In Butoh and Suzuki Performance in Australia: Bent Legs on Strange Grounds, 1982-2023, Marshall considers how the originally Japanese forms of butoh dance and Suzukiâs theatre reconfigure historical lineages to find ancient yet transcultural ancestors within Australia and beyond. Marshall argues that artists working in Australia with butoh and Suzuki techniques develop conflicted yet compelling diasporic, multicultural, spiritually and corporeally compelling interpretations of theatrical practice. Marshall puts at the centre of butoh historiography the work of Tess de Quincey, Yumi Umiumare, Tony Yap, Lynne Bradley, Simon Woods, Frances Barbe, and Australian Suzuki practitioners Jacqui Carroll and John Nobbs.
Jonathan W. Marshallâs Bent Legs on Strange Grounds is an important contribution to the body of literature on butoh, as well as to studies of dance in Australia that will be valuable to practitioners and scholars alike. Detailed discussions of Australian butoh artists open up consideration of how global and local histories, migrations, and landscapes not only were key to butohâs formation in Japan, but also to its continued development around the world. Attention to butohâs emplacement in Australia, Marshall convincingly argues, reveals insights about national identity, race, power, and more that are relevant well beyond the Australian performance context.
â Rosemary Candelario, Texas Womanâs University, co-editor, Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (2018)
Marshallâs Bent Legs on Strange Grounds explores the remarkable transformative era of Australiaâs reconsideration of its place in the region. A definitive study of Australian experiments in butoh and the theatrical vision of Suzuki Tadashi, the book shows how new corporeal and spatial dramaturgies of the Japanese avant-garde fundamentally changed Australian performance. Expansively researched and annotated, this impressive study connects Australian performance after the New Wave with globalization, postmodern dance, Indigeneity, and subcultures, and it details the work of leading Australian/Asian artists. Bent Legs on Strange Grounds speaks about the development of embodied knowledge and the consequential refiguration of Australiaâs sense of being in the world. It is also a study of butoh and Suzukiâs legacy in global terms, wherein Australian experimental performance also becomes something larger than itself.
â Peter Eckersall, The Graduate Center, CUNY, author of Performativity and Event in 1960s Japan (2013).
Jonathan W. Marshall has written about butoh and Suzuki since 1995, and published extensively on the relationship between the hysteria diagnosis and performance. He is associate professor and postgraduate coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan Australia. https://edithcowan.academia.edu/JonathanWMarshall
Acknowlegements
List of Figures
1 Bodies Possessed by History: an Introduction to Butoh and Suzuki
â1 Introduction
â2 Butoh, Suzuki and the Move to Australia
â3 Primal Scenes of Butoh Encounter
â4 What is Butoh?
â5 Suzuki Technique and the Way of Stomping
â6 Lineages of Descent Ancient and Modern in Butoh and Suzuki
â7 Butoh and Suzuki Technique in Other National Contexts
â8 Criticism and Reception of Japanese Performance in Australia
â9 Emptiness and Possession
â10 Primary Sources and Thick Description
â11 Overview and Book Structure
2 Butoh and the Australian Context: Dancing the Landscape While Dancing Global Relations
â1 Introduction
â2 Consolidation in Japan and Movement to Australia
â3 Tanakaâs âMap of History through Dancingâ in the Contested Lands of Australia
â4 Corpus Nullius: Moving beyond the Emptiness of the Butoh Body
â5 Expressive Japanese Performance as a Counter to the Postmodern âPerformance of Absenceâ
â6 Bodies in Opposition to the Australian Legend: Butoh, Suzuki and Grotowski
â7 Troubled Relations between Australia and Asia Prior to the Japan Theatre Boom
â8 The Japanese Theatrical Boom in Australia, 1982â1994
3 De Quincey Takes Body Weather Inland: Lake Mungo and Alice Springs
