On Frantic Beauty
Jane Chin Davidson, “Dance that Searchs for Beauty and Fights For it”, Hypeallergic, May 14 2019
Marylnn Wei, “The Primordial Becoming of Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya’s Frantic Beauty”, Huffington Post, September 16 2017
Ivan Talijancic, “Bodies on the Edge: Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya’s Becoming Pentalogy”, Howlround, October 20, 2017
Carrie Lee O’Dell, “Frantic Beauty, BAM Fisher, NY” – ReviewsHub, September 18, 2017
Erin Bomboy, “IMPRESSIONS: LEIMAY’s Frantic Beauty at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Fisher”, Dance Enthusiast, September 19, 2017
Leah Richards and John Ziegler, “What is Beauty?”, CultureCatch, September 19, 2017
Emily Cordes, “Frantic Beauty”, Theatre Is Easy, September 16, 2017
Marcina Zaccharia, “Exquisite Growth in “Frantic Beauty”, The Theatre Times, September 30, 2017
Jonathan Matthews “Performing Arts Dance: LEIMAY”, Eye on Dance, September 2017
On Becoming-Corpus
Carol Martin, Richard Schechner, “The Illumination of LEIMAY’s Becoming Corpus”, MIT Press Journals – TDR: The Drama Review Fall 2014, Vol. 58, No. 3 (T223), August 14, 2014. 169-174.
Christine Jowers, “ LEIMAY’S ‘Becoming-Corpus’ premieres at BAM FISHER Sept 12th-15th, 2013 (DanceUpCloseVideo)”, The Dance Enthusiast, August 30th, 2013.
Deirde Towers, “Impressions of: LEIMAY’s ‘Becoming-Corpus”, The Dance Enthusiast, September 22nd, 2013.
Brian Seibert, “Exploring Topography in Varied Skins and Tones: ‘Becoming-Corpus’ Includes Dance and an Art Installation”, The New York Times, September 13th, 2013.
Henry Baumgartner, “LEIMAY’s ‘Becoming-Corpus’ at BAM Fisher”, The New York Theater Wire, September 15th, 2013.
On Qualia-Holometaboly
Siobhan Burke, “Choose Your Own Rhythm: The BEAT Festival Returns to Brooklyn”, The New York Times, September 14th 2014.
On Thresholds
Erin Bomboy, “Impressions of: The BEAT Festival’s ‘Crossing Over’”, The Dance Enthusiast, September 22nd, 2014.
Franklin Mount, “Crossing Over: A Performance-Adventure in Greenwood Cemetery – Review”, Sensitive Skin Magazine, September 2014.
Siobhan Burke, “A Burial Ground Doubling as a Stage: ‘Crossing Over,’ a Performance in Green-Wood Cemetery”, The New York Times, September 15th, 2014.
Sarah Larson, “Alive in Green-Wood Cemetery”, The New Yorker, September 15th, 2014.
On Floating Point Waves
Amanda Keli, “Floating Point Waves: Leimay at HERE, NYC”, April 10th, 2012.
Susan Miyaki Hamaker, “Down Your Senses in ‘Floating Point Waves’”, JapanCulture-NYC, April 9th, 2012.
Cat Gilbert, “FLOATING POINT WAVES AT HERE”, The 22 Magazine, April 10th, 2012.
On A Timeless Kaidan
Henry Baumgartner, “The New York Butoh Festival Rides Again”, The New York Theater Wire”, November 8th, 2007.
