The first thing that really caught my eye was a costume that Hijikata was wearing. The movement during this section was very slight and economical (Hijikata was balanced on his right hip). The costume was however more contrived. I noticed that some strips of fabric swayed slightly even during the sparest of Hijikata's movement. The costume to me didn't seem like an extension of Hijikata's body but more like a visible piece of air that showed the energy of Hijikata's movement as it left his body....like throwing a stone in a pond. Once the stone has been thrown in the pond you can't see it, but you can gauge effect of throwing it as you see the ripples spread across the water. This is how the fabric worked for me: it showed me the immediate physical effect of Hijikata's performance. I thought this was consistent with the ideals of Butoh we discussed in class on Tuesday: lucidity of performance, suggestive and evocative movement.
Also, this is the second movie we've seen with Hijikata - and in both he wore his facial hair in the style of an exaggerated Van Dyck (goatee and mustache together). If the point performance in Butoh is to convey the message as clearly as possible there is no way that his amount of facial hair lets you see his facial muscles clearly. Especially in the clip we saw Tuesday, where Hijikata was portraying a woman - how can you get past the image of a man. Then I thought maybe this was a sort of juxtapositional tool. By keeping the mustache it was clearly visible that he was not a woman, but working towards the image of one. This I thought, was a sort of Brechtian idea - reminding the audience it's not real life, just a performance.
I wasn't really trying to make any deep connections here, I really just wanted to share my train of thought after watching the clip Amy posted. Does anyone else have ideas about it?
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