, fumihazushi, come from? It is clear. It is Blanchot. Maurice Blanchot. His book of criticism published in 1943 was entitled Faux Pas. There are two different Japanese translations in the archive of his books. In the context of Blanchot, in the 1970s, Blanchot used this word again as the synonym of desire to step beyond (outside) what is thought as intransgressible but we can give a name and call it. (I talked about this context last November in the series of this project with Yuma Ochi and Shinichi Takeshige. The point is that Ko Murobushi might not have known this later context, but there was a certain coincidence with the affirmation of transgression.)

When we consult the texts written by Ko Murobushi, Faux Pas appears at least from 1985. For example, there is a sentence like this: “Originally, the dance was on the balance of the boundary between paradise and hell”, and it is the memo for wandering in the betweenness.” There also appears the word yoromeki, losing the balance, as faux pas. And there is such a phrase: “Walking, it is hiding the destiny, disappearing, and misstep, deviation.” As for the unpublished one, in the journal of 1985, the following sentence also appears: “Butoh and its faux pas / Butoh / Being Butoh dance as the state of its faux pas.” These remarks suggest at least that there was a repetition of questioning the dance itself in his writings. And in that sense, various words or notions, concepts of philosophers were hints for him.

2-2. What is fragment? Being fragmentary?

Like this, we can find some related expressions regarding “Faux Pas” in his journal, but then a question comes up. How can we treat this journal as corpus material? OK, we can read it like this, but originally, even the published Collection is only edited excerpts. Based on the handwritten texts, some texts are typed into digital characters. Of course, the original notebooks were not for the reading public. There are dates, but it is necessary to be sensitive when we tend to abstract some clear claims or opinions based on these writings. I don’t want to deny the whole thematic reading, but it is dangerous and difficult to see representative claims. Almost all the texts and phrases are fragments. There are certain forms of notes and continuity based on the dates, but the content itself does not have logical coherence. So, it would be a mistake to abstract something only from one sentence. There are many thematics, so we feel as if we can connect them freely and read them in one theme. However, the natural characteristic of this material corpus is not such a thing. As for the first publication of Collection, Shusei, that is the result of editing fragmentation of fragments. Of course, the original contexts will not disappear completely because there is no original context in a strict sense. That is the core and strange feature of his writings. That is, each text was written on a certain date and at a certain place, corresponding to each environment, but sometimes even Ko Murobushi himself seems to disappear as the person of the writing subject as a dancer. Such a sphere of language is formed. From this point, I would like to say firstly that these are fragments, but secondly, that the attitude of Ko Murobushi was also fundamentally fragmentary. And as every movement of dance which disappears instantly, the very movement of the writing aspired toward fragmentation. So, the words we see and read in his texts are not only fragments but rather the traces of fragmentation by himself.

3. About workshop memos since 1990s

3-1. The Memory of Vienna

I talked mainly about the journal so far so I would like to move on to the workshop memos which were edited and published last autumn. I am not sure if you have read them in Japanese or the draft translation in English, but the interesting point is that it has almost the same feature as the journal. That is, there is no logical coherence nor construction, but the fragmentary strong thinking is traced in the writing. Since it is the memo for workshops, there are sometimes very detailed phrases regarding the workshop itself. For example, on 25 July 1993, Monday, on the occasion of Wien Tanz Wochen, he wrote how he tried to bring the stillness of the water with students after the warming up. Or, on 7 February 1996, day 3 of ImPulsTanz, he wrote: “I slept in late, but went down at 1 p.m. to buy bread. Vienna is experiencing a cold wave. I took the city tram to Tanz Hotel.” We can also find the memo of the workshop at ImPulsTanz on 16 July 2012, and he wrote, “I slept until 4:00. Took a taxi to Arsenal.” And that there were too many students, and he “Took a taxi home, bought pizza, and drank beer.” It is nice to know that he loves beer, but the point is that such daily life descriptions are rare and almost all the parts are devoted to the question about the dance itself and movements. Such thoughts and ideas about movements sometimes seem not to correspond with the real, visible movements.

3-2. Quest for what dance is

For example, when he wrote about water on 26 July 1993 in a workshop memo, he was thinking of it as the problem of time and the instant, that is, how can we catch the fragile moment of concentration. He writes like this: “That simultaneity! The challenge of time itself. The transgression of timelessness against time. In this sense of transgression, this concentration is violent. However, this transition from timelessness to timelessness happens at the boundary, at the edge of time. It continuously touches the edge and the boundary.” His imagination goes far to the question: how does water reflect? We can read the aspiration for the ephemeral and extraordinary time and space. And that problematic includes the problem of death. In February 1996, he wrote about the improvised transformation in the workshop: “All forms will eventually dissolve into the abstraction of death. What collapses and is robbed of its form will also be connected, linked, to death, which is the continuity, the infinite, and will lose its form. (Variation of resistance and catastrophe. Continuous transformation).” From these writings, we can find that the propositions of the existing Butoh and even that of dance was totally questionable in his thought. And we can see he was struggling with it in the radical sphere. In the workshop memo in Tours 2005, he wrote: “Running → What does it mean to become a dance̶ not to run beautifully or fast, but to become dance? Falling Crawling → Crawling on all fours Shaking → Trembling Transforming everything into dance.” He was trying to question the existing definition of dance by thinking the fundamental difference between walking, running, and trembling etc. “What is the power of dance? (written in 2005 at ImPulsTanz),” that is the core question for him. In 2005, on the occasion of ImPulsTanz, he wrote, “Not the WS to dance, but the WS not to dance. What was dance? It was surprise and “discovery.” It is the “speechlessness”, The self being the other.” The objective of the workshop itself was really related to the core thought of his writing. In 2014, in Colombia, a simple and strong phrase appears: “Dancing the dance that does not dance.”

4. Conclusion

So far I have talked about how the delicate and powerful sphere of language was there in Ko Murobushi. On one hand, there is Ko who dances in the sphere of body. On the other hand, there is Ko who thinks about dance itself using language, reading, and writing. For him, in both sides, the dance was always unfinished and incomplete. And that kind of formlessness and fragility itself was an essential hook for his dance. And, at least, he was confirming such a deviation from the existing styles or forms in the sphere of language. And such thinking and writing time corresponded to the real workshop and the performances. It’s totally different spheres and parallels, but there were certain connections. Imagine that a flush appears and suddenly disappears, and for a sudden, another flush appears and so on. Such a kind of instant writing time continuously appears, for example, in the rest time at hotels or while traveling. There is no strong logical coherence. It is instead always fragmentary. But that is a kind of refusal of generation and is a will to be isolated. That is the movement of fragmentation. It is my sketch about the writing of Ko Murobushi. Thank you.