Memory of Kazuo Ohno

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC8O0FEU7Kw

    

Memory of Kazuo Ohno

In 1949, 43 years old, you performed the first dance performance in Tokyo.
When you came back from Manokwari of New Guinea, demobilized after one year of prison life, you decided to dance your friends who died in the Second World War; you called it "dance of the jellyfish."
You wanted to dance it from the experience onboard the voyage home from New Guinea, saw off the burial at sea the people who died in malnutrition and disease, floating in the sea at that time.
              Tatsumi Hijikata at 21 years old saw your first dance recital and was shocked. He called you "The Poison Dancer!" later.
After the War, no modern dancer tried to dance the dead, they were hoping to the happy future, only you danced it by becoming Shisha (dead) itself. Then Hijikata resonated deeply, because also his most of sisters and brothers died in the War including the beloved sister which he could dance it in the last solo of Quiet House, finally.
You and Hijikata started from the deep resonance to dance invisible different dimension including the realm of the dead.

Dancing between the Bottom and Vaporized body

              I collected the bottom shapes of Kazuo Ohno. The only dynamic standing pose is spread to the world as if Ohno's trademarks. I worried about it. It guides people to a big misunderstanding about his butoh.Ohno's butoh was distorted by those great poses of his pictures. Photographers used to shoot the timing of his standing and spread his big hands to the sky.
              In spite of that, it is merely a pose of his butoh, cameramen aimed to shoot the great pose. Because it is felt like the beauty for their eyes.
But their eyes are warped by the modern daily sense of beauty. 
Photographers, who shoot only his great pose, distort his life of butoh completely. And the sad thing, many Western butoh dancers are influenced by 'the fake of Ohno's butoh style', and it spread to the world. 
For long years I worried about it.
              It is one of the flowers of his butoh, all right. He looked even great beings who communicate with the Universe. But the flower is not made of by flower itself. The flower becomes the flower supported by the secret and the mystery. Ohno's real dance was wandering the dark world below the knee; he faced to the edge of death, listen to the other world, full of the secrets and mysteries of life there. And he danced the distance between the bottom realms and vaporized floating realm.
              Kazuo Ohno was an improvisational dancer. He could dance for long hours just by improvising as his original jellyfish dance. Hijikata gave him an important choreographs when Kazuo asked Hijikata to choreograph "La Argentina" and “My Mother". 
              A few people knew that both pieces were choreographed and directed by Hijikata. Hijikata's choreography was just put some materialized bottoms in the piece because it was the most necessary thing to support Kazuo's natural jellyfish dance, it was the vaporized body in Hijkata's term. 
Hijikata knew well about Ohno's dance what was the strongest Flower and what was lacked and wanted. 
              Hijikata put the Kugutsu body, Bottom body or Quiet body at the beginning, between each part, and the beginning of the ending part. They supported Ohno's natural jellyfish dance as if the anchor, then the piece got the width between stillness and movement. The dynamic contrast brought the audience into the Kazuo's Abyss.
             

              The second piece which Hijikata choreographed was "My mother".Hijikata put a tiny table as the symbol of his mother, and fixed some postures with the table, on the table, playing with the table, entering the womb world, fucking the table, and so on. Also, they supported the dynamic total Jo-ha-Kyu effectively. 
We can understand after studying Hijikata's secret of choreographing through "Quiet House", how he applied his numerous techniques of creation into the choreograph of Kazuo's piece.
              Also, a famous story that characterizes well the distinction of Hijikata and Ohno, "The form follows the spirit", and "The spirit follows the form". But this is an artificial story which a clever critique made. 
He hides the fact Hijikata choreographed Ohno's piece. Hijikata learned the vaporized body from Ohno's jellyfish dance at a young age and developed it to the vaporized and materialized technique. Both processes were the essence of Hijikata's technique. It is to dance the distance between the weakened body and the separated spirit from the physical body. Ohno and               Hijikata shared the whole process for long years. They know well each other including the absolute difference. In the 1970's they have separated far away. And they could find the best resonance pattern in the 1980s. 

Flower, Secret, and Mystery 
Without facing to the own Mystery and Secret, the butoh turns to the fake dance.
(I wrote this sentence two years ago. I don't like the dualistic judgment as above. There is no dualistic boundary between true dance and fake dance. We need to take off all of these dualistic habits of consciousness. I don't have time to correct the above sentence into a non-dualistic sentence now. I just ask you to give attention to overcome those dualistic conscious habits. 
About dance and butoh, we should not use the word. We can get something real only through body experience.)

Most of the photographers seem not to see his secret and mystery.
Yoshito Ohno, his son said

"Kazuo had another world under the knee. It was another cosmos for him. ‘The world of under the knee was very important for him. In the case of modern dance, the tendency to orient the upper direction against the Gravity is strong. But, for Kazuo, on the opposite. When he felt something underworld, he just falls down. The speed is terrible. In a moment he was fallen."
(" Ohno Kazuo; daily food for Spirit", 1999, Japan)

I collected Ohno's photos of the opposite pose against the great pose of his butoh. It was hard, because too rare to find.
Fortunately, in the works of Naoya Ikegami, I could find a few photos. 
I deeply appreciate Naoya's important works. It may be useful to save the worldwide misunderstanding about Kazuo's butoh.
Please taste them in your life. with stopping your daily sense of beauty.
We need to take off all the conditions of humans. 
And ask your life, "What do you want most?".

"What is the Flower of his butoh?"
"What is the Secret of his butoh?"
"What is the Mystery of his butoh?"

All of Secrets and Mysteries are invisible, belongs in behind world.
Only when you stop your daily mind, it will be able to resonate with your Life.