Those in attendance at the Mondavi Center (on the campus of U.C. Davis) for the highly anticipated performance last week by Sankai Juku had one of two possible reactions. Some (a decided minority) grew bored and restive as the successive vignettes became repetitive and, ultimately, boring. Others (the vast majority of the far less than capacity audience) were entranced by the precision of the movements by each of the performers and by the synchronized way in which they interacted and communicated to the audience.
Describing the performance is difficult, since it is so unique that it can’t really be compared to anything else. It could be considered a form of dance (butoh dancing is the title by which it is identified), but not as dance is perceived in even the most avant garde companies. It could be compared to mime, but mime is not used to produce the same effect, nor is it as affected conceptually. In terms of cinematic art, our reaction was the same mix of wonder and bewilderment that is evoked in parts of Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.”
The Mondavi performance, conceived, choreographed and directed by founder Ushio Amagatsu, was entitled “Memories Before History,” and the various vignettes (a dozen or so in all) each seemed to represent the earliest perceptions and appreciations our first progenitors may have had of their existence and of the world around them. The performers, all males ranging in age from 20 to 70, were painted in white, an ashen white that suggested ghostliness or perhaps otherworldliness.
In the opening act, a single performer walked slowly towards a stream of sand that poured out endlessly from high above the stage, like a slender waterfall. That stream was a constant throughout the 90-minute performance, and we took it to epitomize the sands of time. We had a similar sense of the two large artistic depictions of time-pieces (evoking sundials and hour glasses) that were raised and lowered above the stage at various points in the performance. At one point, the base of these structures even appeared to change from metallic to glass.
In the vignettes that followed the opening, groups of the performers, sometimes three, sometimes four (only all eight at the end) would appear in various costumes, suggesting, perhaps, different stages of human development and pre-historic human experiences. In two, the performers all appeared to be women (at least as they were clothed and costumed). In another, they might have been infants as they assumed fetal positions.
But in all of the vignettes, the performers’ movements were precisely synchronized so that each performer moved an arm or opened a mouth at the same moment and in the same manner, even though they were all performing independently of each other. We took the effect to indicate the masses of pre-historic humanity dealing with the discoveries of the earliest members of our species: sound, light, heat, rain, and the emotions that might have accompanied those discoveries: fear, joy, wonder, confusion. In one vignette, the idea of writing seemed to be represented in the performers’ actions. In another, actual verbal communication may have been depicted.
Throughout the performance, various strands of music accompanied the performers (or helped to create the mood of the particular vignette). These were not melodies or harmonious orchestral works. (Compositional credit was noted for Takashi Kako, Yas-Kas, and Yoichiro Yoshikawa.) Instead they were musical sounds, extended sometimes for long stretches, so as to create a mood or atmosphere to which the performers related (but not so as to appear to be dancing or even moving in response to the music). At times the music was suggestive of the works of Gyorgi Ligeti (for those familiar with Kubrick’s score in “2001”). At others, it was just a series of chords played at varying levels of volume.
In the end, the atmosphere was primarily somber, with a dash of innocuous humor, perhaps to lighten the contemplative aura that pervaded the performers’ slow, occasionally robotic, movements. It was all masterful in its conception, pure artistry, to be sure, and yet it could have been easily dismissed as pretense by those not willing to fully experience it.
As with most art that breaks the mold, this Sankai Juku performance wasn’t easy to comprehend. But, also like most great art, it was easy to appreciate its integrity and its beauty.