Okay, so i went a little crazy here with posting some butoh dance videos. As I mentioned in my comments from the other post, butoh emerged in the late 50's and 60's in Japan, and while it explores many universal themes of existence, it has always been thought to have been birthed out of the horrific experience of the hiroshima bombings and the aftermath of that. I find these vids mesmerizing - the movements and the contexts - simultaneously hypnotic and frightening, and just plain intense. Hope some of you will enjoy them.
here is a rather intense clip from a performance in paris that has embedding diabled
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These are very intriguing pieces of performance art/dance. The first video was so captivating. I like the very stark contrasts of pieces of this video. For example, that he looks like a very primitive creature in an urbanized/suburbanized setting. Also, his obvious potential ability to be strong and keep his body in check but his inability to do so. This inability for the performer to control his body at some points, and then at others have complete control over himself, is so interesting. I think the point, or one of the points, is to raise the awareness of the battle between the brain and body. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but when I watched this more and more, the performer seems to be struggling with a battle of the ability to control his own brain in order to control his own body. When he can overcome the brain, his body is able to do so many beautiful moves with such grace and poise. However, when he loses the battle, when he falls down the stairs, he is helpless to his own brain. I think in more broad terms, it's trying to have people gain awareness of their own brains and minds in order to be in control of their actions and how they work in the world. For if you have true consciousness, then you have true control over your own thoughts, then you are able to think for yourself and not just secede to mainstream thought.
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