Edinburgh-based Dance Base Yokohama and Aichi Prefectural Art Theater, directed and choreographed by Conan Amok, bring R/evolution(s) to Edinburgh Fringe at Assembly @ Dance Base (DB1), and you simply cannot look away.
As a dance form, butoh has gained popularity in the West through cultural exchange since the 1980s. However, the method developed in the 1960s in reaction to World War II, especially against the ossification of Japanese traditional forms like Noh and Kabuki, as well as the import and idolisation of Western dance styles like ballet.
A significant component of butoh’s methods involves physically unexpected movements, typically toward the grotesque. Hijikata Tatsumi, one of butoh’s founders, believed the dance resisted any kind of fixed form and instead relied on the distress, emotional and physical, of the performers. For some methods, this relies on a nihilism approaching a worship of death, while for others it is about extreme bodily experiences like near starvation, which create extreme bodily shapes.
Fringe attendees might be familiar with larger groups of butoh dancers in a rictus of silent scream to heaven, arms out, painted white or gold, in a loincloth or thin draped material and little else.
R/evolution(s) draws on this lineage while updating the extremity to focus on the control and prowess of the four dancers onstage. Rather than loincloths, the female performers are in workout gear, sports tops and shorts in a dusty grey-lilac. They have stripes of greyish-white paint across their faces, but they are not covered head to toe in white paint that cracks as they move. The focus is taken even further from the costumes and make-up and remains fully on the performers themselves, refining butoh’s rejection of tradition even further.
The four performers themselves are incredibly precise. Whether they are dragging their knuckles on the ground, silently screaming to heaven, performing ugly Pilates-like steps, or rolling their ankles after standing as far on tiptoe as possible, the dancers are always sure of their movements. They create the experience of chaos, agony, and duress, but they are our guides through these feelings and lead us seamlessly through each moment.
Butoh is not for everyone, but if you love physical theatre or dance performances, you cannot miss R/evolution(s) at Assembly @ Dance Base (DB1).
Listings and ticket information can be found here