Press Quotes
All
Press Quote
Citations
IMAGINE
Frantic Beauty
Correspondences
A Meal
Extinction Rituals
BECOMING - corpus
Thresholds
New York Butoh Festival
“Frantic Beauty is both alarming and compelling in the performers’ ability to bring opposing energies seamlessly together into one performance— they propel themselves in a continuous state of manic, almost violent energy, and then suddenly slow to a calm and pensive state. In one section, the dancers are crouched and motionless like Dali sculptures, with scattered moving black flecks of video projection traveling over their bare bodies like a massive crowd of ants. At either end of the energy spectrum, whether high or low, the sustained intensity of Frantic Beauty ushers the audience into a trancelike meditative state, leaving the … Continued
“Its visual resonance is immediate. The performers, writhing in the sand of their dusty chambers, reflect to the mask-wearing public a kind of horror laden with the imagery of contamination and confinement ubiquitous with the events of this year.” – George Kan, Brooklyn Rail (2020) for Correspondences
“At its heart, A Meal builds community around the act of eating; at the conclusion, you may find yourself hugging people who are no longer strangers and exchanging phone numbers. It’s not a passive experience; to get the most out of it, you need to become a participant, just like life itself.” –Mark Rifkin, (2024) for A Meal
“The Fishman Space, packed for this performance, was transformed into a communal seance. The emotional progression of this 75 minute work completes a circle, as the dancers offer a silent invitation to sequentially surrender, invert, reveal, confront, convulse, and center.” -Deirdre Towers, The Dance Enthusiast (2013)
“A flash of light on a darkened stage reveals a group of almost-naked people standing stock still, in silence. Then wiry lines of light slice through the darkness: one, another; soon a bunch of bright ribbons of light illuminate various slices of seven dancers. Are the dancers moving, and even growing and shrinking before our eyes? No, this is only an illusion produced by Shige Moriya’s deft hand with the projector. “ -Henry Baumgartner, New York Theatre Wire (2013)
“And occasionally, around one bend or another, a poignant surprise awaited, foreshadowed by a distant noise or beckoning pool of light. In the first 15 minutes of the almost two-hour tour, after we had stopped at a mass grave of victims from the 1876 Brooklyn Theater fire, a shrill voice sounded, directing our attention to six bodies perched on a row of mausoleums, each lit from below. In seemingly random order, they began to fall backward and stand back up, to disappear and reappear, thanks to the simple but effective lighting. This was “Thresholds” by Leimay (directed by Ximena Garnica … Continued
“Everyone snaps to attention; Thresholds created by Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya of LEIMAY, reminds us that the pall of death hangs over this place. A few paces later, we congregate in a circular pit as an opera singer intones an eerie, dire melody. Spotlights flash on, five of them, illuminating men and women standing on mausoleums. They are like paper doll cutouts, arms pasted to their sides, expressions stony. One pitches backwards, and then another and another as the lights blink off and on. Under the cover of darkness, these dancers scramble into standing positions to repeat their death … Continued
“Continuing, we soon encounter a ghostly body hanging from a tree in a net. Further along, we see a line of white clad figures standing above a row of crypts set in the hillside. Looking up, we observe them standing upright, facing us, then falling back, then standing up, then falling back, over and over, to beautiful and disturbing electronic music backing opera singing. It’s a subtle reminder that we’re all going the way of the people buried here.” -Franklin Mount, Sensitive Skin (2014)
“The most notable exception to the problem of dance divorced from its environment was a kinetic installation by Leimay (a company directed by Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya) in the grand Beaux-Arts Court. Four towering, delicate tents of iridescent white string, suspended from the high ceiling, each housed one statuesque, slow-moving dancer in white. A line reached from each performer’s back to the peak of his or her tent, so that any sudden motion — frog-like jumps, abrupt collapsing — caused the structure to pulsate or quake: the body an extension of its habitat, and vice versa.” -Siobhan Burke, The New … Continued
