Love is Shock

I am no more than a pile of clothing. Kimono’s, suits, ties, underwear and socks drop away as I run to catch the airplane. Will I arrive? What will arrive?

Visiting my grandmother in Nagasaki, my limited language skills understand her to say “I’m sorry, my brain has gone bad.” She wanders to the toilet, returns, and repeats these words to me. In Nara-ken, a gay Zen Buddhist monk from Texas slips daily into alcoholic stupor, telling stories, forgetting, and telling them again like it’s the first time.

Where did these circles begin?

Age 5, New York: My father sings me to sleep. I do not understand the language.

Age 6, Nagasaki: Dead fish wash ashore. I light firecrackers in their gaping mouths. The heads explode.

I am a violent baby snake dancing a drunk monk, a 2 year old child re-drawing the book of flags.

The first New York Butoh Festival was a festival celebrating the origins and the international evolution of this vital form. Butoh dance emerged in post-World War II Japan and has become a worldwide movement influencing artists in many disciplines. This festival presented emerging artists and established masters from Japan, Europe and the Eastern and Western coasts of the U.S. The New York Butoh Festival served as an East Coast hub for a growing regional and international network of butoh performers and audiences, and was presented by CAVE Organization, the oldest existing experimental art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Since its conception in 1996 as an artists-in-residence, gallery and performance space, the CAVE has confronted the complex challenges and possibilities of the urban landscape.

The New York Butoh Festival reflects the organization’s intention to attract, provoke and support exploration, generative confrontation and collaboration among artists and audiences from diverse disciplines and cultures. This festival was created through donated work, and we are grateful to the performers, staff and volunteers who have made it possible.