Please enjoy subbody cobody theater of second week in September course.
Students transoformed weakened body slowly, then the hidden resonativity
which our daily body has forgotten activated. The weaker body, the stronger
resonance happened.
Recardo performed in the garden.
He showed various kinds of edge qualia which he encountered in these three months.
It's hard for us to face to edge, because it gives us always unconfortable body feelings and strange emotions.
At first we try to escape from them, it's natural responce.
Also Recardo met so many qualia between subbody and cobody, between healthy body and weakened body, and so on.
Sometimes he could not move at all, and slowly he overcome them one by one.
He might notice that after facing edge, so rich awareness coming out.
He must understand that it's tresure house for creation.
This performance is a proof that he faced to edges and slowly became friends with edges.
It takes time, almost students need over three months for it.
That's why I stopped short term course.
Recardo, Continue to facing edges, when you will get weakened body technique deeper, next stage is to face edge in world-self channel.
You will meet the reason why you have to dance through facing it.
Autumn term has started with seven long term students and added four new
students..
We will concentrate on weakened body method in deeper realm in this term.
The first step is "Infinite segmenting".
The daily bodies are bound by large and rough movement, as the same as the daily mind is bound by rough dualistic language thinking.
When you could take off the rough daily body and mind, the subtle subbody will appear.
You can contact the subtle sub-signal from your darkness of body.
Try to segment your body into as small part as possible infinitely, in walking, rolling, and crawling as the following;
WALKING
There are different methods and images for walking in Butoh, such as the Ash Walk, Size Walk, and Bug's Walk, but all have the same basic principles:
Begin with the One-Point Stand. Constantly shift the weight of your body onto different parts of your feet: the joints of your toes, the inside and outside edges of your feet (Knife Edge), the heels. In reality, you may be standing on more than one point, but try to keep as much of your feet lifted off the ground as possible, as if you are standing on razor blades.
Now carry your body as slowly and quietly as possible, as if you are made of ash. Walk with this fragility by using your hidden muscles, which are twisted behind your daily muscles. Instead of walking as you normally would, shift your weight onto one foot in order to let your other leg lift up slightly. Each step is a very subtle movement.
Feel a sway coming up from your feet as you change their points of contact with the ground. Each time you change a point of contact, your whole body constellation changes. The resonance pattern of your body's cells also changes. Instead of walking, let this subtle, shifting sway move you. Let this sway twist your body delicately in different directions and dimensions.
Imagine your body is divided into an infinite number of segments. Begin by letting the movement travel from bottom to middle to top (feet, torso, head) and back (head, torso, feet). Then you can divide each segment into smaller parts (e.g. feet, knees, pelvis, stomach, chest, neck, head). You can continue this process of segmentation infinitely.
If a subtle signal or life tendency comes, follow it and amplify it to the maximum; meet your edge. Then make a reverse twist; this is your new creation.
ROLLING
When rolling on the ground, you can also follow the One-Point Stand technique by shifting your weight from one point of your body to another.
CRAWLING
Learn to crawl as if you are a newborn. Try putting weight into different parts of your body without the strength you have developed in your muscles. Learn to move with the weakness of one who has never moved before. Without strength, you will collapse. Even so, try to move. Try to lift yourself up, even if gravity is pulling you to the ground.
These are the basic of basic pysical method for weakened body in butoh. Continue to deepen the segmentation everyday until subtle cell's life level.
Kathrine performed at the sunrise time on the top of her guest house.
She moved as like as an innocet child with playing with laundry bucket
and cloths..
She wrote some motives on her circulated text above;
For today I am a child
For today I am a boy
a girl
an ego
a dancer
a lover
a forreigner
a consumer
a human
a collection of cells
a body in motion
I could be anybody
Metamorforsis moving unfinished & unfinishable
Unidentified identity
Undefined definition
The mythical feminine is always transforming
Today I am whatever I am today
I am always in process with no beginning & no end
Kathrine's circulated text is a trial to translate qualia into word
Qualia is always streaming with changing resonance patterns in multi-dimensional world
We need to invent how to transform the rhizome reality into tree system
discription by word
Hijikata has already done it in his own way, though nobody understand exactly
He investigated in another logics always which release us from daily dualism
bound
He called it "Chinri no deai ( Encounter in sunken logic)
id reso id.....(something resonate something)
A et B et N et X...( A & B & N & X...)
Kathrine's trial is one of the pioneering invention for it.
We have to deepen it much more in diversitive ways.
You can invent your own way of novel "Butoh-hu (Butoh score)"
Aurora used light, fire, shadow and shade in various ways.
At the bigining only Sara was swaying in the twilight on the stage.
When a light behind a screen turned on, Aurora appeared and started movement
as a shadow.
Slowly Sara approached Aurora with resonating.
