“Shot” is a collaborative work between Dance, Music and Film. Mariko Endo’s original solo dance to Dary John Mizelle’s music conveys the message of Stop Gun Violence. Endo’s choreography tries to speak on One finite life through vulnerability and hope. Filmed by Fred Hatt. In 2020 April, “Shot” premiered at an online Gala concert, Spread Spectrum Festival which was broadcasted in Moscow, NewYork, Tokyo, Stuttgart and Melbourne, supported by New York Composer Circle. Shot is selected for the first issue of online magazine, Artist 4 Peace.
“When Michelangelo was asked how he created a piece of sculpture, he answered that the statue already existed within a marble. God had already created the Pieta, David, Moses… Michelangelo's job as he saw it was to get rid of the excess marble which surrounded God's creation.”
My teacher Akira Kasai describes consciousness as energy. In his Ephesus Eurythmic dance technique, he guides students to awaken internal/external listening senses so you embody energy of consciousness. Master Kasai often discusses, “Is it I dance or I am danced? In Butoh, I have to make myself fully available for it to come in”.
I wonder if Michelangelo also listened internally to create the Pieta and David.
In dance, the old patterns and habitual movements are the excess marble to be removed, the consciousness is the sculptor.
A Prayer for World Peace -a short Art film directed and performed by Mariko Endo, filmed by Fred Hatt, music composed by Dary John Mizelle. Text from Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, permitted to use by M.A.Center.
My work is rooted in Japanese Butoh.
Butoh was founded by the Japanese choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata in the late 1950s. His technique is a development of a path that ties the body and imagination.
"All of dance starts with two slender legs but Butoh starts where you cannot stand up although you are trying very hard" stated Tatsumi Hijikata.
His dance does not take for granted that legs are part of the body. He perceived every part of the body as a function of itself: legs are for standing and arms are for grabbing. He let every part of the body be reborn through his dance aesthetic.
"In European Modern dance, the dancer is the 'subject', and the manner that they interpret a piece is an expression of their individuality. However, in Butoh, this concept is reversed," wrote Akira Kasai, another important Butoh pioneer who studied with Hijikata, in The Dance in the Future. 2004.
The Butoh dancer has to become a body without any thought and focus upon what is causing the movement. 'What moves you' is always prioritized rather than 'What you think to do'. When a dancer quiets his mind, and instead allows the imagination to lead movement, then he will be engaged in a universal mind. Only at this moment will the audience be free and witness to a genuine human condition. Hijikata named this dynamism "Butoh".
To complete his own style, Hijikata looked back to his childhood during World War ll. He talked about his brothers going away red faced from their final sake toast and then coming back as a box of ashes. "In Tohoku, there is a baby in the basket sitting by the rice farm. He is crying because the grown-ups are all working in the soil, cold wind blowing their cheeks. They are too busy to take care of the baby. The baby is crying and crying and then he starts to eat his darkness. He nips the darkness out to eat it. Butoh was born in this initiation of devouring hopelessness for survival".
Perhaps, Hijikata witnessed a real strength of human beings in the dark: the deepest desire for Life, and tried to transmit it to the performance.
Tatsumi Hijikata’s last words were, "There is a bright world like a musical theater beyond the dark tunnel".
I inherit his vision and desire to see it.
Mariko Endo© Cultural Statement 2016.