Rachael Kostusik BA, MA, GDipEd, Grad Cert is an artist-researcher working as anActor (1), Scholar (2), Coach (3) and Artist (4). Fascinated by Applied Theatre, Rachael's arts led research focuses on experiential learning, arts based teaching for academic subjects, medical improv, theatre improvisation, reflective praxis, adult learning principles (andragogy), immersive technologies and Butoh Japanese theatre. Laban, Landy, Gardner, Boal, Moreno, Tanaka and the Dennisons are among some of her favourites.
(1) XR eXtended Reality Actor - Simulation Specialist operating avatars with an xbox controller and voice acting (2) theatre/edu/tech/therapy/wellness Scholar (3) Movement Coach for actors (4) Butoh Artist |
connect4creatives
|
What is Butoh ぶとう?
Butoh ぶとうis about facilitating the connection of mind and body though the imagination. Using metamorphosis to transcend reality and let yourself go. Techniques including the Butoh walk and imagery for improvisation. Imagine yourself as seaweed uplifting from the ocean floor. Improvise your own dance and learn to cultivate non-doing. Stop and 'listen' for a moment. Allow yourself to 'be'. Butoh is about what isn't finished, constant transformation. An opportunity to notice emerging phenomena and challenge existing notions of categories and concepts. A reflective practice to build personal capabilities.
Butoh ぶとうis a contemporary avant-garde dance theatre form. It was first performed in Japan by Hijikata Tatsumi in 1959, as an emotive expression following the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It combines movement, theatre, improvisation and influences of Japanese traditional performing arts with German Expressionist dance (Neue Tanz) and performance art to create a unique performing art.
Butoh ぶとう is unique in that it is accessible to all, at any age, the novice, trained dancers, actors and the ‘untrained’ body. Butoh provides endless creative outlets to discover the self, the unconscious mind and body. This work emphasises wellbeing and development of the imagination.
Rachael has found Butoh dance is a practical way to explore and cultivate the deeper layers of the mind-body. Looking deeper into personal experience learning from our own pain, challenges and achievements by dancing this very intentional dance. It reveals the body as ever changing, never constant.
Rachael is an artist-researcher with a serious passion for 'serious play'.
Butoh ぶとうis about facilitating the connection of mind and body though the imagination. Using metamorphosis to transcend reality and let yourself go. Techniques including the Butoh walk and imagery for improvisation. Imagine yourself as seaweed uplifting from the ocean floor. Improvise your own dance and learn to cultivate non-doing. Stop and 'listen' for a moment. Allow yourself to 'be'. Butoh is about what isn't finished, constant transformation. An opportunity to notice emerging phenomena and challenge existing notions of categories and concepts. A reflective practice to build personal capabilities.
Butoh ぶとうis a contemporary avant-garde dance theatre form. It was first performed in Japan by Hijikata Tatsumi in 1959, as an emotive expression following the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It combines movement, theatre, improvisation and influences of Japanese traditional performing arts with German Expressionist dance (Neue Tanz) and performance art to create a unique performing art.
Butoh ぶとう is unique in that it is accessible to all, at any age, the novice, trained dancers, actors and the ‘untrained’ body. Butoh provides endless creative outlets to discover the self, the unconscious mind and body. This work emphasises wellbeing and development of the imagination.
Rachael has found Butoh dance is a practical way to explore and cultivate the deeper layers of the mind-body. Looking deeper into personal experience learning from our own pain, challenges and achievements by dancing this very intentional dance. It reveals the body as ever changing, never constant.
Rachael is an artist-researcher with a serious passion for 'serious play'.
Butoh, a theatre building and experiential counselling tool
Butoh offers a focus on body awareness, emotional awareness and self awareness through guided imagery and improvisation.
Butoh offers a focus on body awareness, emotional awareness and self awareness through guided imagery and improvisation.
