Sankai Juku makes its Joyce debut with TOBARI (photo © Sankai Juku)
AS IF IN AN INEXHAUSTIBLE FLUX
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
Through Sunday, October 17, $10-$59
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.sankaijuku.com
One of the foremost practitioners of Butoh in the world, Tokyo-based Sankai Juku is back in New York City, making its Joyce debut with the 2008 evening-length piece TOBARI — AS IF IN AN INEXHAUSTIBLE FLUX. In November 2002, Sankai Juku, led by founder, director, choreographer, designer, and dancer Ushio Amagatsu, performed the miraculous HIBIKI (RESONANCE FROM FAR AWAY) at BAM, filling the stage with sand and pools of water, then returned in October 2006 with KAGEMI: BEYOND THE METAPHORS OF MIRRORS, which explored reflections both inward and outward. In TOBARI, Amagatsu, now in his early sixties, is joined by seven other male dancers, including company cofounder Semimaru, in a hypnotic eighty-minute production that follows life, death, and rebirth as day evolves into night. In the center of the stage, again covered in white sand, rests a slightly raised circular platform that occasionally sparkles with dots of light representing stars, which can also be seen on a black screen at the back of the stage. The white-powdered dancers, dressed like classical Greek statues, go through seven poetic movements, concentrating primarily on their hands, using their wrists and fingers as they stay in place, creating a unique, if sometimes off-putting, visual language. Beginning with “From unlimited nothingness” and ending with “Into unlimited nothingness” — other sections include “A shadow in a dream,” “Reflecting on each other,” and “A vertical dream of the future” — the dancers move agonizingly slowly, sometimes forming a circle around one man, other times writhing on the platform, highlighted by a powerful, expressive solo performed by Amagatsu. “Night blue” actually shocks the audience as four dancers appear in blue outfits and wearing dangling earrings, but it also turns out to be the weakest of the seven parts, the movement uninspiring and bland. The music, by Takashi Kako, YAS-KAZ, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa, ranges from crashing thunder to melancholia.