butoh dancers-turned-actors

[Bruce Baird]

Dear Paul and Colleagues,

This phenomenon actually started quite early with Hijikata and  
Motofuji (Hijikata's wife) appearing in the experimental films of  
Donald Richie and Hosoe Eiko.  Then Ono and Hijikata starred in  
several films in the late 60's and early 70's.  (This is in addition  
to the experimental films of dances such as those by Iimura Takahiko  
which were announced on this list a few months ago.)  IMDB lists five  
films for Hijikata, but there are at least 10 including movies by  
Ishii Tereuo, and Shinoda.  Ono appeared in "The Potrait of  
Mr.O" (1969), "Mandala of Mr.O" (1971) and "Mr.O's Book of the  
Dead" (1973), directed by Chiaki Nagano, and then in a couple of  
other works over the years.

I haven't seen all of these films, but generally the directors use  
the dancers when they want to depict someone who is crazed or out of  
the ordinary, and considering the predilections of the dancers, this  
is no surprise.

By the time of someone like Suzuki Seijun, the butoh-esque dancer  
becomes almost another trope to use.

There is also the issue of how to pay the rent.  During the 60's and  
70's most butoh dancers were only performing one time a year and  
hoping to pay the theater with the box office receipts, but often  
paying out of their own pockets.  What is more, the more famous ones  
willingly or unwillingly soon became the "masters" as disciples  
flocked to them, and they found themselves with the need to feed a  
bunch of young starving dancer aspirants who were sleeping on the  
floors of their houses.  So, a side business in the movies could look  
pretty attractive.

As to others who have made the jump, guessing from the number of  
dancers who show up in Suzuki movies, its not just Maro.  Also,  
Murobushi Ko has appeared in a couple of movies in Europe.

Best,

Bruce

On Apr 26, 2007, at 8:33 PM, Paul Roquet wrote:

> Here is one question I've had floating around since the festival:
>
> While in the audience in Frankfurt I was surprised to see Min  
> Tanaka popping up both as the aging drag queen in La Maison de  
> Himiko, and as the voice of a yakuza in the anime Tekkon Kinkreet.  
> Tanaka made his film debut a few years back in a couple of Yoji  
> Yamada jidai-geki. Akaji Maro has also been active as an actor for  
> some time now. I was wondering, besides the more experimental films  
> of Hijikata and Ohno, if anyone knows of other examples of butoh  
> dancers shifting into acting work. In a way it makes perfect sense  
> as a career trajectory - all that weighty presence, at least in  
> Tanaka's case, really works up on screen.
>
> Thanks again to everyone for the fantastic conference!
>
> Paul Roquet
> UC Berkeley
>
>

Bruce Baird
Assistant Professor
Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Butô, Japanese Theater, Intellectual History

717 Herter Hall
161 Presidents Drive
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003-9312
Phone: 413-577-4992
Fax: 413-545-4975
baird at asianlan.umass.edu




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20070427/f1976f2b/attachment.html