Koen Debut (公園デッビュー) is a Japanese phrase that refers to the first time that a new-born baby is paraded in the local park (koen). Its meaning has broadened to refer to any first-time presentation or debut, but it still keeps the element of the naive baby, not quite sure what is going on - an element that seems appropriate for my koen debut...
I knew a month or so in advance that my Butoh Koen Debut would be in February. We perform once or twice at every practice in front of other members of the group, but this would be the first time I would dance in front of a real audience.
But my actual first time came a week early.A local bar, a centre for the Fukuoka art scene, was hosting an exhibition of paintings by a local artist. They were large figures of cut board, all crazed hair and technicolour flamboyance, very girly but full of energy. Liking the pieces, we offered to do a performance in the space, and I was volunteered to take part. My understanding of Japanese being at best partial, I just nodded and said 'of course', not entirely sure what I was letting myself in for.
I turned up on the Friday night, and was quickly pinned down by the artist and her make-up friend, who proceeded to paint my eyelids silver and dust me with stars. I got an ivy headband (weirdly reminiscent of a crown of thorns), and bunches of plastic grapes hung from my belt.
Butoh is usually improvised, which makes for unpredictable (and often exciting) performances. Unfortunately, the preparation also has a tendency to be somewhat improvised, which is rather more problematic. As I had brought my laptop, bulging with mp3s, my teacher asked me to put together some music for the performance - twenty minutes before it was due to start. Not the best pre-performance preparation.
Myself and three girls, decked out to the nines, danced solo in turn, before coming together at the end. While the others performed, we stood as statues, flat to the world like one of the paintings. Dancing last of the three, I stood there for half an hour, focussed on the back wall. When I moved and begun to dance, at last I managed to see the crowd - 30 faces, staring up at me from bodies hunched on the floor, watching my every move. The first time I've performed since I was about 9, this was definitely one of those 'how did I get here moments'. The end of the dance saw me dance with Maiko, a Japanese dancer bedecked with flowers. Stuck for ideas, I resorted to crass plagiarism, stealing an idea from a dance performance my father made a long time ago, in which he offered a woman a flower, which she took from him, and devoured whole. - Dad, apologies m(^-^)m
Here, I stole Maiko's flower from her head, and ate it cruelly. She pushed her fingers between my teeth, and took the sodden, half-chewed plastic flower from my jaws. She put it in her own mouth, chewed sourly, and spat it out violently into the audience.
The piece was supposed to end with the three girls surrounding me to form a final tableau. But this being improvised, Maiko preferred to walk straight out into the crowd to her new boyfriend, watching her dance for the first time, and seemingly not best pleased at the random English boy stealing his girl's flower.
I dare say we looked pretty good, much helped by the vibrant pictures. However, somewhat predictably, the tech side was a bit of a mare. More than a mare; actually disastrous. That side is best forgotten - it just makes me feel queasy...
The week after, a second performance, this time in my teacher's house, deep in the countryside in a rickety fishing village called Nakashima.
Wooden houses, mouldering fishing nets, gumbooted men smoking by the docks. It's a wonderful old place, though the whole lot will be demolished en masse to build a highway.My teacher's house has a side building with a large performance space upstairs. With one whole wall of windows, it is light and airy, and has slick wooden and tatami floors. Two women, one Australian and one French, live in the building and study with Harada-san. Drop toilets and no central heating make for a basic lifestyle, but one with a suitably wabi/sabi aesthetic.
The performance space is walled on three sides, and backed by large window, over which is hung reams of thick white crepe paper that glows in the sun and billows in the breeze.
On the day of the performance, the house was full and busy from the morning. But the preparations were not physical or mental, culinary. Dish after dish was rustled up - pasta, stew, rice, oden, meat, fish - a veritable banquet.
As this performance would be entirely improvised, and each member of the group would be performing solo, there was nothing in the way of rehearsal to be done. An order was decided, music collated, lighting requested, and then back to the kitchen.
I was on third, and danced to two pieces by the Kronos Quartet - whirling, wild violin pieces; raw, modern, but finely crafted.I'd had a lot of back pain, and had noticed a few weeks previous that my right shoulder is higher than my left (the legacy of an unnecessarily dramatic bike accident on my last day in Oxford, and when I fell in the Takachiho Gorge - not so funny now...)
Going for a 'can't beat them, join them' idea, I decided to make the most of how my body felt - hence the lopsided outfit, pulling my body further out of position.
I stood there, on the same stage where we practise a few times a month. It's a low ceiling, a small space, not designed for a body as long as mine; fortunately, it means I can't not fill the stage, which is all for the good.
All the other members of the group performed in turn, though I only have photos of a couple:
Ikumi
Shin-san, with her recently born sprog - the youngest dancer of the evening (I was the second youngest).
She brings her little baby to practice every Sunday, and he has a fine pair of lungs on him. Left to his own devices for more than a minute, he will bawl to the rooftops for his mummy. She either dances with him, or suckles him comatose before she can dance in peace.
Maiko, who I danced with the week before.With a white dress and white face, she could easily have passed for a ghost. She has a very unusual character, normally sweet and kind, but when she dances she becomes something else - wild, intense, broken.
She carried a pair of white feathered wings in her hands, and took three minutes to walk from the edge to the centre of the stage, her faces knotted in total concentration. When she ran out of time and the music stopped, she pounded around the stage, repeating "mada, mada" ['not yet, not yet'].
With the performances over, the party began. The feast was a wonder to behold, and even better to eat. The beer and sake flowed, and the real dancing began. If I learnt anything that night, it was that dancers make good parties. Party Butoh is quite a different affair, closer to burlesque than what had come before.
What is it that the rugby boys say?
'What goes on on tour, stays on tour.'
N.B. Thanks to Brendan for the photos.
