Altérations / Kô Murobushi

“No origin, no purpose, no departure point, no arrival, the body’s zero hour”. The trembling image of Basile Doganis’ film accompanies the burning body of Japanese butoh dancer Kô Murobushi during a long slow dance in suspension. From one image to another, the lights projected onto his body and the spellbinding sonic vibrations give the feeling of a crossing that unfolds in a suspended outof-time moment, on the threshold between life and death. With his naked body, painted, masked, earthy or gleaming and in perpetual transformation, the dancer moves through the film where dance and matter follow on and combine. Between these movements, a text unfolds – a text by the dancer himself, an insight into his relationship to dance and life. He evokes Hijikata, a butoh pioneer and teacher, whose dances leave their trace on the dancer. Their gestures merge and give tangible form to transmission. Murobushi is sometimes a shadow, sometimes a projection, present, absent, he seems to be on the edge of a gulf, held back by the images. The framings heighten the deterioration of the dancer’s body and his slow awakening towards death, until he meets his mummy, a dark companion whose limbs eventually replace Murobushi’s own. A dance-film to accompany the end of a life and the renewal of a body – “nothingness before, nothingness after, dancing”.

Clémence Arrivé