“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 he appears featureless. Making his way slowly across the stage, hands curved before him, he faces a reflective screen and shakes it so that his reflection dissolves into a blur amid a rattling thunderous peal of noise. That dissolution prefigures his transformation, minutes later, into a shimmering body that moves with convulsive jerks and twitches; falls with legs stiffly extended; emits quiet, muttering noises and words; and rolls backward, spraying a pile of sand into the air.
Sometimes the solo lapses into staginess, particularly toward the end, when to increasingly loud roars of wind and water, Mr. Murobushi lurches wildly about the stage, crashing repeatedly to the floor, shaking the metal screen and howling wolflike to the air. He doesn’t really find a way to end the solo; the lights simply go down. It feels unsatisfying, but at least it is a genuine glimpse of a Butoh artist at work.”
– Roslyn Sulcas, “Japanese Form Mixes Discipline and the Elemental”, The New York Times, 2009