BUTOH Education Kit
![Picture](/uploads/2/6/8/9/26897116/editor/rachael-butoh-photo-shoot-plaster-of-paris.jpg?1554443374)
Brief Butoh history, video and revision sheet
Originally Butoh was called Ankoku Butoh, あんこく ぶとう in direct translation this means;
Ankoku あんこく = pitch black/dark
Bu ぶ = to dance
To と = to step or tred or stomp
It is difficult to pin down a definition, as every Butoh dancer or group has their own interpretation, however it is helpful to classify Butoh as follows:
1 Original Butoh
Danced and choreographed by Hijikata Tatsumi. (Founder of Butoh. Performed the first Butoh performance named Kinjiki きんじき (or Forbidden Colours) at the 1959 Modern Dance Festival. Butoh was an expression of the agony and devastation for the Japanese people after the WWII defeat and bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
2 Classical Butoh
Danced by Hijikata's disciples and the 2nd and 3rd generation of Butoh performed mainly by dancers with a Japanese cultural background. Classical Butoh example is Sankai Juku one of the first companies to bring Butoh to Europe in the 1970s. Their aim is to present the human body in a primitive form, as an untouched slate on which the movement is painted, revealing an intensified emotional state. White body paint, skimpy costumes and shaved heads, common to Butoh remain part of its style.
3 Internationalised Butoh
Including all other forms of dance-theatre inspired by Butoh (irrespective of culture or lineage from Hijikata). Self-styled (meaning culture and identity based) Butoh dance. But it is the essence of Butoh--not its cultural & ethnic characteristics--that has deeply influenced the dance community in the Western world. By definition, Butoh inspired dance can never be the Original or Classical Butoh. But it has developed into a sub-category of Japanese Butoh by the very fact that it struggles to overcome the boundaries of conventional Western political and dance forms.”
A self styled example of Butoh is Perth's first Butoh based group, Dark Morning Dance Theatre (dmdt). Originally founded in 1996 by Rachael K. and re-grouped in March 2002. dmdt utilises Intuitive Movement created by Rachael to investigate our own unique Australian personal and cultural history. A self styled form of Butoh expressed through weather based techniques, such as weather external to our bodies, ie. wind, and weather which is internal such as emotions and memories. Rachael is interested in the transformative aspects of Butoh because it is through the fluidity of release and expression of the body that we can change. The performers have an opportunity to learn about themselves, a type of body archaeology. Adopting a creative freedom, free of the restrictions of the more traditional, technically based dance styles. dmdt aim to explore their own personal, cultural & spiritual history, to inform the choreography, rather than conventionally representing a story or scenario. Another example of an internationalised butoh group is the Corpus Delicti, they are a Butoh group based in Hollywood, their main motivation is political.
Hijikata has been compared to the trunk of the tree with other dancers being the branches, Butoh has split into multiple forms and disciplines. The butoh aesthetic originated as a form of social expression and criticism of traditional Japanese performance and Western cultural and political dominance during post WWII. After the Atomic bomb was dropped. Tatsumi Hijikata rebelled against increasing Western influences in dance and other facets of life. Hijikata and his main collaborator and co-founder of Original Butoh, Kazuo Ohno created dances that explored identity and questioned the definitions of dance and even beauty. They could be referred to as philosophers of the body, of dance, of life.
Butoh Technique; ’Butoh-tai’- butoh body
This can be learnt via a workshop technique involving focus and intention; "Butoh-tai" - butoh-body is a concept which refers to the inner state of consciousness of the Butoh dancer while performing. It refers to the dancer's personal, subjective mental-physical attitude that integrates the normally split psychological elements such as conscious vs unconscious, subject vs object, body vs mind. Butoh enables the dancer to integrate both mind and body or subconscious versus conscious via intention via the ‘butoh body’ concept.
It should also be mentioned that Butoh is not always Ankoku Butoh (Dance of Darkness). Many Butoh dancers like to emphasize the more ridiculous and laughable aspects of the human condition.
“Butoh deals directly with the mind through its art of dance…It means Butoh makes its striking impression by skilful interpositions of silence and sound, nakedness and various levels of dress, stillness and motion.” (Holborn et al. 1987 p128). Butoh demonstrates the creativity of the subconscious, “…it is the body that is the costume of the soul.” (Holborn et al. 1987 p129).
Amidst an intersection of Japanese traditions, modernisation, and westernisation, the dance movement of Butoh was born out of turmoil of the post WWII period. Violent anti-American feeling was still present around 1960 when a new security treaty was due to be signed with the U.S. “To comprehend the enormous impact of the Occupation on Japan one must first take into account its general context….it took place as an immediate consequence of the only serious defeat in Japan’s military history…major losses of life…destruction to property and productive facilities…only two occasions upon which atomic weapons have been used in conflict. The combined impact of these developments on the Japanese people was profound. They gave rise to misery, shock, fear, puzzlement, and economic distress…” (Ward 1966 p33).