“Leimay…created an immersive world of captivating videos, simple set pieces that produced bizarre visual effects, and evocative music” “Floating Point Waves worked as an exploration of the intersection of human and electronic images with organic and electronic sounds, and the creativity that can come from inventive interactions with the simplest design elements.” -Amanda Keil, backtrack (2012)
“CAVE fluctuates between being our home, our studio, the LEIMAY Ensemble studio, and a space for other artists; the private interweaves with the public, the personal with the social, and sometimes all of those spaces exist simultaneously. For some people, CAVE was a gallery, for others a center of butoh, for others the studio of the LEIMAY Ensemble, and for others an artist’s loft where they slept while staying or living in New York. From the beginning, CAVE has been a vortex defying categories. Live arts such as performance art, dance, experimental sound, and music were intermingled with photography, painting, … Continued
“The work of this artistic duo has been vital to the contemporary development of butoh in New York…They have played a pivotal role as curators and community builders, and now as artists who are forging their own path, inspired by those they have encountered along the way.” “The New York Butoh Festival galvanized a new hub for butoh in the United States…With the 2003 New York Butoh Festival, New York was once again established as a beacon for butoh.” -Tanya Calamoneri, Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies (2024)
“…Correspondences’ more-than-human choreographies exposes the trans-corporeal exchanges that both structure and biologically alter the performers.” “Correspondences as a case study to argue that if we are to persist through the ‘horrors of the Anthropocence,’ we must not only stay with the trouble, but move through the trouble.” –Angenette Spalink, Performing SLSA: A Roundtable on Performance Studies and the Field’s Dispersions (2024)
“Through the example of LEIMAY’s Becoming Series stillness is theorized as revolt. It is a performative act – a radical form of action confronting the viewer as a body with agency.” “LEIMAY’s Becoming Series manifest political commitment established in its reflexive dynamics that empower subjects in their stillness.” “…the audience is absorbed by and enveloped in the enduring, exquisite, and grotesque stillness – we witness the body trigger will, memory, history, anxiety, and responsibility. The audience is invited to “become” together…” “Through the mixture of voices, sounds, light textures, and choreography of high physicality, “Borders” seeks to shrink the gap … Continued
“They offer a splendid merging/clashing of movement and light in patterns that approach and recede. Garnica and Moriya have been artistic and personal partners for 13 years. Their intimacy shows in the way that Garnica’s choreography is structured, framed, and permeated by Moriya’s lighting and Moriya’s light is populated and articulated by Garnica’s extraordinary choreography. The integration of movement and light makes Moriya’s changing visual design the eighth performer onstage.” “The work is about the interplay of the spectators’ perception and imagination with these seven bodies gaining presence in the light and losing substance in the dark, not about tricks … Continued
“Hiding under mounds of a gorgeous fabric cloak, (Koga) softly blew a white kerchief from his face and peaked out curiously. A charming presence, he was rooted but levitating; within this tiny gem of a dance a path from dark to light moved like a stream. Eventually, letting down the burden of his cloak, he stomped on it as he turned in a slow circle. I overheard an audience member say “I want to marry that dance.”’’ – Alissa Cardone, “Butoh: The Good of Going Out of Style,” The Brooklyn Rail, 2004
“Ms. Laage’s Infanticity involved a candle, first seen behind a scrim, then carried slowly across the stage and back. There was also an icon of the Holy Mother of God, as the Eastern tradition calls the Virgin Mary, and her child. There was scattering of dead flowers, balling up of a purple groundcloth, and balling up of the performer into a fetal position. The Rumanian music, part of a music collage, was ecstatic and consummate in its performance, and a counterpoint to the performer, who seemed to be trying to beat herself into an ecstatic state with the audience as … Continued
