Alexa Salamé, photo by Shige Moriya

Alexa Salamé

On Poetics

I’ve been gently navigating my way through Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space for a time now. In it, he writes about writing and he writes about walls. The human experience is made up of walls, both physical and conceptual; big walls, tiny walls, walls to keep things in, to keep things out, to keep things safe, to keep things private. Doors and hinges and keys and corners and locks, indeed we are “human beings, great dreamers of locks” (95). We search constantly for containers, whether for our most precious belongings or our most…

Psychological Examination of the Presence of Butoh Dancers’ Body

Tadashi Kato, Ph.D., Fairmont State University

Introduction

My first encounter with Butoh was Kunishi Kamiryo’s performance in Tokyo in Spring 1984.  I was a college freshman and was recommended to see his performance from a fellow student in Akira Kasai’s Eurythmy class.  At that time, I did not know anything about the relationship between Akira and Kunishi and also knew nothing about Butoh (I later learned that Kunishi was in fact one of the top disciples of Akira and also one of the most highly regarded Butoh dancers among Akira’s students by Tatsumi Hijikata).  However, this performance became an unforgettable experience.  I recall being struck by Mr. Kamiryo’s peculiar crawling position on the floor, and yet finding myself experiencing an internal impulse of wanting to move from within.  It almost felt…