Skip to main content
Back to search
  • Add to playlist

Edge

Numeridanse 2000

Choreographer(s) : Murobushi, Kô (Japan)

Present in collection(s): Numeridanse

en fr

Edge

Numeridanse 2000

Choreographer(s) : Murobushi, Kô (Japan)

Present in collection(s): Numeridanse

en fr

Edge

I watched Ko Murobushi’s solo performance at Kagurazaka’s die Pratze.

The guest seating was filled with people, and it had become floor  seating. Still, it was for good reason as I was able to watch in person.
It was an incredible dance that admirably destroyed the idea that Butoh = bogus (it may have been so in the past but not now).
From the beginning, with the pillar as the starting point, he fell  facing upward, the back of his head landing on the floor! His grip on  the audience was splendid, and the stance of cutting through “arts” with  entertainment was very cool. Especially in the first half, when he does  not move his body much, as if  huge, another life form was wriggling  inside a bag of skin, some parts were made tense and stiff, and other  parts put at plain ease; no matter how you looked at it, both of these  extremities were put together in a strange way and it was astounding.  Together with his breathing, the man continually let out a strange yet  hard-to-describe voice, and at a comparatively early stage,  unexpectedly, he spoke!
Whether it was a conversation with the audience or something else, while  toying with a kind of unknown relationship, within this desperate  performance that expressed a developing, intense bitterness, I felt the  difficulty in the grasping of the body, along with the essence of art  form nowadays that has deviated from the common meaning of the word  “dance,” sink deep into my heart.
“What” in the world is Murobushi doing, “what” in the world are we  watching and “what” are we being touched by? I thought the fact that we  were never to know was made thoroughly clear. In any case, from  beginning to end, essential scenes were done in succession. Rather than a  number of essential scenes being programmed in, it felt like meeting  the various (critical) dimensions, Murobushi’s body and the audience’s  perception, one after another with time. In this way, each and every one  carried a sense of incidence, and seeing that was most certainly a form  of “witnessing.” If time allowed I would have come running again the  next day as well, but I had to let this time pass. I eagerly await next  year’s performance.


Source: Posting from Keisuke Sakurai's blog, translation by Vinci Ting, November 22, 2000

More information: ko-murobushi.com

Murobushi, Kô

Born in 1957 in Tokyo, Ko Murobushi is one of the best known and acclaimed Butoh artists in the world, and is recognized as a leading inheritor of Hijikata’s vision of Butoh.


He studied with Hijikata from 1968 and after a short experience as a “Yamabushi” mountain Monk, he founded a Butoh group Dairakudakan together with Akaji Maro and others. In 1974, he created a Butoh magazine “Hageshii Kisetsu (Violent Season)”, and in the same year, he founded a female Butoh company Ariadone with Carlotta Ikeda and also choreographed them.   In 1976, he founded a male Butoh group Sebi, and as a co-producer of those two groups, he introduced Butoh to Europe with big sensation.


Le dernier Eden -Porte de l'au-dela succeeded in Paris in 1978, and was followed by a big tour throughout Europe with Ariadone in 1981/82. From 1985, he concentrated on duo-productions with Urara Kusanagi and toured in Europe and South America in the following years. While he continues to open his dance and Butoh to the worldwide influences, he tries to research his work much deeper into its Japanese roots.


With his solo productions “Edge 01”, “Edge 02” and a group production “Edge 03”, he was invited by several international dance festivals; ImPulsTanz Festival, Montpellier Dance Festival, London Butoh Network Festival, and more. He has received numerous awards for residencies worldwide, including Mexico, India, and the U.S. He is also in great demand as a workshop facilitator and an artistic director of the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna. Through his workshops, many dancers got stimulated to find their own ways of dance. In 2003, he formed a unit called Ko&Edge Co. with three Japanese dancers and presented “Handsome Blue Sky” in “JADE2003 Hijikata Memorial” which brought considerable applause in Japan.


