Costume en Face

Steve Dalachinsky & Yuko Otomo
October 2015

Costume en Face – A Primer of Darkness for young Boys and Girls notebook written by Moe Yamamoto

Translated from the  Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu

(Emergency Play Scripts – Ugly Duckling Presse, Brooklyn, New York)

To translate and recreate “Costume en Face” must have been a difficult enough task so the prospect of “reviewing”/ discussing it after receiving, holding and reading it was both a challenge as well as a deterrent. But once we settled into it we found it rewarding and on some levels entrancing. What we have here is a canvas stretched, laid out, painted over time and time again as it is being altered, revised and dictated by Hijikata to Yamamoto who transcribed Hijikata’s ideas and accompanied them with illustrations. Hence the surviving notebook.

Take 1. steve dalachinsky

This book does not represent a documentation but rather comes closest to the actual performance. It is a compilation of notes unveiling/revealing Hijikata’s ideas, methods and creative process. It is a book of ghosts both hungry and full. Merging the animate and the inanimate to create new beings. “Play a bird… Be a bird.” “Sensation goes 3D.” “Hair.” “Age.” “Conflict.” “Swallow the snake / become the snake.” “Rhinoceros in a mental institution.” All things possessed of inequality yet all of equal value, tangible yet intangible. A mixing of “ologies” – myth / psych / path / … a written document to be interpreted as movement. Sacred ceremony. Hijikata calls upon many great artists/thinkers in his quest: Bellmer / Picasso / Bacon / Beardsley / Dali / Da Vinci / Redon / Delaunay / Dubuffet / Goya / Buddha. Light and dark merge, are submerged then re-emerge. Transformation. Horrifying. Genet / Sade. “Hell.” “clear expression.” .”decay. breath.” “Blowing cold air…cannot see the light of day.” “woman in flames.” “kissing a giant.” Many non-human animal forms.

Butoh: graceful savagery / sophisticated primitivism / stamping feet / full circling / shamanistic. What Hijikata added to this was Ankoku(darkness). Most forget this when dealing with what he founded in 1956 and therefore only get half the significance of what he was trying to accomplish. This would be like saying: I like chocolate when in fact you mean you only like dark chocolate.

We have action into motion and vice versa, an intense mingling of internal and external. Of many disciplines interacting / interfacing / monologues / dialogues / invention / the creation and at times negation of the ACT. It is also interesting to note that like Grimms’ Fairy Tales or Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring many of the images in the notebook are dark, disturbing, even grotesquely frightening yet Hijikata calls it a “A Primer of Darkness for Young Boys and Girls.”

Since Hijikata passed away at age 57 in 1986, Nakayasu could not directly reference him but she did seek out and find Yamamoto who offered encouragement, advice and insight. Kudos to Nakayasu for doing such a splendid job.

This text is to be read, savored, danced, imagined and experienced the way one would wander through a museum, a play, a novel, a library, a book of visual poetry or an intensely creative conversation. It is in fact, like living in a great painting. Breathing it’s colors, nuances, obvious and less obvious brush strokes and techniques without ever being able to fully penetrate or understand all it’s meaning and depth. A true Garden of Delights. One could only wish to experience this “dance” of light and darkness as it is unfolding.

* words in quotes are taken from concepts/ideas set forth by Hijikata and transcribed into notebook by Yamamoto

Take 2. Yuko Otomo

Simply stated, two Kanji (Chinese Characters), “Bu” & “Toh”, make the now familiar term “Butoh”. “Bu” means “to dance spaciously in the air with elegance” & is also used to describe a butterfly or a feather fluttering in the air. & “Toh” means “to stamp feet on the ground”. In Japanese, we have two general words to describe “Dance”. “Bu” & “Yoh”. “Yoh” is “to dance to the rhythm of music, moving the body”. Two basic words combined, “Buyoh” has become the most generic term for “Dance”. The same thing happened with the combination of “Bu” & “Toh”. Together, “Butoh” also has become another general term for “Dance”. Both “Buyoh” & “Butoh” are commonly used for “Dance” in general.

Hijikata was only 17 years old when WWII ended with the inconceivably devastating landscapes of Hiroshima & Nagasaki & the firebombed Tokyo. I can never conceive of the origin of Butoh without relating to the darkness of the world he witnessed as a young sensitive being. When he first shocked the world with his choreographic interpretation of Yukio Mishima’s “Kinjiki: Forbidden Colors” breaking all the existing dance conventionalities in 1959, he called “his” way of dance “Ankoku Buyo”. Soon, he changed it to “Ankoku Butoh”.

As the term “Butoh” became internationally accepted a most fundamental problem surfaced. It turned itself into something that described a certain “style” of dance in the most superficial manner. Extremely slow motioned, grotesque & mysteriously erotic, usually with white painted skin & scanty costumes. If Hijikata were alive now to see his art being totally misunderstood as a stylized genre, he would be the first to say “No, that’s not what I meant!”

It’s interesting to see the coinciding timing of its popular acceptance & the moment the most important word “Ankoku” was dropped from the original terminology he invented. “Ankoku” is made of two kanji: An(Darkness) & Koku(Black), but it is not about the color, it’s about the existential state of being, physical & metaphysical. “Ankoku” describes the devouring utter darkness that connects our reality to the cosmic darkness. Hijikata was an artist whose lineage was strongly connected to Surrealism & to the poet and leader of Japanese Surrealism, Shuzo Takiguchi. Takiguchi was, in fact, one of his mentors. Calling “Ankoku Butoh” simply “Butoh” is like calling Artaud’s “Theater of Cruelty” simply “Theater”.

I welcome this bi-lingual version of “Costume En Face” as an important document that can encourage us to re-examine Hijikata’s art & to help save it from drowning within superficial interpretation & the wrong appropriation of being a stylized genre of choreography. His original impetus was deeply rooted in the pre-historic sacred dance in a time when humans were able to communicate with cosmic energy. He never thought he was avant-garde or experimental. Instead, he went back to the origin of dance in the most primordial sense. The choreographic notation dictated to Moe Yamamoto, a dancer in his troop, as Hijikata spoke his vision to him in a fervent feverish passion for the preparation for a performance gives us a rare chance to witness the evidence of his ardent creative process. It also allows for future generations of dancers to activate his work in much the same way that musicians play the music notations of classical music.

As a native Japanese, I can well imagine the burden of the difficult task of translating this material. The translator Sawako Nakayasu did an amazing job, clarifying the ambiguous poetic qualities of Hijikata’s terminology without invading the integrity of the artist’s intention. Even if you are not interested in dance or in Butoh or in Hijikata, it is an intensely stimulating visual & poetic experience to go through this book. I hope this publication will be followed by more of Hijikata’s work translated into multiple languages for the sake of the righteous understanding of his art.

Review courtesy of The Otter,  a magazine of literature and visual art by Overpass Books, a small press based in Brooklyn, NY.

Costume en Face: A Primer of Darkness for Young Boys an Girls, Ugly Duckling Press