Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy

13. Moving MA

13 Moving MA Endo Tadashi in London (2005) Art impulses are more primitive or more innate than those of morality. The appeal of art goes more directly into human nature. Morality is regulative, art is creative. One is an imposition from without, the other is an irrepressible expression from within. Zen finds its inevitable association with art but not with morality. —Suzuki Daisetz, Zen and Japanese Culture Suzuki Daisetz in Zen and Japanese Culture says that Zen prizes art over the regulations of morality. I don’t think this means that Zen is amoral, just that it looks to art for inspiration and not toward ethics. Of Zen’s deep connection to art, Suzuki goes further. He says it has been a favorite “trick” of Japanese artists to show beauty in the form of imperfection or ugliness. And when this beauty includes a sense of antiquity or uncouth gestures, “we have then a glimpse of sabi, so prized by Japanese connoisseurs.”1 We sometimes see this aesthetic in butoh. At the foundation of his work, Hijikata Tatsumi evoked the antiquated meaning of the Japanese term butoh, “ancient dance,” and his method included uncouth or socially unacceptable gestures, revealing the beauty of these. In the case of Endo Tadashi’s dance MA, we see that antiquity runs through it, as it certainly does in his central use of an earthen urn. The dance also plays with gestures that are antisocial and raw, but this is just part of its story. MA is a work of flowing consciousness—and of poverty—prized as wabi in Japan. Wabi simplicity in the tendency to value the creatively odd and human moment over the norms of institutionalized morality pervades butoh and Zen. I witness these in Endo’s wabi. His concern for antiquity, Zen sparseness, and austerity link his work to the wabi-sabi aesthetic of Japan, in which the meld of wabi and sabi creates something new in appreciation of age. This aesthetic is recognized, for 168 Essays and Poetry on Transformation Figure 23. Endo Tadashi dances MA (2005) in London. Photograph by Sabine Lippert, © 2005. Used by permission of Sabine Lippert. instance, in worn or chipped objects or the simple beauty of a single wildflower blooming against a weathered barn. It can also be cultivated in dance. Does Endo perhaps make a conscious choice to go in this direction, or is the plainness, once set in motion, second nature to him? Appearing in a stream of light at the beginning of MA, Endo sits unmoved in the middle of the stage for a long time. He is covered with a red drape and sits next to a tall, burnished vessel that looks like an antique ceramic. We watch his face, contained and serene but with a hint of sadness playing at the corners of his eyes. Slowly his face and form begin to move; gradually one bare foot finds the ceramic. In the background, the sound of water washes the scene as Endo’s face morphs between states, but not in a dramatic way. Then suddenly his cheeks puff. He begins gestures of listening, and his finger points unexpectedly. The pottery helps ground his movement and is never far from his dance. Endo shows us the art of “presence” in dance; “nothing special, everything special,” as presence might be explained the Zen way. The concentrated light in the center of the stage begins to spread. Without strain, Endo comes to standing and then faces us. As a dancer, he doesn’t project anything except breath and waiting. His standing seems more an occurrence than an act of will: He stands up simply, unfolding and glowing, as his arms reach down and extend behind his back with profound tension. His face lifts, and his body suddenly shrinks. Then small steps to the front edge him closer to us. The Moving MA 169 drape drops away through ensuing gestures as he dances in white, billowy skirtpants , moving into darkness with momentary fluidity as the lights fade out. When they come up, we see him standing in a small square of golden light falling from overhead. He lifts the urn high and pours out a steady stream of water. It falls like silken light over the lip of the pot, splashing and pooling on the floor as the simple stream is spiritually cast. HowtraditionallyJapaneseiswiththispurefocusandsinglestroke,liketheonepointed awareness cultivated in Zen meditation or the magnifying of...