Rachael has been exploring the nature of Butoh since 1996 through Butoh workshops, an independent research thesis, study in Theatre (Murdoch), Dance (WAAPA) & Japanese (language, culture, theatre & dance), managing a dance-theatre group Dark Morning Dance Theatre and Intuitive Movement. Her passion in life is to facilitate a somatic (body) rediscovery of kinaesthetic intelligence (Gardner, 1983) via Brain Dance (Anne Green Gilbert) and Intuitive Movement.
Sankai Juku had a huge influence on Rachael's teaching, dance and production lighting style, below (click on the link) is one of their performances Rachael saw in Tokyo whilst living there in 2008. She enjoys making connections between Laban's movement analysis system and Butoh techniques. You will notice a combination of Laban's pressing, gliding and floating in the Sankai Juku video. Rachael has developed a series of workshops that combine Laban's movements with Butoh to develop performative stories.
Dark Morning Dance Theatre began in 1996 by Rachael at Murdoch University Nexus theatre as part of an Independent Study Contract mini thesis with Dr Serge Tampalini. The performers bravely shaved their heads. The performers Iain Macleod, Leola Joy Robinson and Diana Malone insisted that Rachael (director-choreographer) also shave her head. They braved the stage wearing nothing but white mud, the traditional Butoh costume. Their inspiration came from the spiritual and philosophical contemporary Japanese dance theatre form; Butoh, an avant-garde contemporary form. It is a non-script-based movement art. Each performer shared individual experiences of joy, suffering and fate. Their history is their story, told through somatic memory; movement and stillness.
Rachael encourages participants/performers to explore the variety of experiences their bodies have undergone. It is through this very challenging and mature work that a unique style of Butoh inspired movement emerged; indicative of personal stories and culture; ‘Internationalised’ or ‘Australianised’ Butoh.
Originally Butoh was called Ankoku Butoh, あんこく ぶとう in direct translation this means;
Ankoku あんこく = pitch black/dark
Bu ぶ = to dance
To と = to step or tred or stomp
It is difficult to pin down a definition, as every Butoh dancer or group has their own interpretation, however it is helpful to classify Butoh as follows:
1 Original Butoh
Danced and choreographed by Hijikata Tatsumi. (Founder of Butoh. Performed the first Butoh performance named Kinjiki きんじき (or Forbidden Colours) at the 1959 Modern Dance Festival. Butoh was an expression of the agony and devastation for the Japanese people after the WWII defeat and bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
2 Classical Butoh
Danced by Hijikata's disciples and the 2nd and 3rd generation of Butoh performed mainly by dancers with a Japanese cultural background. Classical Butoh example is Sankai Juku one of the first companies to bring Butoh to Europe in the 1970s. Their aim is to present the human body in a primitive form, as an untouched slate on which the movement is painted, revealing an intensified emotional state. White body paint, skimpy costumes and shaved heads, common to Butoh remain part of its style.
3 Internationalised Butoh
Including all other forms of dance-theatre inspired by Butoh (irrespective of culture or lineage from Hijikata). Self-styled (meaning culture and identity based) Butoh dance. But it is the essence of Butoh--not its cultural & ethnic characteristics--that has deeply influenced the dance community in the Western world. By definition, Butoh inspired dance can never be the Original or Classical Butoh. But it has developed into a sub-category of Japanese Butoh by the very fact that it struggles to overcome the boundaries of conventional Western political and dance forms.”
A self styled example of Butoh is Perth's first Butoh based group, Dark Morning Dance Theatre (dmdt). Originally founded in 1996 by Rachael K. and re-grouped in March 2002. dmdt utilises Intuitive Movement created by Rachael to investigate our own unique Australian personal and cultural history. A self styled form of Butoh expressed through weather based techniques, such as weather external to our bodies, ie. wind, and weather which is internal such as emotions and memories. Rachael is interested in the transformative aspects of Butoh because it is through the fluidity of release and expression of the body that we can change. The performers have an opportunity to learn about themselves, a type of body archaeology. Adopting a creative freedom, free of the restrictions of the more traditional, technically based dance styles. dmdt aim to explore their own personal, cultural & spiritual history, to inform the choreography, rather than conventionally representing a story or scenario. Another example of an internationalised butoh group is the Corpus Delicti, they are a Butoh group based in Hollywood, their main motivation is political.
