RICARDO FRAYHA
producer

I first saw an image of Kazuo Ohno on a poster while I was attending school in Angers, France at the age of 16. I was immediately enchanted. Who was this beautiful creature, dressed in Victorian women's apparel and wearing heavy makeup, reaching towards the stars? The man who was putting up the posters gave me one to take home. Not even knowing Kazuo Ohno's name, I put the picture above my bed, where it has remained to this day. Little did I know that five years later this mysterious dancer would become my greatest inspiration. At the age of 19 I moved to New York City, with dreams of becoming a late night chanteuse.  I performed my songs in nightclubs at 2 a.m. singing with prerecorded tapes which combined arrangements for my songs with the sounds of static. I would move slowly and sing fiercely; I was seeking release; I wanted to transcend the pain that I saw in the world around me, in my community, in my environment, in my own psyche. In 1991 I saw an experimental film by Peter Sempel called Just Visiting This Planet.  At one point an androgynous performer appeared upon the screen, dancing by the side of a cliff, mirroring the crumbling rocks with his expressive hands. I was transporting by his heart-rending, child-like grace; I started to cry. I went home and was shocked to realize that it was the man from the poster above my bed, now dancing before eyes. After learning more about Kazuo Ohno, I began to study Butoh with Maureen Flemming in NYC. Maureen had studied with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno as well as with Min Tinaka, and she was adapting some of their teachings for Western students to better understand. She invited me to follow butterflies as they fluttered inside my limbs. She advised me to connect each of my movements to an internal stream of creative imagery that drank from the natural world and the world of ghosts.

My feet became the roots of a tree; a glowing girl emerged from my solar plexus, and I chased her across the room with delight. I explored my brokenness, I reached towards the sun. I cried out as a blind flower; I swam upstream like a salmon, with tiny seeds of oxygen bubbling up from between my scales. I am a dead body lying underneath the ground, turning into carbon, iron and minerals. I am curling like the petals of a rose, like the fingers of a dried mouse.  Water drains from my body and into the earth, filled with the memories of my ancestors; I am a paramecium, separating in two; I am a dinosaur, an eruption of boiling flesh, my spine made of wild eyes and bubbles of oxygen. The trees watch me with green, and winking eyes. I feel afraid. The white lines of my mothers dress, like the rings of a tree, draw me into her circle. She touches my face and I start to cry. Stars fall from my eyes.  But Kazuo Ohno gave me the greatest gift, the revelation of a child inside me, A Divine Child. There was hope for me if I could nurture this child to life, if I could hold her, if I could protect her.

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Anohni

 

 

YOSHITO OHNO

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Born in Tokyo in 1938, Yoshito Ohno stage debut was in the role of the young boy in Kinjiki  (Forbidden Colours) directed by Tatsumi Hijikata in 1959. Throughout the 1960s he was active in Butoh performances until he retired in 1969. His comeback was in 1985 when he appeared alongside Kazuo Ohno in The Dead Sea; thereafter he continued to direct all of Ohno senior's stage performances. Yoshito Ohno was a key figure in Butoh's history, having performed all around the globe and use to teach Butoh at his father's studio in Yokohama until his last days. Yoshito Ohno passed away in January 2020. 

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ANOHNI

 

Born in 1971 in England, Anohni is an American singer, songwriter and visual artist. After going through some bands in the 1990s, she formed the band Antony and the Johnsons in 2000. Her striking and paradoxical voice caught the attention of several artists, resulting in several collaborations, among which we can highlight those with Lou Reed, Boy George, Bryan Ferry, Rufus Wainwright, CocoRosie, Leonard Cohen, Devendra Banhart and Björk. Antony and the Johnsons received several awards, including the Mercury Prize Awards.

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ANOHNI AND THE OHNOS

vocal and piano: Anohni | butoh: Yoshito Ohno | violine and guitar: Rob Moose | dancer: Johanna Constantine | costume: Etsuko Ohno | dresser: Mikako Ohno | tourmanager: Shingo Satoh | light: Toshio Mizohata | sound and video: Noriaki Coda | Extracts of the film Mr. O’s Book of the Dead by Chiaki Nagano | Video edited by Yuhei Urakami

ANTONY AND THE OHNOS presented previously in Tokyo, in 2010, organised by the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio e Canta Co.ltd, and at the Meltdown Festival, in London, in 2012.

Support: Japan Foundation, Kazuo Ohno Dance
Studio, Canta Co.ltd. and n-1 edições

 

Production: prod.art.br | Production directors: Ricardo Frayha, Ricardo Muniz Fernandes

Realisation: Sesc São Paulo

Sesc Vila Mariana

São Paulo, SP,  Brazil

01 and 02/07/2015