Kazuo Ohnos
World: From Without and Within
by Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno; Trans.
by John Barrett
Wesleyan University Press, Middletown,
CT, 2004
323 pp. Trade, $34.95
ISBN: 0-8195-6694-2.
Reviewed by Allan Graubard
2900 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington,
DC 20008, USA
a.graubard@starpower.net
"Butoh means to meander . . .
to move in twists and turns between the
realms of the living and the dead"
(p. 205). --Kazuo Ohno
Who is Kazuo Ohno? What has he to say
about dance, the body, gesture, performance,
thought, memory, the soul, death, freedom,
and love? How has our experience of the
body changed as a result of our encounter
with Butoh, which he, along with Tatsumi
Hijikata, created?
These are the questions that animate this
book on an exceptional man, who in 1977
at the age of 71, with his Admiring
La Argentina, would soon become an
essential force in dance internationallyafter
a hiatus in public performance of nearly
a decade.
Written and compiled by his son and closest
collaborator, Yoshito Ohno, I recommend
this book to those who wish to understand
something more of what they hopefully
have viewed on stage. For performers and
creators, the book will return them to
their initial reasons for having launched
themselves into art and enable them to
clarify what sustains them and why. Its
effects, like those that stem from Artauds
writings, I believe, will grow in importance
as Butoh diffuses through studios and
schools, and its origins in crisis
seem more historical than immediate.
The book has two sections in two voices.
Yoshito Ohno writes the first, Food
for the Soul, in response to 129 photos
of his fathers dance creations,
many never published before. He pays particular
attention to the face, mouth, voice, eye,
ear, hand, and back then turns to the
language of performance by discussing
falling, standing, walls, fluidity, makeup,
integrating photo documentation into the
dance creation process, and more. A biography
of Kazuo Ohnos family life, his
nine-year service in the Japanese army
with its traumatic WW II conclusion in
New Guinea, his sudden impulses during
curtain calls, and his epochal meeting
with Tatsumi Hijikata in 1954 follows.
Part two includes 154 aphorisms transcribed
from recordings made during Kazuo Ohnos
workshops at his rehearsal studio, which
he built with timber donated from a school
where he worked. Twenty-four photos accompany
the text. Kazuo Ohno speaks of many things,
of course, from the common challenges
we face in daily life to his relationship
with flowers, insects and animals, and
the dancers responsibilities in
performance. He tells us:
"Discard whatever
mental fantasies and ideas you may have.
Dont think about where to place
your feet. Forget all that, and follow
your impulses . . . . Be spontaneous.
How could words ever explain how to move?
Just do it. I want dance to spring from
an inexplicable source . . . . I want
to dance in such a way that deeply touches
you" (p. 221).
And he notes, humorously:
"Theres no need to memorize
gestures and movements because, no matter
what I do, Ill forget them anyway.
The essential thing is that the experience
remains perfectly ingrained in my mind,
in my soul. Thats what comes with
repeated practice. Its of little
consequence if I forget what I practice
because, despite myself, Im constantly
absorbing the fruit of my endeavors"
(p.2 73).
I attended two performances
by Kazuo Ohno at the Japan Society in
New York: "My Mother," in 1996,
and "Requiem for the Twentieth Century,"
with Yoshito Ohno, in 1999. Performing
solo and in duet at the age of 90 and
92, respectively, is more than admirable.
Performing with poignancy, transparency,
directness and strength, despite a body
in decline, is more than astonishing;
it is perfectly human, without condition
or qualm. And that is the greatest compliment
I can pay to this master of dance, Kazuo
Ohno.
Oh, yes: after his
1999 performance in New York, he held
a public question and answer session with
a translator. From that session, I recall
two questions and answers as much characteristic
of his audience as of him. A New York
actress I know asked Ohno how he prepared
for a performance, and he replied: "I
rise in the morning and drink tea."
Another woman asked what he would like
for his epitaph. Ohno thought for a long
time before responding: "What was
the question?"
The book contains
two appendices: a chronology of Kazuo
Ohnos life and his public performances.