Butoh dance performance in Jogjakarta
Cermin air
Water mirror • 水鏡(mizu-kagami)
See the world from the bottom of the water.
Waking up at 4:30 am by the sound of praying, I imagine the life of farmers here. 6 AM, I start walking along the way in the middle of rice fields, and always something beautiful. It's my morning routine in Jogja. One day, I walked there just after the sunset time, it was beautiful at first but I felt scared gradually because there was little light, I can't see clearly, I was getting into darkness. Fear of nature. I realized that I am very weak, I can't control, and this feeling connects creativity of my Butoh.
The old leaves fall down to the ground. They are rotten and change their bodies into mud. The mud grows rice, and we eat it, we grow, get old, die, and maybe we reborn through the energy of the universe.
What constitutes a country's "culture"? It depends on the perspective from which you look at it. For those who live here, some things have become so commonplace that they have become like air, they no longer even catch the eye, and some things have not been exported as a cultural industry.
I was able to absorb a great deal of the local atmosphere during my two-week stay in Jogjakarta.
It is a beautiful place with a lot of nature and rice fields.
However, there are also the international environmental issues. The large amount of plastic garbage imported from developed countries (Japan included) and the piles of waste that are not recycled in their own countries.
What is nature now? We use plastics everyday, it's hard to imagine life without it. Are plastics becoming one part of our nature? I am still thinking, no answer.
This "Cermin air" is consisted of 3 solo performances and group dances.
Green fresh leaves by Sonia Kwek
Garbage plastic bags by XUE
Old brown leaves by Emiko Agatsuma
03.10.2024, Sunday
17:30 Doors
18:00 Start
Free Admission
Venue: Movement lab (Jogjakarta, Indonesia)
Director & Butoh: Emiko Agatsuma
Butoh: Sonia Kwek, XUE
Flyer Design by XUE
Flyer photo by Liszu Tan
Organized by Singapore Butoh Collective
