Review: Butoh and Transcending the Identity of Sex. Towards a "tantric" interpretation of Sankai Juku's "Kagemi"

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the review: 

Kagemi by the Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku was originally created for and at the Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. The production is currently touring internationally. I saw it in London at the major dance venue, Sadlers Wells. The Theatre's Press Release describes the performance (10-14 June, 2003) as one which "explores the other world reflected by the mirror image" (Sadlers Wells, 2003). The noun "Kagemi" is thought by the company's Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu to be the original Japanese word for mirror. In Kagemi's seven scenes water, wind, dance, echo, dark, light, abundance and emptiness blend into a beguiling stage composition. The dance floor is an imaginary pool into which Amagatsu gazes at imaginary reflections. There are moments when the stance of the dancers suggests mirror images. Above the dancers as they negotiate the stage, is a bed of "floating" (in/on air) lotus plants. In the ultimate sequence of the work, the male dancers perform gestures of prayer and supplication followed by the lowering of the lotus flowers to engulf and "drown" them. Finally their hands emerge, like plants, through the jungle of lotuses, as if lotus stems and possibly flowers themselves. I will return to the central significance of this final image with regard to gender later on in this article. Phytomorphic representations of the divine also are rich in diverse examples and often enigmatic. Holy plants and plants considered to be divine are represented in connection with notions of god/goddess in human form.