“Love is Shock takes its place alongside the earliest Butoh performances that were created and performed in the aftermath of WWII. Shinichi MOMO Koga has given us a solo performance that digests the horror of warfare and transforms it into a thing of hope. A riveting performer of great skill and craft, Koga embodies the spirit of protest against all the destructive forces on earth.’’ – Sima Belmar, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 2003
“‘Handsome Blue Sky’ recounts, among other things, the atomic catastrophe of World War II through the transformations of the body. It began in the aftermath: a powerful solo in near darkness, with Mr. Murobushi hunkered down on his knees. Only the backs of his feet were visible as he raised himself up with painful slowness. He was the collective survivor, alone in a tunneling silence. His body could be seen as a chronicle in which each part was a character. His feet curled and rolled feelingly like hands along the stage, while his hands reached down to numbly pad the … Continued
“The second piece, Vooja Day, started out comedically, with Mr. Fuller, wearing a large rubber head on his shoulders and huge padded genitals, pecking out from behind the curtain before coming on stage. His musicians, a percussionist and an accordionist not only elicited alternative sounds from their instruments, they eschewed using any of the usual sounds at all. Mr. Fuller’s piece, too, used exploratory techniques to try to find, in front of us, whatever it was he wished to accomplish. He found some humorous moments using his costumes, but on a conceptual, choreographic level, there was no sustained relationship between … Continued
“Shinichi Koga’s Love Is Shock was, as befits a final piece, the strongest of the afternoon. It involved all the elements of the other two pieces: use of the imagination, forcing the audience members to question what they think are their perceptions, movements that seemed mundane but that involved great body control, and unexpected costume elements. However, in this case, those elements came together. Mr. Koga’s body, in its loose robes, continually changed size and shape. If what he was after was not exactly clear, his piece had an irrefutable internal logic, even as it left us questioning. Surely this … Continued
“‘Handsome Blue’ Sky revolves around four supple, brass-colored metallic sheets that allude to costumes in Hijikata’s seminal “Rebellion of the Body (Nikutai no Hanran),” which the Edge performers manipulate to light-reflecting, crashing effect. The heart of Mr. Murobushi’s piece is a duet for him and one of the sheets, which becomes his world before our eyes. The four bodies do go through transformations of a sort, though nothing more stirring or revelatory than the familiar physical shape-play of countless late-20th-century Western dances. The power of a grotesque hunch lies not in its look or the skill with which it was … Continued
“In “Eros and Thanatos,” the masterly Daisuke Yoshimoto followed a ragged red ribbon from the back to the front of the stage. Covered in white paint and naked except for a thong, his taut body bent double, he walked in painstaking, tremblingly slow fashion. When he finally rose, his long gray hair fanned around his wild, heavily made-up eyes, and his body became a heaving, hyperarticulated landscape shifting against jarringly spliced music. It was easy to forget that this spooky, otherworldly creature was human.” – Claudia La Rocco, “Plumbing the Depths in Vast Inner Landscapes”, The New York Times, 2005
“In “Before the Dawn,” Yumiko Yoshioka’s body became a menagerie of strange creatures. A founding member of the all-female Butoh company Ariadone, she appeared in voluminous red robes, her face masked. When her hands emerged from the fabric, they skittered over her body like spiders or pecked at her flesh like birds. Eventually shedding much of her clothing, she made her body both a physical and an abstract object.” – Claudia La Rocco, “Plumbing the Depths in Vast Inner Landscapes”, The New York Times, 2005
“In his program notes for “Beast of Grass,” Mr. Iwana stated, “I only want to be as I am.” Indeed, he seemed to be just getting to know his naked body, which was decorated with swathes of chipping plaster, ribbons and swinging bells that chimed violently as he lurched and tumbled among hanging lengths of fabric. As the lights dimmed, and he retreated backward to the sound of birdcall, it was as much a beginning as an ending.” – Claudia La Rocco, “Plumbing the Depths in Vast Inner Landscapes”, The New York Times, 2005