In 2004, this unit presented a new series titled “Experimental Body” which is to search the “edge” in a physical way. His choreography as well as his solo performance keeps his impregnable position as one of the most reputed representatives of Butoh, and he tirelessly challenges to reach new possibility. At the same time, he doesn’t hesitate to collaborate with various artists to continue to confirm his way and research more deeply. His latest solo performance is called “quick silver”. This acclaimed piece is leading him to a world tour, giving the audience much impression of a new era.

In 2008, he met Bartabas in Japan and decided to create together "The Centaur and the Animal" in 2010.

Kô Murobushi died in June 2015.


Source: Network Dance (article untitled "Butoh Legend Ko Murobushi Passes Away", 2015)


More information : ko-murobushi.com

Edge

Choreography : Kô Murobushi

Interpretation : Kô Murobushi

Our videos suggestions
03:46

La Valse de Vaslav

Tompkins, Mark (France)

  • Add to playlist
04:07

Icons

Tompkins, Mark (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:01

Hard to Be Soft

Doherty, Oona (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:01

Peekaboo

Goecke, Marco (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:07

Skin

Tchouda, Bouba Landrille (France)

  • Add to playlist
01:57

Walk

  • Add to playlist
06:24

Colin Dunne & eRikm Project

Dunne, Colin (France)

  • Add to playlist
05:05

Locus Focus

Tanaka, Min (France)

  • Add to playlist
48:04

Peuplé, dépeuplé

Ben Aïm, Christian & François (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:13

Peuplé, dépeuplé

Ben Aïm, Christian & François (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:17

Ferry

Keller, Jennifer (United States)

  • Add to playlist
02:40

Cartes postales de Chimère

Bédard, Louise (Canada)

  • Add to playlist
08:04

Yellow Towel

Michel, Dana (France)

  • Add to playlist
07:07

Its not a thing

Gaskin, Keyon (France)

  • Add to playlist
06:30

Sorrow Swag

Lewis, Ligia (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:41

Heimat - focus

Brabant, Jérôme (Reunion)

  • Add to playlist
06:25

Body Without A Brain

Rianto (Indonesia)

  • Add to playlist
00:00:30

Didier Labbé Quartet - DCN 2013

  • Add to playlist
09:26

Zenzana (the cell)

Dhaou, Hafiz (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:34

Snakeskins

Lachambre, Benoît (Canada)

  • Add to playlist
Our themas suggestions

DANCE AND DIGITAL ARTS

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

K. Danse's artistic partners

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Dyptik Company

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Roots of Diversity in Contemporary Dance

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

CHRISTIAN & FRANÇOIS BEN AÏM – VITAL MOMENTUM

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

LATITUDES CONTEMPORAINES

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

40 years of dance and music

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Indian dances

Discover Indian dance through choreographic creations which unveil it, evoke it, revisit it or transform it!

Parcours

fr/en/

Amala Dianor: dance to let people see

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Body and conflicts

A look on the bonds which appear to emerge between the dancing body and the world considered as a living organism.

Parcours

fr/en/

James Carlès

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Meeting with literature

Collaboration between a choreographer and a writer can lead to the emergence of a large number of combinations. If sometimes the choreographer creates his dance around the work of an author, the writer can also choose dance as the subject of his text.

Parcours

fr/en/

When reality breaks in

How does choreographic works are testimonies of the world? Does the contemporary artist is the product of an era, of its environment, of a culture?

Parcours

fr/en/

Dance and performance

 Here is a sample of extracts illustrating burlesque figures in Performances.

Parcours

fr/en/

Butoh

On 24th May 1959, Tatsumi Hijikata portrayed the character of the "Man" in the first presentation of a play called Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours).
The Ankoku Butoh was born,

Parcours

fr/en/

Do you mean Folklores?

Presentation of how choreographers are revisiting Folklore in contemporary creations.

Parcours

fr/en/

States of the body

Explanation of the term « State of the body » when it’s about dance.

Parcours

fr/en/

Dance in Quebec: Untamed Bodies

First part of the Parcours about dance in Quebec, these extracts present how bodies are being used in a very physical way.

Parcours

fr/en/

Maison de la danse

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/
By accessing the website, you acknowledge and accept the use of cookies to assist you in your browsing.
You can block these cookies by modifying the security parameters of your browser or by clicking onthis link.
I accept Learn more