And Sara tryed to follow Aurora's movement by drawing brush.
When the tracks of Aurora's movement completed a picture, Sara left and Aurora appeared with ripping up the screen.
A rope was connected on her weist.
When she pulled it, a strage object appeared on a small cart.
She danced with the object between her leg, and started to burn it.
The fire started a dance, Aurora swayed back in the misterious shade of
fire.
And slowly she transformed to a eagle as if she entered into another secret
world.
Her proto dream was to become an eagle.
She said that her subbody process was not completed yet. Yes, it's true.
She could join the school only for two months. It's too short to get whole
subbody butoh method. That's why I decided to close all short course in
next year.
But I could dream if she got weakened body technique more deeply, she could
perform these tranforming process more transparently.
Aurora, continue to train, and repeat this peice many times to complete.
Your subbody will tell you something important secret which is hidden in
this subbody piece someday surely.
13 September, 2008
Approaching the Twilights: Shadows of the Breath (for muni and ademim)
They say shadows disappear when twilight appears but it is not true. In that period between light and darkness, it is the body that disappears and only the shadow remains.
Twilight fields is a realm of shadows. All certainty, clarity and solidity of reality vanish. Meanings lose their self-confidences. All the paths disappear. It is not a time to find your way; it is a timelessness to get lost... completely.
I arrived Dharamsala at twilight, completely lost. Resisting the shadows.
When i found myself back, three months later, it was twilight and i was a shadow.
That three months felt like i was continuously watching myself through a mirror... a mirror that insists on showing all the weaknesses and fears that are buried in the depths of my being. The things i thought i had overcome, but in fact i had just mastered at not seeing them, ignoring them.
During these three months all of those ignored feelings and memories spoke themselves and i listened and it was tough.
A lot of times i felt my energy was being sucked up or as if it was leaking out; making me weak, unmotivated and disconnected and i couldn't stop it.
The concepts Lee was introducing to us were very deep and rich on the mental level and i had some deep experiences at times; but a lot of times i felt that i could not communicate with my body...can not bring out its language. Making all the concepts we were working on left in theoretical level of my mind. I had to make a lot of cleaning in the subconsciousness before making that communication.
I felt like a heavy soil and each day lots of precious seeds were being planted in me. There weren't any water to grow those seeds and i sensed they didn't need water to grow anyway. All they needed was solitude of self-practice. This was the thing that would make those seeds grow. I found this opportunity during the weekends, having the studio for myself to practice.
Another image i have for these three months is a big snake, which was eating a delicious cow everyday although it badly needed a rest; just to digest a little bit.
Sometimes there was an unbalance between the depth of the mental concepts and physical practices, which made it harder for me to deal with things that were coming out from where i buried them.
But when i look back and reflect on the process, i think may be this is the only way those buried stuff can come out: through a huge unbalance in life; or their coming out creates the unbalance.
At the end i can say that this process made me realize a lot of richness in my life, which i happened to forget and lose contact with and i am very thankful for this, no matter how tough these three months were for me. And both the conditioning and the performance that i did during the final week and other friends' conditionings and performances were special for me...bringing my mind back to its tranquility, completing this picture with colors that it needed.
Ozerk started conditioning of the performance day to concentrate on breathing.
We all students shared the breathing from the morning to afternoon.
He had so many plans for solo performance, but finally he reduced all
plans, he decided to improvise in the twilight space.
He moved like as a goast in the darkness.
The other student resonated with his performance by body breathing sound. After sharing breathing for half day, students could resonate his performance deeply.
Subbody cobody theater is not only solo performance, it is co-creation by all. It is the experiment for researching next stage of human, after modern age which human beings are bound by ego.
Tana has well opening audio channel.
In the self reseach time, she often surprized the other student by making
strange voice.
With following strange voice from body, she could find many hidden bodies.
At the last performance also she performed with openning voice chanel
fully.
She sang various strange voice with using saw and wood as like as playing
chello.
Finally she broke off the wood by leg.
Tana, continue to be dangerous, and be crazy until limitless.
Next theme is to become possesed body.
You have a special potential to be so, if you could take off all inteligence
as a human.
You can carry the unlimitted insanity of the all over the world with deep
resonance.
Why do I dance? Why do I need to perform my dance in front of other people? Why do I have to choreograph my dance and not only just flow spontaneously?
Two weeks before my performance I visited with 2 friends in Tatwani, a hot spring and a Hindu ancient temple. In order to get there, you need to take a 1.5 hours local bus, cross a river by foot and walk for 40 minutes in a beautiful way with mud houses and rice fields in a very quite village. I fall in love with the place- the butterflies, the river, the big trees, the village and the hot spring. Before the performance, I came there for 2 more times by myself, which was a big challenge. Imagine this very calm village. Suddenly appears a strange movement which they had never encountered, and this is a woman, dressed in a very strange costume, doing weird faces, splashing in the mud and moving very very slow.
