by Christopher Keimling

The performers exhibit a variety of symptoms. Ghostly white make-up covers their faces. Their heads are bald, or wild with untamed hair. Their limbs move in slow motion, sometimes seeming as if they are pulled by invisible strings. Their faces are blank, or contorted with expressions that seem to indicate of sadness, anguish, or insanity. Their eyes are unfocused -- or focused inward -- on regions most of us are reluctant to explore.

This is Butoh, an underground dance form that emerged in Japan in the 1960s.

It is not for the weak.

"It mirrors the situation the modern human is in," said Margita Pencevova-Paskvleva. Pencevova-Paskvleva lives in Artplex, a building at 17th and Guadalupe, within the uptown cultural district, where artists work and live. She is a costume designer, an artist and a Butoh enthusiast. When describing Butoh (pronounced BOO-toe) she grows animated and makes references to Carl Jung.

"The only way you can grow as an individual is through pain. Only by facing it, acknowledging it, and embracing it can we move on with our lives," she said. "Instead of accepting pain as a part of life, however, most people in Western society seek merely to block it out. They fear pain. They hope it will just go away with the help of Prozac or some other drug."

Butoh doesn't shirk from exploring unpleasant human feelings, which probably explains why it can be so disturbing to watch. "People react in different ways," Pencevova-Paskvleva said. "They get angry, or they're so moved they weep. Some walk out, calling [the dancers] freaks." Interestingly enough, she's seen children react differently: they wave at the dancers, or imitate them, she says.

However audiences react to Butoh, one thing is certain -- they will react. Pencevova-Paskvleva witnessed some powerful reactions first-hand when she invited her Butoh mentor Doranne Crable to perform at Artplex. A professor of Performance Studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, Crable has studied and performed Butoh for 20 years. She has studied with Kazuo Ohno, who, along with the late Tatsumi Hijikata, is a founding father of this unique modern dance form.

Crable performed in the ACA gallery located on the ground floor of Artplex. Her July 24th appearance was part of the opening reception for an exhibition of works by the tenants of Artplex entitled Open Doors. Coming out in a black slip and a kimono, she danced through the gallery and through the standing crowd to the sound of four boomboxes simultaneously playing different music. Not separated from her surroundings, she improvised, reacting to the paintings around her and at one point mounting a pedestal, where she danced an image called "old dog," in which her legs began trembling. A woman in the audience was so moved by this that she reached out a hand to help Crable down, and Crable reacted by drawing an invisible string in the air between their two hearts. For Crable and others, it was one of the more memorable moments of the evening's performance.

When I spoke with Doranne Crable, I found her to be a very spiritual person who feels very much in harmony with nature. She sees Butoh as a healing force.

"Flamenco is fiery and sensual, ballet is ethereal and ephemeral, and modern dance displays the beauty and power of the human body. But Butoh creates and addresses a kind of beauty that can't be defined," she says.

To Crable, Butoh involves "stripping away the protective masks that humans wear as performers" in order to come into the "vulnerable and gentle part of the human heart."

That said, what exactly is Butoh? I find that it's easier to define what Butoh isn't. Butoh isn't mime. (Don't let the white face paint fool you.) Although many dancers are often involved, performances don't have linear story lines like plays or operas. Butoh also isn't about being pretty or showing off tricky dance manuevers. Rather than trying to impress an audience, Butoh attempts to express the human condition.

"Butoh is grounded in the earth. Rather than leaping off of it, I dance into it," Crable says. She explained the sensation she feels when she dances: "Sometimes it's as if my feet are magnetized and I'm walking on a metal surface, and other times it feels as if I can walk on lily pads."

Her eyes, like those of all Butoh dancers, seem distant and unfocused when she performs. "It's an inner focus. It's like looking through curtains of rain. I look at space instead of objects in space." She tries to keep her facial features devoid of emotion so as to not impose emotions on the audience. "Instead of making them feel, I let them feel," she says.

To refer to different motions, and as an aid to her dancing, Crable borrows images from nature (such as a heron or a rose) and translates them into movement. Expressed in dance form, these images provoke emotional responses based on the viewer's own experiences. When she dances an "old dog" for example, her goal is not literal imitation. Rather, her motions symbolize something larger, such as frailty or infirmity in general. On a personal level, her body movements might trigger an emotional memory. Watching her dance an "old dog" might make you think of your grandfather who passed away, for example.

Before speaking with Doranne Crable, my own experience with Butoh had been limited to a lurid video entitled Butoh -- Dance of Darkness. This documentary featured some ghastly images that made me feel as if I had been granted a special glimpse of damned souls in a Japanese vision of hell.

Many scenes featured partial nudity. In others, the dancers donned pieces of industrial junk, as with two men whose torsos were wrapped in vacuum cleaner hoses. Fire was also incorporated into some performances, but these props didn't draw attention away from what was truly disturbing -- the dancers themselves.

Some stuck out their tongues and drooled, while others rolled their eyes back into their heads. Their expressions were those of demons, zombies or village idiots. I had a hard time reconciling some of these images with Doranne Crable's kinder and gentler brand of Butoh, until I learned more about the movement.

Butoh was born in a turbulent time, when Japan was struggling with its cultural identity. In the aftermath of World War II, Japan became an increasingly modernized, urbanized, and thus westernized society. This didn't sit well with many people, and this sense of unease had a profound influence on Butoh.

In its beginnings, Butoh was in large part an act of rebellion. It was a rejection of "progress" and a rejection of Western ideals of beauty. Tired of seeing ballet dancers skipping around in tutus, Botuh performers offered something new, shocking, and without rules -- an avant-garde dance form that nevertheless was distinctly Japanese.

Butoh also explored the dark side of human nature. There is a definite river of darkness that runs through Botuh, and if you swim upstream, you will find Hijikata at the source. Themes of death and the grotesque were introduced by Hijikata, as well as by the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

For Crable and other Botuh artists, however, Botuh's ultimate purpose is not to shock, but rather to heal. Crable enjoys teaching Butoh, despite the risk that some of her students might run off and form inferior Butoh troupes without fully understanding and respecting the dance. Since its beginnings, Botuh has gained a more international presence. There is a danger that popularity could cheapen and endanger the art of Butoh. As a commentor in the Dance of Darkness film puts it: "A large part of Butoh is exotic spectacle, but if it translates no further than exotic spectacle, then it will be dead." As for myself, I think it's only a matter of time before an MTV artist like Marilyn Manson incorporates Butoh dancers in a music video. While I admit this would be interesting, it wouldn't do justice to the form. It should be experienced in its proper setting, and with a proper appreciation of its power.

"I try to create a moment suspended in time," Doranne Crable said. My interview with Crable gave me a renewed appreciation of the momentary nature of life. One of her favorite quotes is as follows:

"We are born in a flash of light, then evening comes and it is dark forever."