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Comentario por Gustavo Collini el | em enero 26, 2010 a las | às 2:20am

LA NACIÓN

"Butoh is active meditation which frees our inner self.”
Sunday 15 March 2009


“Actually, Butoh is an ideogram, an image that may be interpreted in different lights. The one I like the most is that which runs as follows: burying one’s feet (Bu) in order to fly with your arms (Toh)”- explains Gustavo Collini- who is responsible for introducing and spreading Butoh in Argentina.
"Kazuo Ohno, my mentor , created this dance along with Tatsumi Hijikata and called it Dance of Darkness. However, as he would say, it is not about something gloomy or dismal but dreamlike, oneiric; what lies unveiled and needs to be disclosed.
Collini Sartor graduated from the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art as both a performer and a director ; and from Salvador University as a set designer. Also he studied with Ellen Stewart at La Mama Theatre in NYC; with Pina Bausch famous for her phrase: I don’t care about how humans dance but about what moves them to do so. And he was also trained by Jerzy Grotowski, creator of the Poor Theatre. Gustavo Collini started his Butoh studies in Venice with Kazuo Ohno, and his son Yoshito Ohno.For 10 years he followed his Master all over Europe ,ending up eventually at Kazuo Ohno Dance Institute in Tokyo. Finally, he returned to Buenos Aires where he has been teaching Butoh for 15 years at his own institute.On 22 March he premiered his film Invisible City- fully produced in Buenos Aires- in the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (NYIIFVF) . The film-which he stars in – was also honored by UNESCO.

What does Butoh dance consist of?
It is active meditation which frees our inner self, enslaved in each and every one of us unable to express itself.It consists of very slow concientious movements as if each dancer tried to listen to his/her inner voice before taking a step. Butoh was born in the aftermath of WWII as a reaction to the dead and wounded caused by the A-bombs dropped both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It all began exactly in 1959 when the play Forbidden Colours was shown for the first time. Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno starred in the play, which was made up of texts by poet Yukio Mishima.

Butoh dance is highly influenced by German Expressionism dance Neue Tanz, by Grotowski; and by traditional Japanese dramatic forms such as Noh Theatre and Kabuki.
How did you get to know Butoh?
It was back in 1986 at San Martín Theatre, when Kazuo Ohno danced paying homage to La Argentina. A choreography created in honour to flamenco baila’ora (dancer) Antonia Merce, well-known as La Argentina,because of her origin. Ohno had been thrilled by Antonia’s perfomance at the ancient Opera Theatre in Tokyo back in 1924 and since then, he had been toying with the idea of paying a tribute to her.
Ohno’s opportunity came along half a century later when he danced in La Argentina’s outfits which are currently kept at Cervantes Theatre.

What is Kazuo Ohno like?
He is a very warm though strict man when it comes to teaching.When I met him , he was 80. He started dancing at the age of 64 and continued until he was 94. He was born in 1906 and nowadays, in a wheelchair, he keeps on teaching.There are some people who believe that Butoh is simply letting one’s mind fly and improvising. That is far from truth, the idea is that in order to be able to express ourselves we should learn a technique which allows us to leave our habits behind and dive deeper into our inner self which is Butoh dance springboard. Kazuo’s story interestingly shows how an individual can find the road to him/herself.
Tell us the story.
It starts the day he discovers his own body. Back in 1926, at 20, he found himself rambling around the narrow streets of Natsuya’s Great Market, in Ginza, when all of a sudden, he looked at himself in a huge mirror. He had a strange feeling , that of discovering an unknown part of himself. So he spent the remainder of the day staring at his own reflection. He started a