One time I was dancing under a big tree, and a quite old woman, who was constantly knitting, sat down near by me. She was shocked at the beginning but then slowly slowly became also very interested and continued to watch. I felt resonance with her and it made my dance more powerful (to me). Then I understood why I need to perform. I also learned in this creating performance process, that the actual dance of my own subbody heals me. My body forgets its aches and tensions, my mind relax from too much thinking and bad feelings and I can just be.
This process gave me a good mirror to see my ego. I had to convince my self to be at the moment in every step of: planning the trip to the spring, the conditioning, and the performance, to enjoy it, and not send my consciousness to the future all the time. Sometimes I compared my self to other dancers in my class and felt “I am not a real butoh dancer”, and sometimes to the village people, who “do more important things”, like growing their own food (and not “playing” like me). I had to find my own strength, courage, totality and reasons to continue dancing my subbody in the nature areas of the village.
The performance took place in the morning after we all (students, teacher and stuff members) slept on the roof top of the family house we were hosted by. Before that, I went to bath in the spring, but I was still feeling I am not ready, and I had some headache and backache from the chilly night. I started the performance lying down, smelling the grass, growing around the tree, looking at the small insects and spiders. I relaxed, started to dance. My aches were gone and I was just there, resonating with the nature around, feeling the creatures coming out of my subbody, and feeling big love in my heart.
I was once a biology student and today I am guiding kids to be in nature
and love it. I learned in biology that we are a body that is composed of
many cells that split up from one cell. Learning to be a nature guide,
I understood also that we are connected physically, energetically and spiritually
to the universe, to creation and to everything that exists in the world.
But now, I have some deeper understanding that even this cell that our
life as this creature began with is connected back until the first cell
created in this world. And there is no separation between matter and spirit
because it is all together. I feel it more and more, that it is less and
less “Nava”, but a bunch of cells that in some incredible way work together
in an amazing resonance. And really, every cell carries the memory of the
first cell in this world and all that came after. And that all this “I “ thing is a crazy illusion.
Nava has joined subbody workshop 2001, Dharamsala. After seven years she
came bach to school, she said since then she continued to feel her subbody
wants to come out, then she joined school again.
She tryed to connect her subbodies for these three months, and chosed a
place for her last performance.
That place is a sacred hot spring where is for two hours by bus and walk
from the school.
The whole process to reach the place was Nava's conditioning.
She guided us how to enter the nature and how to change daily mind and
body.
There was a big tree at the start point of walk near the rivier.
The tree was arround five hundred years old. It was a sacred tree for local
Indian people. At the foot of the tree there was three sacred stones, and
a small hundu temple of Shiva god beside of tree.
(You can see them on the photo flip above.)
They tells us the long history of Hunduism.
Now Indian people worship Shiva temple. The history is only for several
thousands years. But before Hunduism, people worship the stone. It was
the most primitive simbol of animism. Our human ancesters separated from
chimpanzee six millions years before.At that time they feel themselves
so weak in the surrounding. Their life must shiver always with all kinds
of fenomena in nature. Everything which is stronger than them was god.
Not only one God, they believed that everything has their own Mana (misterious
force). Rain has rain's Mana, fire has fire's Mana.
The stone was the simbol of all kinds of Mana.
Local Indian people believe also this animistic Mana. Their life is still
shivering with the world.
The process which Nava guided us was the huge time travel which upstream
from 21C to ancient time.
We could learn a lot of thing through this time trip.
Under the old tree, Nava took off modern human body and mind,
and dance as a spirit of tree, spirit of land, and spirit of water.
The swamp water was streaming from the hot spring, then it was also hot
swamp.. I didn't know it until that day, though I have been there so many
times.
Nava return back to her country to guide children to nature.
Her guide will be deeper through the deep travel experiences into both
of mental ancient world and natural world in Himalaya, India.
Her last sentense of her text above told us how deep travel she has experienced
here.
"And that all this “I “ thing is a crazy illusion."
Nava,
Keep travelling into subbody and cobody resonance world deeper, and come
back again some day.
Let's dance together with weakened bodies.
I might be real weakened body at that time.
After Sara's performance finished, I could not move at all for several munites.
Something moved my life. I wanted to taste what did happen now here?
I encountered weakened subbody performance, it attacked me deeply.
I didn't expect to be able to see student's weakened subbody performance such an early timing.
I have seen so many butoh dancer's performance, but nobody could show weakened
body, after Tatsumi Hijikata, and Yoko Ashikawa.
But right now it has rebirthed.
Why was it possibl?
There must be a necessity to be so.
We need to continue to listen in the secret for a while without word.
r