Your Teacher, please

A dance lecture about the teachings of Yoshito Ohno by his student Ana Rita Teodoro

One of the starting points of this research was the impression that there is an important domination of the aesthetics of butoh by its clichés (twisted figures, white and slow) that hover above the ideas and the processes that made it possible to build an art that upset its context and its time. The knowledge of the audience, and sometimes even that of the dancers, is above all that of the images and the aesthetics present during the performances.

My encounter with butoh first happened when discovering Hijikata Tatsumi, Kazuo Ohno and the artistic context of the 60s in Tokyo. I was fascinated by their ideas, their audacity and their ways of "doing dance". This passion led me to various butoh studios to attend workshops, both in Europe and Japan. These experiences convinced me that butoh’s singularity and richness lies in its learning process. As for example, in the incorporation of words for the construction of an imaginary and in the absence of models of movements to imitate.

With the gradual disappearance of the first generation of butoh dancers, it seemed essential to me to return to these dance studios and collect their modes of transmission / teaching, while paying attention to the changes in the students bodies and presence. The present research tries to restore the dynamic processes of making butoh in an attempt to move away from an aesthetic that sometimes seems stuck in its clichés.
Among the multitude of butoh studios and teachers practicing today, I turned my attention to Yoshito Ohno’s classes, which currently take place every Tuesday and Sunday, at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio in Kamihoshikawa, Japan.

In this lecture, Your Teacher, please, I will move through butoh dance material transmitted to me by Yoshito Ohno in his studio, according to my experience as a student.

With the support: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Aide à la recherche et au Patrimoine en Danse (CND, Pantin), Devir-Capa (Faro), CND Pantin and the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio (Japan).

Production: Associação Parasita. Promotion: Louise Productions.
Translation to English: Sabine Macher. Design of the booklet: Isabel Lucena. Costume: Olga Rego.

Duration: 1h20

Your Teacher, please
was presented:

CAMPING, Les Subsistances, Lyon (France) – 06/2018

CAMPING, CND, Pantin (France) – 06/2018

ADAM2, CARAVAN CND
Hakka Cultural Park, Taipei (Taiwan) – 08/2018

Credits by Pi-Cheng Wang. Picks from the presentation at Hakka Cultural Center, Taipei, Taiwan.