Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy

16. Torn

16 Torn Robert Bingham in New York (2006) Torn is a work for Robert Bingham choreographed by Lani Fand Weissbach, whose work we just visited in the previous essay. Torn has been performed in several venues in New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Here we take three perspectives on the dance: that of the choreographer, that of the dancer, and that of the writer as witness. The Choreographer Weissbach tells me that her interest in creating this dance is to explore the feeling states of heartbreak and desire. As a butoh choreographer, she finds it fascinating to observe what happens to the body when an image or a feeling inhabits it. The meeting point between two different states or images especially intrigues her—the point of collision where one quality gives way to the other. If we look back into our examinations of butoh morphology and alchemy, we see that Weissbach’s interest in finding such points relates to the Japanese concept of ma. She also asks the phenomenological question of what happens when the performer experiences a convergence of differences? This is ma in another light. Can contrasting images merge in the performer as well as in the performance? Even for a moment? The search for this moment is for Weissbach very unpredictable and exciting. She sees through her choreographic process that both performer and audience may come to realize how seemingly disparate forces are inextricably linked: 188 Essays and Poetry on Transformation Figure 26. Robert Bingham dances Torn (2006), choreographed by Lani Weissbach. Photograph by Elena Shalaev, © 2006. Used by permission of Elena Shalaev. As a choreographer, I want to feel that something is genuinely happening for the performer and that his/her physical expression arises from a somatic process. I provide the framework and serve as outside eye and editor, but the essence of the piece—the way the body moves—must ultimately be a manifestation of the performer ’s own journey. If the piece does not make intuitive sense to the performer, it will most likely come across as pretentious or flat. Weissbach says that working Bingham was a delight because he was so willing to take ownership of the dance. He sought to find his own truth within her Torn 189 concept and the structures she gave him. Thus, the overall form of the dance emerged as an organic blend of his somatic responses and her choreographic ideas. The Dancer I asked Bingham about his experience of performing Torn. What he told me is framed through the movement itself, its stillness and rhythm and its directions in space, as these also resonate with his somatic feeling states and cannot be divorced from them. This is how he experiences aspects of the dance: The beginning is in stillness, facing upstage. My legs are deliberately placed close together, and my arms are spread wide above the space in front of my head. I begin to turn clockwise as I dissolve towards the floor. The length of time for this process feels infinite. I try to perceive an endlessly receding point, feeling it travel beyond the walls of the space. I’m in nearby streets, towns, and hills. My immediate environment feels less precious, knowing that the landscape outside is infinite. Yet I sense the environment acutely, the sound of near-silence and air moving through nearby pipes. I rise slowly, feeling my heart—vulnerable, bruised, and hopeful—following that receding point. It can’t be reached. I look at the floor; see it pull me back down. That pull becomes power. It surges through my legs, pelvis, trunk, and out through my arms and head. I resist and then yield to it, a circular toss-and-collapse motion . Am I smiling? I can’t tell. My breath deepens, and my temperature rises. I feel the intimacy and vulnerability of my relationship to the first row of audience members, a few feet away, watching something happen to my pulse and body’s chemistry as I continue tossing and collapsing. All of a sudden I’m up, spinning, whipping, turning, and using all that I’ve got to get me back to where I started. Legs close together, arms spreading, upstage corner. I feel the soft cup of my hands as they are drawn further apart, opening up my back. I sustain this moment, the performer who wants to make something happen but resists it. I am...