Dance Preview
Akira Kasai steps outside boundaries of butoh

By Brangien Davis
Special to The Seattle Times

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Something old, something new, something borrowed, something ... butoh. The old wedding adage (with a Japanese twist) appropriately describes the work of Akira Kasai, who opens the 2004-05 new performance series at On the Boards this weekend. In Kasai's unique brand of butoh, he borrows and blends dance traditions both ancient and contemporary, including kabuki, modern dance and hip-hop.

Butoh originated in post-WWII Japan, and is most commonly characterized by emotionally raw and almost torturously slow movement, and the white body paint donned by many practitioners. For 20 years, Kasai studied under two founders of butoh, Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, and in 1971 he established an institute for butoh studies in Tokyo, Tenshi-Kan. But Kasai has also studied modern dance, classical ballet and eurythmy, and very consciously welcomes external influences into the butoh tradition.

"Though butoh is a very internal art," Kasai explains, "It cannot live without the inspiration of images coming from the outside."

OtB artistic director Lane Czaplinski is drawn to Kasai's elastic interpretation of the art form. "He continues to actively think about the form and how he can push the boundaries further, which keeps it relevant and interesting," Czaplinski says.

In his current piece, called "Pollen Revolution," Kasai starts out dressed as a woman in a traditional kabuki costume (with a white face, kimono and black wig), and through a series of improvised and studied deconstructive movements gradually transforms into a hip-hop dancer.

It's not what you'd expect from conventional butoh, but it makes a lot of sense to Kasai, who finds many similarities between butoh and hip-hop. "Hip-hop came from the bottom of the social pyramid; butoh came from the underground of Japanese society," he says.

Dance preview Akira Kasai, "Pollen Revolution," 8 tonight-Sunday, On the Boards, 100 W. Roy St., Seattle; $22, $12 students (206-217-9888 or www.ontheboards.org).

And Kasai feels the connection is not merely one of historical origins. "In hip-hop the movements come from a very deep, soulful source, but they are at the same time sculpted from the outside — it's not just making a beautiful form, but deforming it and breaking it down. That is also an essential element of butoh."

Kasai has been called the "Nijinsky of butoh," and he agrees that there may be a parallel. "Nijinsky was a classical ballet dancer who eventually steered away from the traditional form," he explains. "He stepped into a world where he couldn't express enough within the ballet vocabulary." While audiences considered the later work of Nijinsky to be the product of his madness (he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1936), Kasai has a slightly different take.

"If we were to think of what people would say now about his later work," he posits, "They might say he was moving into the territory of butoh."

According to Czaplinski, Kasai's performance is representative of a directional change for OtB.

"This season is different," he says. "Last year the dance was more external — more outwardly manifested. It was about relationship dynamics, eroticism and bold dance movements. This year the program is at times softer, smaller, less obvious."

Certainly, there's nothing obvious about Kasai, whose boundary-breaking work compels audiences to question their own.

Brangien Davis: brangiendavis@yahoo.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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