Move like the Japanese

With the hipster quotient in the limelight all things Japanese are reportedly fascinating Irrespective of your claim to be one or the other Japanese dance critic Daisuke Mutorsquos talk on Japanese contemporary dance and its historical context should be an interesting event This Sunday Dance Dialogues in association with GotheInstitut Mumbai and the Japan Foundation will host the talk that would have travelled from Chennai August 710 and will be heading to Delhi by August 16 Kazuo Ohno one of the founders of the Butoh dance form in Imagining La Argentina Pic Courtesy Emiacutedio Luisi Muto an independent dance critic and Associate Professor at Gunma Prefectural Womenrsquos University gives us a sneak peek into his talk ldquoFrom its early modern period Japanese dance had multiple ways of modernisation preserving traditional forms updating them in some way importing Western ballet and going just individual by throwing away all the existing forms The latter one has built a strong foundation for what we call modern dance today Moreover under this modern dance genre Butoh showed up after the Second World War In this period Japanese national identity was at stake especially within a process of going under the US control Butoh was a rage against identity politics which was considered as a trap to be dominated by something larger They set a fight to emancipate bodiesrdquo A sketch of the dance critic Daisuke Muto by Jecko Siompo Muto adds ldquoUnlike the European version Japanese contemporary dance has no public institution Dancers and choreographers are independent So they donrsquot have large possibility to do big productions or mesmeric spectacles but instead on to their focus goes onto humanscale expression without showing off elaborate dance techniquerdquo Justifiably the contemporary trope in Japan lacks any historical backing as Muto relays ldquoAt the same time having no background of traditional culture element their expression is individualistic and extremely diverse Therefore most works show the authorrsquos daily or mundane worldview These are the major differences from other Asian regionsrdquo Circa Chandaralekha As the Asian framework will be a point of reference in his talk we prod him for his favourite dancer ldquoChandralekha was great as she stretched out the potentials of traditional dance form to an incredibly remote point I admire her achievement and that is one of the reasons why Irsquom intrigued about contemporary Indian dancerdquo The famous dancer was born in Wada Maharashtra and was renowned for her fusion of Bharatanatyam and Kalaripayattu Muto is currently working on his first piece of choreography called Kuru Kitto Kuru Surely It Comes About ldquoThe piece is about lsquoimagined bodyrsquo and the imaginationrsquos resource It is a lsquoghost picturersquo performance No one dances visibly on stage but someone may be dancing actuallyrdquo he states What is butoh Butoh is an avantgarde performance art germinated out of the idea of being distinctly Japanese as opposed to the western imports of Ballet and Jazz predominantly Kazuo Ohno an important dancer of this form will be a point of emphasis in Mutorsquos talk On Aug 11 4 pm to 6 pm At Max Mueller Bhavan K Dubash Road Kala Ghoda Email dancedialoguesgmailcom