“Water is a potent force in Howl, periodically gushing down onto Kaseki’s head from a suspended pail, causing her face to squash into a wince and her body to sag. A shiny square on the floor becomes a pool in which she embarrassedly confronts her reflection. In the end, she’s caught in a no-win ordeal, trying to scrub the floor dry with her long robe, then wringing the water out. We laugh—she’s the naive clown, the holy fool who often appears in butoh—but in the wake of hurricanes we feel the hopelessness of her task.” – Deborah Jowitt, “Fields of … Continued
“Kan Katsura begins his Time Machine suspended overhead in a fabric sling that he unmakes into a white cascade; he clambers down. Pools of light ring him in this difficult, unfamiliar world, where thudding percussion and windy cries resound. Supine, he strains upward. Braced on all fours, he waits. At the end of his hyper-tense assimilation of what might be new wisdom, he clambers back up the cloth. Azumaru, improvising with musician Jack Wright, explores the space, his own body, and the sounds Wright sputters into a beat-up sax. Prowling, Azumaru’s a handsome sight; undulating, mouth open in horror, he’s … Continued
“Over seven years of performing, Masaki Iwana stood naked and motionless before audiences. Trying to read his beleaguered body in Beast of Grass is complex and baffling. When he lies tangled on the floor, one knee in the crook of an elbow, he’s a mess of hair, ropes, and body parts. A leg is tethered to one of five hanging streamers inscribed with words. Little bells hang off him on cords. An army cap tops his long hair. Small white clusters pasted to his body drop off as he moves. How long does it take him, squatting, to turn 180 … Continued
Ms. Garnica, a Colombian artist, also presented “A Timeless Kaidan,” a three-part work featuring video and installation by Mr. Moriya. Referring to the Japanese word kaidan, which can mean scary story or staircase, the production “is a metaphor for my reflection to the staircase of human ambition,” as Ms. Garnica described it in her program notes. Of the three sections, the first was quite beautiful, largely because of the way projections turned a maze of fabric into shimmering water. (Behind it was a staircase; through the billowy material, it seemed as if the dancers were hovering ghosts.) But for all … Continued
“More impressive was a series of solo performances last weekend. Atsushi Takenouchi, whose body was caked with clay, explored the natural world in “Kizamu.” Denise Fujiwara played a ravaged mother who loses her child in Natsu Nakajima’s “Sumida River.” Taketeru Kudo was a scraggly creature in “Go-Znrashi,” and Takuya lshide, performing “To a Wounded Bird Who Doesn’t Stop Pecking Me,” alternated jerky dance steps with movements at whiplash speed, made all the more haunting by his masklike face. Each solo was full of compelling moments, yet fault could be found in the presentation: cliched lighting, quite a few false endings … Continued
“Still, the most invincible performance remains Eiko and Kama’s “Mourning” collaboration with the avant-garde pianist Margaret Leng Tan. Eiko and Koma, who studied with both Hijiknta and Mr. Ohno and have been working in New York since the 70s, choose not to label their art as Butoh. In the end labels don’t matter much; in the spirit of Butoh, it’s the art itself that lives or dies.” – Gia Kourlas, “When Packaging Radical Art, Be Careful Not To Damage The Contents”, The New York Times, 2007
“A solo by Atsushi Takenouchi, which opened a week of programs at Cave, was something of a surprise. What made the 90 minute event come alive was not so much Mr. Takenouchi’s piece, “Skin: Improvisation No. I,” but the ambient or unplanned effects that accompanied it. Audiences filing into the theater were greeted by the sight of Mr. Takenouchi, who has performed and taught his own Jinen Butoh style around the world since 1986, miming in very slow motion on the sidewalk. He then proceeded gradually into the space itself, accompanied by a videographer and audience members, one checking her … Continued
“Jerome Bel and Pichet Klunchun couldn’t have less in common if they tried. One is a conceptual French choreographer, the other a traditional Thai dancer. In ”Pichet Klunchun and Myself”, the pair face each other on a bare stage – just two men sitting on the floor with a laptop between them – demonstrating the disparity of their cultures by grilling one another with the dexterity of chess players and punctuating their points with dance. By the end, their differences swirl down a drain of their own making. It’s a stunning work of art – complex and curious, full of … Continued
