U-BU-SU-NA at the Coronet Theatre
★★★★★
“a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in a performance that is both explosive and meditative”
U-BU-SU-NA translates as “the mystical divine power that protects the land and those who live there.” It’s about as ideal a title as one can find for a production featuring Butoh. The Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill is the venue to find this mesmerizing show, created by Kentaro Kujirai, a leading Butoh master. In U-BU-SU-NA four performers explore what it means to live in contemporary spaces in which suppressed histories are always attempting to emerge. And there is something very appropriate in staging this show in the beautifully restored Coronet Theatre, which still retains features of its old spirit before the restoration. A space where peeling paint and patchwork repairs are a carefully curated design feature.
In sixty brief minutes, Kentaro Kujirai and his company provide a vivid introduction to the form of dance and movement known as Butoh. It was created in the 1940s as a response to the suppression of Japanese culture in the aftermath of the Second World War. But Butoh is influenced not only by Japanese classical dance and theatre, but also German Expressionism, and the ideas of Antonin Artaud, and Jean Genet. It is meant to be paradoxically both disruptive and grotesque, while also seeming meditative, even spiritual, in its effect. Butoh is a form of movement not imposed upon the work, but which emerges from within the body of the dancer to become the work. Butoh—also known as the “dance of utter darkness” (ankoku butoh) is a profound, and also unsettling, exploration of the ways in which modern urban life, built upon ancient shrines, can disrupt connections with the traditional practices of Japanese culture.
U-BU-SU-NA begins in silence and darkness, one dancer on stage. As more dancers emerge, sounds begin to emerge as well. Sound and movement are always at odds with one another. While the performers move in slow motion, the sound track (sound designer FUJI|||||||||||TA and Kota Nakasato) features dripping water, and heightened metallic sounds. Costumes (KMRii, C.R.O.W. design lab) are a curious mix of traditional Japanese costumes in drab colours, or modern dance clothing. Sound and costumes are an effective way to heighten the conflict between Japan’s past and present playing out in the dance. Dancers Kentaro Kujirai, Makoto Sadakata, Izumi Noguchi and Hirohisa Kanamori all present their own distinctive forms of this conflict. This too adds to the overall sense of discontinuous histories, and fractured lives lived in precarious ways upon the shrines of the past. The choreography features fragments of Buddhism, Shintoism, classical Japanese dance, even western ballet, and often at the same time. Western opera makes a brief appearance in the sound track. Kentaro Kujirai’s interpretation of Butoh is boundary breaking as well. At one point, they all gather in a group, seated on the floor, and snatches of conversation ensue. The performance is interrupted when a dancer appears with a broom, sweeping the stage, and sweeping up a resting dancer. Despite all these disruptive moments, the overall effect, paradoxically, is to draw in the audience more deeply. By the end of the show, we discover that it is not just the dancers who have been transformed by Butoh. We leave the space with a heightened awareness not only of the intense physicality of this form, but also the way it places with our perceptions of the movement of time, and of space.
U-BU-SU-NA is a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in a performance that is both explosive and meditative. If you are up for the transformative experience of Butoh, and the work of Kentaro Kujirai and his company, do not miss this unique opportunity.
U-BU-SU-NA at the Coronet Theatre
Reviewed on 14th November 2024
by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Bozzo
Previously reviewed at this venue:
THE BELT | ★★★★★ | September 2024
THE BECKETT TRILOGY | ★★★★★ | June 2024
THE YELLOW WALLPAPER | ★★★ | September 2023
RHYTHM OF HUMAN | ★★★★★ | September 2023
LOVEFOOL | ★★★★ | May 2023
DANCE OF DEATH | ★★★★★ | March 2023
WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN | ★★★★ | March 2022
LE PETIT CHAPERON ROUGE | ★★★★ | November 2021
U-BU-SU-NA
U-BU-SU-NA
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