Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis

 

Butoh is a type of modern Japanese dance that came into existence after World War II, in conjunction with the Japanese student riots. The inventors of Butoh, returning to Japan after studying modern dance in Germany, sought a new form of expression through movement that maintained a cultural connection to Japan rather than copying the western techniques. The first Butoh performances were provocative, and wild, causing the style and performers to be banned.

 

Butoh performers commonly wear white body makeup and use slow, hyper-controlled motions. The idea behind butoh is to allow the body to express itself much more naturally than traditional Japanese dance, to reenact the movements of the common people rather than those of trained dancers. By distorting the face and body, the performer frees him/herself from the socially acceptable forms of expression and instead allows the body to move in an organic, natural way.

– http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/glossary/butoh/

 

Takeaway: Butoh strips itself from the layers that were build up by western influences and traditional Japanese theatre, Noh. It reveals the inner depths of the self, unlocking the true identity of the dancer. Butoh searches for energy from the underground/nature. If we were to compare Butoh with Noh, Noh uses masks to conceal the actors face – focusing primarily on movement that would bring about certain expressions, without revealing the actor’s face. Butoh’s intention is to expose the very being of humans. Symbolically, the white body makeup could act as a mask, but instead of concealing, it exposes and amplifies expressions. 

How the Dogon Mask Dance Reflects the Universe / African Cosmos

A similar binary connection between earth and sky may be found in the crossbar of the superstructure of Dogon kanaga masks that appears at funerals to lead the soul of the deceased to the afterlife. In the performance, the dancers reportedly touched the tip of the mask to the earth in the four cardinal direction, possibly representing “the movement imposed upon the universe by [the Creator] Amma.” Though interpretations vary, the upper crossbar is said to represent the sky, the lower, the earth , emphasising cultural notions of duality or contrasting opposites which is fundamental in Dogon thought. 

 

 

The great plank masks called sirige seemingly reach for the heavens, their tall superstructures bridging earth and sky. 

 

Germaine Dieterlen described them as representing “stars in great number, implying infinite multiplication and suggesting a series of galaxies and their movements in space,” but she noted that the form implies the “journey between Heaven and Earth” of Amma’s first creation, Ogo the descent of the first ancestors or nommo, and “the many–storied family house, which shelters the ancestral altars”. These are always described in relation to astronomy, as conceived by the Dogon ….A procession of masks represents the ensemble of the universe. 

 

– Performing the Moral Universe, African Cosmos, Christine Mullen Kreamer 

Dogon Masks

Mask (Kanaga)

Date: 20th century
Geography: Mali
Culture: Dogon peoples
Medium: Wood, fiber, hide, pigment
Dimensions: H. 21 1/8 x W. 38 1/4 x D. 6 1/4 in. (53.6 x 97.2 x 15.9 cm)
Classification: Wood-Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of Lester Wunderman, 1987
Accession Number: 1987.74i

“One of the most popular types of masks in the Sanga region is the type known as kanaga. Like other Dogon masks, kanaga masks are worn at rituals called dama, whose goal is to transport the souls of deceased family members away from the village and to enhance the prestige of the deceased and his descendants by magnificent masked performances and generous displays of hospitality. In 1935, French anthropologist Marcel Griaule witnessed a dama ritual in which twenty-nine out of a total of seventy-four masks were of the kanaga type. These masks are characterized by a wooden superstructure in the form of a double-barred cross with short vertical elements projecting from the tips of each horizontal bar.

This kanaga mask was collected in Mali by Lester Wunderman, complete with its costume elements (see 1987.74a through 1987.74i). When the mask is worn, the back of the dancer’s head is covered with a hood of plaited fiber fringe at the bottom edge. The dancer wears a vest made of black strip-woven cloth and red broadcloth strips embroidered with white cowrie-shells; strands of glass and plastic beads dangle from its edges. The kanaga dancer also wears a pair of trousers made of indigo-dyed, strip-woven cotton cloth, over which he ties a long skirt of curly, loosely strung, black-dyed sanseveria fibers and short overskirts of straight red and yellow fibers. For a traditional dama, the preparation and dyeing of the fibers are undertaken with as much secrecy and ritual as the carving of the wooden mask.

During the time spent by Griaule among the Dogon studying their complex belief system, he was initially told that the kanaga mask represents a bird with white wings and black forehead, but he later came to see this literal interpretation as characteristic of the first level of knowledge, that of the uninitiated. The deeper meaning of the kanaga mask apparently pertains both to God, the crossbars being his arms and legs, and to the arrangement of the universe, with the upper crossbar representing the sky and the lower one the earth. The disparity between these two interpretations illustrates the gaps in our understanding of Dogon art.” – http://www.metmuseum.org

Take-away: Masks in this scenario is used to convey the complex belief system and the universe through ritualistic performances. The kanaga acts as a gateway or a key that is needed to transport the souls away from the village, catalysing the process of transference, where the performance is the vehicle. Masks are often worn with other ornaments or costumes, much like an accompaniment that would not work without the other.