“ATK doesn’t aim to abide by all butoh’s rules and incorporates other elements. One is wonderful music that includes harmonic singing by the large cast of dancer/singers and live saxophone and percussion by Jeremy Slater and Gregory Reynolds. The recorded soundscape includes music by Bloody Panda and Bryan Camphire. The sax is used to create whining, scratching, screeching noises that superbly support the button theme of destruction and angst. It’s not a feel-good dance. It’s about fear and we in the audience experience this as a tightening in the chest. The dance feels longer than its seventy-odd minutes and that … Continued
“She is simply breathtaking, possessing a supple body that seems to have no spine, yet is anchored on a steel spike of consummate control. She is inspired by the natural elements, and her slow, methodical, yet radiantly beautiful explorations of physicality take her dance to a higher plane.” – Dance International
“In ‘Quick Silver,’ Mr. Murobushi does indeed show an extensive ability to move extremely slowly or extremely fast, to hold a position for a length of time and then change it by infinitesimal motion. And he conforms to other notions about Butoh: for much of the solo he is almost naked, his body and head covered in light gold paint; his physical presence seems more animal than human, any vestige of personality stripped to something more elemental.” – Roslyn Sulcas, “Japanese Form Mixes Discipline and the Elemental”, The New York Times, 2009
“In ‘Quick Silver,’ Mr. Murobushi does indeed show an extensive ability to move extremely slowly or extremely fast, to hold a position for a length of time and then change it by infinitesimal motion. And he conforms to other notions about Butoh: for much of the solo he is almost naked, his body and head covered in light gold paint; his physical presence seems more animal than human, any vestige of personality stripped to something more elemental. Even at the start of ‘Quick Silver,’ when Mr. Murobushi is dressed in loose-fitting pants and jacket, his head is wrapped so that … Continued
“The New York Butoh Festival—the Butoh-Kan Phase, organized by CAVE Arts Space in Williamsburg, brought a refreshingly stark contrast into this city’s dance scene for three weeks in October and November. While previous festivals focused on presenting butoh masters only, the Fourth Biennial celebrated the culmination of CAVE’s two-year pilot Butoh-Kan training program by including works by CAVE’s resident company LEIMAY and by emerging artists in the training program along with renowned butoh masters Ko Murobushi, Daisuke Yoshimoto, Mari Osanai, and Yuko Kaseki. The festival also offered workshops with butoh masters and discussion panels with the artists.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE … Continued
“The New York Butoh Festival—the Butoh-Kan Phase, organized by CAVE Arts Space in Williamsburg, brought a refreshingly stark contrast into this city’s dance scene for three weeks in October and November. While previous festivals focused on presenting butoh masters only, the Fourth Biennial celebrated the culmination of CAVE’s two-year pilot Butoh-Kan training program by including works by CAVE’s resident company LEIMAY and by emerging artists in the training program along with renowned butoh masters Ko Murobushi, Daisuke Yoshimoto, Mari Osanai, and Yuko Kaseki. The festival also offered workshops with butoh masters and discussion panels with the artists.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE … Continued
“Yoshimoto’s Ruined Body at DNA takes us around different dark corners as it stretches time and some nerves as well. He appears painted white, with blue eye shadow, red lips, and a spray of gray hair, in a magnificent tapestried paper cloak with Renaissance ruffle. The candle he holds is the only light onstage; it illuminates the maniacal grin stretched across his face as we listen to what sounds like Bach on a dusty gramophone. He advances slowly, slowly, slowly towards us. I’m afraid he’ll eat me. He makes his way glacially to a chair and sinks into a crouch, … Continued
“The New York Butoh Festival—the Butoh-Kan Phase, organized by CAVE Arts Space in Williamsburg, brought a refreshingly stark contrast into this city’s dance scene for three weeks in October and November. While previous festivals focused on presenting butoh masters only, the Fourth Biennial celebrated the culmination of CAVE’s two-year pilot Butoh-Kan training program by including works by CAVE’s resident company LEIMAY and by emerging artists in the training program along with renowned butoh masters Ko Murobushi, Daisuke Yoshimoto, Mari Osanai, and Yuko Kaseki. The festival also offered workshops with butoh masters and discussion panels with the artists.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE … Continued
