#buto dancing

[basse-fosse]

[omgsatisshroffme]

Aurora borealis (Satis Shroff)

The sky was bathed in fantastic hues: yellow, orange, scarlet, mauve and cobalt blue. Buto dancing, in this surreal light, on the stage, was magnificent. Your heart pounds higher, your feet become light, your body sways to the rhythm a Nordic lights of the Aurora borealis.

Akin to the creation of the planet we live in. And here was I, Anzu Furukawa. Once a small ballet dancer from Nippon, now a full grown woman: a choreographer, performer, ballet and modern dancer, studio pianist. ‘The Pina Bausch of Tokyo’ wrote a German critic In Der Tagesspiegel.

Success was my name, in Japan, Germany, Italy, Finnland and Ghana: Anzu’s Animal Atlas, Cells of Apple, Faust II, Rent-a-body, The Detective of China, A Diamond as big as the Ritz were the titles I danced to.

I was a professor of performing arts in Germany. But Buto became my passion. Buto was born amid upheavals in Japan, when students took to the streets, with performance acts and agit props. No, it was before the tragedy of Fukushima.

Buto, this new violent dance of anarchy, cut off from the traditions of Japanese dance.

Ach, the Kuopio Music et Dance festival Praised my L’Arrache-coer,’ The Heart Snatcher. A touching praise to human imagination, and the human ability to feel even the most surprising emotions.

I lived my life with dignity, but the doctors said I was very, very sick. I had terminal tongue cancer. I’d been sleeping over thirty hours, and stopped breathing In peace, with my two lovely children holding my hands. I’d danced at the Freiburg New Dance Festival only twenty days ago. I saw the curtain falling, As we took our bows.

I bow to you my audience, I hear your applause. The sound of your applause accompanies me Where ever my soul goes.

I’m still a little girl in an oversized dress. I ran through you all in such a hurry.