RICARDO FRAYHA
producer

One step inside Tatsumi Hijikata’s The Ailing Dance Mistress, and it will swallow you up in its vast labyrinth of uncanny words. “Keep that fear in the birdcage inside you and take a very good care of it,” said Hijikata once to butoh dancer Tomomi Tanabe, for whom these words became a lifeline. Decades later, Tanabe asked the still naive performer Takao Kawaguchi to join her in the project of dissecting this holy book of butoh. Using the word “tatami” as their compass, the two explorers journey through “lessons of the sick and weak princess, ”taking you to“the darkness of the other side known to nobody, a beginning, or a resurrection.”

​

Takao Kawaguchi

​
 

Between 1977 and 1978 Hijikata’s literary works were serialized in the magazine Shingeki and later published in book form by Hakusuisha in 1983. In My Youth, Hijikata depicts - through the eyes of a young boy called Kunio - what he had observed and experienced his native Akita, exuding a mysterious charm through his unique style. Neither time nor place are specified, but his writings are deeply imbued with a sense of the passing seasons and nature. Nor could they be strictly considered a memoir or an autobiographical study, but instead crystallize into a form of ethnography. Closely linked to Butoh-fu, a series of choreographic notations Hijikata devised in the 1970s, they are more writings triggered during Butoh-fu's Butoh as conceived by Hijikata.

​

Takashi Morishita (Keio University Art Center Tatsumi Hijikata Archives)

​

​

TAKAO KAWAGUCHI

​

Joined Dumb Type in 1996. Later went solo from year 2000, and has since been exploring live performance crossing the borders between theater, dance, visual and fine arts, collaborating with artists from different disciplines.  Started in 2008 a solo performance series titled A perfect life, the 6th work of which was presented at the 5th Yebisu Eizo Festival at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, in 2013. Recently he approached Butoh in The Sick Dancer (2012) and About Kazuo Ohno (2013). The latter was nominated for NYC Bessie Award in 2016, and currently touring around the world, such as Bienal Sesc de Dança (Campinas), Tanz im August (Berlin), Festival d’Automne (Paris), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), between others.

​

​

THE SICK DANCER

​

text Yameru Maihime (The Sick Dancer), by Tatsumi Hijikata | Choreography and dance: Tomomi Tanabe, Takao Kawaguchi | Texts: Tatsumi Hijikata | Sound: Tzvasa Wada | Video: Naohiro Yoshida | Costume: Noriko Kitamura

 

Acknowledgement: Tatsumi Hijikata Archive (Keio University Art Center) | Cooperation:

Joshibi University of Art and Design,  NPO Dance Archive Network
 

 

Production in Brasil: prod.art.br | Production directors: Ricardo Muniz Fernandes, Ricardo Frayha | Technical director: Julio Cesarini | Light technician: Igor Sane | Audiovisual technician: Rodrigo Gava | Executive producer and translator: Karina Sato

​

Realisation: Sesc São Paulo

Sesc Avenida Paulista

São Paulo, SP, Brazil

14 and 15/08/2018