“The New York Butoh Festival—the Butoh-Kan Phase, organized by CAVE Arts Space in Williamsburg, brought a refreshingly stark contrast into this city’s dance scene for three weeks in October and November. While previous festivals focused on presenting butoh masters only, the Fourth Biennial celebrated the culmination of CAVE’s two-year pilot Butoh-Kan training program by including works by CAVE’s resident company LEIMAY and by emerging artists in the training program along with renowned butoh masters Ko Murobushi, Daisuke Yoshimoto, Mari Osanai, and Yuko Kaseki. The festival also offered workshops with butoh masters and discussion panels with the artists.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE … Continued
“Later, the timeless, nightmarish court jester half-dons a dress and throws his red shoes. He slips one shoe on and walks haltingly, bobbing his head. He is an old lady with Alzheimer’s flirting with herself. He limps slowly, each step like a day, creating a string of days, like the arc of one life.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE New York Butoh Festival – The Butoh-Kan Phase October 23-November 25, 2009″, The Brooklyn Rail, 2009
“Bill Mullen created a Beckettian piece that seemed more like a spoof. He begins in a suit with a bag over his head, then walks around with a plastic ear on a cane. “It’s all empty,” he tells us. It’s not the content that lacks; it’s his delivery that seems strained.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE New York Butoh Festival – The Butoh-Kan Phase October 23-November 25, 2009″, The Brooklyn Rail, 2009
“Irem Calikusu and Denisa Musilova offered the most captivating performances. In Calikusu’s Texture II, a block of ice hangs in the dark and drips over her naked bent body. She jolts intermittently, as if involuntarily, and slowly, brokenly unfurls. She’s like an insect trapped in a glacier.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE New York Butoh Festival – The Butoh-Kan Phase October 23-November 25, 2009″, The Brooklyn Rail, 2009
“Musilova hangs upside down from a swath of fabric in Loud. Heavy machinery sounds blare and a bare light bulb dangles, sputtering on and off as Musilova, in a tight red top, hangs motionless, her eyes possessed. She gallops and rolls wildly and incessantly across the floor, kicking and hitting herself. Knees knocked inwards, she stands and stares at the audience, her head shaking and eyes fluttering, like a little girl betrayed. She walks a beautiful line between darkness and vulnerability.” – Erika Eichelberger,”CAVE New York Butoh Festival – The Butoh-Kan Phase October 23-November 25, 2009″, The Brooklyn Rail, 2009
“Set on flooring a stage covered in black shiny flooring, the sides hung with similarly reflective fabric, “Furnace” offers absolutely no primal emotion and a great deal of sincere endeavor. It opens with Ms. Garnica moving very slowly with her back to the audience, shoulders slumped and feet turned in as the Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers” plays and replays. After a while, other dancers enter with the same minuscule steps; later they quiver as they cluster about a silver mannequin lying on the floor. The mannequin’s purpose is mysterious here, and it subsequently disappears, but to ask what it might mean … Continued
“Murobushi’s Butoh is a theatre of revulsion, convulsion or repulsion. The body is like a half-monkey, half-reptile. It recurves and always crawls on the round, full of violent energy, soft, anti-human, and cannibal. There is no form of Occidental physical naturalism.” – Jean Baudrillard, Theatre of Revulsion
“ATK doesn’t aim to abide by all butoh’s rules and incorporates other elements. One is wonderful music that includes harmonic singing by the large cast of dancer/singers and live saxophone and percussion by Jeremy Slater and Gregory Reynolds. The recorded soundscape includes music by Bloody Panda and Bryan Camphire. The sax is used to create whining, scratching, screeching noises that superbly support the button theme of destruction and angst. It’s not a feel good dance. It’s about fear and we in the audience experience this as a thightening in the chest. The dance feels longer than its seventy-odd minutes and … Continued
Press