Hijikata has been compared to the trunk of the tree with other dancers being the branches, Butoh has split into multiple forms and disciplines. The butoh aesthetic originated as a form of social expression and criticism of traditional Japanese performance and Western cultural and political dominance during post WWII. After the Atomic bomb was dropped. Tatsumi Hijikata rebelled against increasing Western influences in dance and other facets of life. Hijikata and his main collaborator and co-founder of Original Butoh, Kazuo Ohno created dances that explored identity and questioned the definitions of dance and even beauty. They could be referred to as philosophers of the body, of dance, of life.
Butoh Technique; ’Butoh-tai’- butoh body
This can be learnt via a workshop technique involving focus and intention; "Butoh-tai" - butoh-body is a concept which refers to the inner state of consciousness of the Butoh dancer while performing. It refers to the dancer's personal, subjective mental-physical attitude that integrates the normally split psychological elements such as conscious vs unconscious, subject vs object, body vs mind. Butoh enables the dancer to integrate both mind and body or subconscious versus conscious via intention via the ‘butoh body’ concept.
It should also be mentioned that Butoh is not always Ankoku Butoh (Dance of Darkness). Many Butoh dancers like to emphasize the more ridiculous and laughable aspects of the human condition.
“Butoh deals directly with the mind through its art of dance…It means Butoh makes its striking impression by skilful interpositions of silence and sound, nakedness and various levels of dress, stillness and motion.” (Holborn et al. 1987 p128). Butoh demonstrates the creativity of the subconscious, “…it is the body that is the costume of the soul.” (Holborn et al. 1987 p129).
Amidst an intersection of Japanese traditions, modernisation, and westernisation, the dance movement of Butoh was born out of turmoil of the post WWII period. Violent anti-American feeling was still present around 1960 when a new security treaty was due to be signed with the U.S. “To comprehend the enormous impact of the Occupation on Japan one must first take into account its general context….it took place as an immediate consequence of the only serious defeat in Japan’s military history…major losses of life…destruction to property and productive facilities…only two occasions upon which atomic weapons have been used in conflict. The combined impact of these developments on the Japanese people was profound. They gave rise to misery, shock, fear, puzzlement, and economic distress…” (Ward 1966 p33).
Rachael has been exploring the nature of Butoh since 1996 through Butoh workshops, an independent research thesis, study in Theatre (Murdoch), Dance (WAAPA) & Japanese (language, culture, theatre & dance), managing a dance-theatre group Dark Morning Dance Theatre and Intuitive Movement. Her passion in life is to facilitate a somatic (body) rediscovery of kinaesthetic intelligence (Gardner, 1983) via Brain Dance (Anne Green Gilbert) and Intuitive Movement.
Sankai Juku had a huge influence on Rachael's teaching, dance and production lighting style, below (click on the link) is one of their performances Rachael saw in Tokyo whilst living there in 2008. She enjoys making connections between Laban's movement analysis system and Butoh techniques. You will notice a combination of Laban's pressing, gliding and floating in the Sankai Juku video. Rachael has developed a series of workshops that combine Laban's movements with Butoh to develop performative stories.
Dark Morning Dance Theatre began in 1996 by Rachael at Murdoch University Nexus theatre as part of an Independent Study Contract mini thesis with Dr Serge Tampalini. The performers bravely shaved their heads. The performers Iain Macleod, Leola Joy Robinson and Diana Malone insisted that Rachael (director-choreographer) also shave her head. They braved the stage wearing nothing but white mud, the traditional Butoh costume. Their inspiration came from the spiritual and philosophical contemporary Japanese dance theatre form; Butoh, an avant-garde contemporary form. It is a non-script-based movement art. Each performer shared individual experiences of joy, suffering and fate. Their history is their story, told through somatic memory; movement and stillness.
Rachael encourages participants/performers to explore the variety of experiences their bodies have undergone. It is through this very challenging and mature work that a unique style of Butoh inspired movement emerged; indicative of personal stories and culture; ‘Internationalised’ or ‘Australianised’ Butoh.
|
|