“‘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 arrived at, but in what it conveys beyond its sheer physicality. The performers go through the motions, but even the veneer of expression they achieve is undone by a cute post-blackout ending.
Mr. Murobushi intended to evoke the innocence of the body – “this ridiculousness, silliness” – he told the dance writer Robert Johnson in a recent interview in The Star-Ledger. The finale looks like gentle nose-thumbing. Dairakudakan, the marvelous Butoh troupe that Mr. Murobushi helped form, is expert at rough ridiculousness. That demands a higher level of engagement than “Handsome Blue Sky” achieves. But silliness? Yes, and near insignificance.”
– Jennifer Dunning, “Finding Unity With Just Bodies and Sheets of Metal”, The New York Times, 2005