â1 Introduction
â2 De Quinceyâs Butoh Encounter and Position Within Australian Dance
â3 Tanaka Min and Body Weather
â4 De Quinceyâs Development from Postwar Britain to Australia
â5 De Quinceyâs First Solos in Australia
â6 Body Weather as an Uncanny Project: Tracing an âInteractive History of the Sensesâ on Australiaâs Colonised Lands
â7 De Quinceyâs Lake Mungo Workshops, 1991â92, and beyond
â8 Lake Mungo Performance Works and on to Alice Springs
â9 Triple Alice, 1999â2001
â10 Triple Alice Performances and Dictionary of Atmospheres (2005)
4 Body Weather Comes Back from the Desert: De Quinceyâs Urban Works, the Hysterical Body, and Other Body Weather Performers in Australia
â1 Introduction
â2 De Quinceyâs Urban and Industrial Site-Specific Works: Compression â100 (1996), City to City (2000), The Stirring (2007), Run (2009)
â3 A Masterpiece of Hysterio-Choreography: Nerve â9 (2001â05)
â4 Other Bodyweather Artists in Australia
â5 Heywood and Humanimal Body Weather
â6 European Tanztheater Meets Australian Body Weather: Martin Del Amo
â7 Post-Colonial Butoh and Rejecting the Empty Body: Gretel Taylor
â8 Evidence of Bodily Emergences
â9 Fragmented and Dialectical Bodies
5 Diasporic Austral-Asian Fusions 1: Early Works by Umiumare and Yap
â1 Introduction
â2 Umiumareâs and Yapâs Butoh Encounters
â3 Umiumare and Yap within the Context Butoh
â4 Maro and Dairakudakan
â5 Umiumare: From Regional Japan to Urban Australia
â5 Tony Ding Chai Yap: From Melakan Trance to Australian Physical Theatre
â6 Theatre of Sacrifice and Redemption: Yap in IRAA, 1988â94
â7 Mixed Company and Tony Yap Company, 1993-Present
â8 Umiumare and Yap in Love Suicides (1998), Miss Tanaka (2001), and Meat Party (2000)
â9 Kagome (1996â98)
â10 Sunrise at Midnight (2001): a Sequel to De Quinceyâs Mungo Workshops
â11 Duets by Umiumare and Yap: How Could You Even Begin to Understand? (1996â2007), In-Compatibility (2003) and Zero Zero (2010â14)
â12 Umiumareâs Fleeting Moments (1998)
â13 Yapâs Decay of the Angel (1999)
â14 Conclusion
6 Diasporic Austral-Asian Fusions 2: Yapâs Trance Dance and Umiumareâs Butoh Cabaret, Character Dances and First Nations Collaborations
â1 Introduction
â2 Butoh Cabaret and Hystericised Character Dances: Umiumareâs DasSHOKU Series (1999â2015) and Entrance (2009â12)
â3 Umiumareâs First Nations Collaborations: Marrugekuâs Burning Daylight (2006â09) and Big Hartâs Ngapartji Ngapartji (2007â12)
â4 Yap and Trance Dance; Umiumare and Jujutsu
â5 Yapâs Eulogy for the Living (2009â17), Rasa Sayang (2010), and Liminal City (2021â22)
â6 A Trance Dance Masterpiece: Yapâs Animal/God: the Great Square (2021)
â7 Conclusion: Yapâs Map Fest (2008-Present) and Umiumareâs ButohOUT! (2017-Present)
7 Stomping Downunder: Suzuki and Frank Theatre
â1 Introduction
â2 Carrollâs and Nobbsâ Encounters with Suzuki
â3 Suzuki Tadashi in Japan and Australia
â4 The Australian Production of Chronicle of Macbeth (1992)
â5 Foundation of Frank Theatre
â6 Larrikin Orientalism: Frank Theatreâs Early Works
â7 Universalism, Localism and Racial Hierarchies
â8 Nobbs Suzuki Praxis (NSP)
â9 Butoh Incursions, the Hysterical Body, and Emptiness
â10 Frankâs Doll Seventeen (2002â03)
â11 Conclusion: the Way Forward is Mixed
8 Butoh in the Southern Tropics: Zen Zen Zo and Associates
â1 Introduction
â2 Bradleyâs and Woodsâ Encounters with Japanese Performance
â3 Zen Zen Zoâs Foundation and the Development of Its Aesthetic, 1992â98
â4 Zen Zen Zoâs Early Work and Brisbane Physical Theatre
â5 Zen Zen Zo, Frank and Reworking Japanese Aesthetics
â6 Zen Zen Zoâs Early Butoh Productions and Butoh Choruses
â7 Fusing Butoh with Suzuki: Zen Zen Zoâs Cult of Dionysus (1994â96)
â8 Frances Barbeâs TÅhoku Australis
â9 Butoh Diffusions
9 Conclusion: Two Closing Scenes from Australian Adaptations of Butoh and Suzuki
â1 NYIDâS the Dispossessed (2008) and Huntâs Copper Promises (2016)
Bibliography
Index
All those interested in Australian manifestations of Japanese physical theatre forms of butoh and Suzuki since the 1990s