From time to time I enter into the deeply creative movement form Butoh. Butoh emerged in Japan in the 1940’s and is now practiced and performed in various forms and different expressions worldwide. I have always enjoyed entering the rich imaginal field that the practice evokes. Studying for three weeks with Japanese Butoh master Katsura Kan, as one of a small group of others in Kyoto, was no exception. Meeting Kan San’s ways of teaching was in itself a great leap into new and unknown realms. He began by introducing us to an essence of the ancient practice of Noh Theatre, known for its restrained aesthetic, symbolic movements, and use of mask and costume, while we simultaneously moved slowly towards creating Butoh inspired performances.

The daily task to learn and to embody a sequence of Noh theatre which involved; chanting, accurate small foot placements and complex fan work, was somehow both compelling and deeply challenging. The depth of a practice grown in a culture since the 14th Century for which my body mind had no ancestral lineage, felt a strong and often arduous process. Having been a practitioner of different forms of movement for many years, I have rarely learned sequences of movements and steps, let alone complex fan work, while also embodying a complex story of spirit realms in translation, whose intricacies I could barely grasp. I could follow others’ movements but my capacity to assign the movements to body memory was barely incremental, embodiment through repetition was my only way. Fortunately Kan could speak to us in English, but I was never quite sure that what he said in English would match if the same was said in Japanese. We were attempting to learn a form in short sessions over ten days, that according to our teacher had taken him three years to embody. I feel that I did receive a flavour of something, which was helped greatly by seeing a classical Noh Theatre piece performed in the Kyoto University theatre. The particular quality I received from witnessing the classical Noh piece was, I felt, expanded through the deep stillness and heightened attention the audience held, while witnessing the performance.

Each day we moved , through the gateway of Noh towards solo Butoh performances that were to be shown in the small and magical theatre Urbanguild, in the centre of Kyoto. In the last few days we turned our attention fully and completely to Butoh. The poster for our, at the time, non-existent and unimagined performances, had been available to the general public in Japan before we left our home countries. With the support of Katsura Kan and generous others, we each developed a solo work. Over a period of three days as I developed my piece, I created a costume inspired by a Japanese dying technique, recorded a sound track in the cemetery of a nearby Shinto temple and arranged a lighting score. The character I embodied in the work was described by the teacher as the ‘zombie witch’, my own title was the english translation of ‘Eine Kline Nacht Music’. I feel that the few photos, kindly taken by Jono Hacon, during the performance, say it all!