The Aesthetic Experience of Sublime in Butoh Dance in Communication with Wild Nature
Keywords:
dance, butoh, performance, sublimeAbstract
This article proposes a reflection on the aesthetic experience of the sublime, today, in the practice of butoh dance performed in wild environments, and how this experience can help us to appreciate nature, something very important due to the ecological catastrophe which we face and for which we are responsible. First, we will approach to the category of the sublime from Longinus, Burke, and Kant. Second, we will review and update this category by applying it to a contemporary artistic context: butoh dance. We will be guided by three ideas to establish the relationship between the sublime and butoh: absolute, dissolution and death. Third, in order to get closer to the meeting space between butoh and sublime experience, we will offer a definition of «wild environment», trying to overcome the dichotomy between nature and artifice, thus bridging the separation between human and nature. Precisely, we will come to the conclusion that the communication or union of the body with the environment (both wild) is the gateway to the experience of the sublime as part of a state of consciousness and perception that entails admiration for the mystery of the forces that animate the world.
References
Alishina, J., Butoh Dance Training. Secrets of Japanese Dance through the Alishina Method, Singing Dragon, London 2015.
Baird, B., Hijikata Tatsumi and Butoh. Dancing in a Pool of Gray Grits, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2012.
Bozal, V. (ed.), Historia de las ideas estéticas y de las teorías artísticas contemporáneas, Volumen I, Antonio Machado Libros, Madrid 2010.
Burke, E., Indagaciones filosóficas sobre el origen de nuestras ideas acerca de lo sublime y de lo bello, Tecnos, Madrid 2001.
Fraleigh, S. H., Butoh. Metamorphic dance and global alchemy, University of Illinois Press 2010.
Franzini, E., La estética del siglo XVIII, Visor, Madrid 2000.
Fushikaden, Z., Tratado sobre la práctica del teatro Nō y cuatro dramas Nō, Editorial Trotta, Madrid 1999.
Han, B., La salvación de lo bello, Herder Editorial, Barcelona 2015.
Kant, I., Critica del discernimiento, Antonio Machado Libros, Madrid 2001.
Lee, R., The Butoh Revolution, Independently published 2019.
Longino, Sobre lo sublime, en Demetrio & Longino, Sobre el estilo & Sobre lo sublime, Titivillus Epublibre 2019.
Loughnane, A., Japanese Aesthetics, en «Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy», 2018. Recuperado de: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-aesthetics/ [Consulta: 02/06/2021].
Nanako, K., Hijikata Tatsumi: the Words of Butoh, en «The Drama Review (TDR 1988)», 44/1, 2000, pp. 12-28.
Puelles Romero, L., Modos de la sensibilidad. Hiperrealidad, espectacularidad y extrañamiento, Servicio de publicaciones Diputación Provincial de Pontevedra 2002.
Tafalla, M., Apreciar la naturaleza, en M. Tafalla, Ecoanimal: una estética plurisensorial, ecologista y animalista, Plaza y Valdés Editores, Madrid 2019.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The authors who publish in Itinera are required to accept the following conditions:
1. The authors retain the rights on their paper and lincese the journal the right of first publication. The paper is also licensed under a Creative Commons License, which allows others to share it, by indicating intellectual authorship and its first publication in Itinera.
2. Authors may adhere to other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the paper (ex. deposit it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monograph), provided that its first publication in Itinera is indicated.
3. Authors can disseminate their paper online (ex. in institutional repositories or on their website) before and during the submission process, since this can lead to productive exchanges and increase quotations of the published work (See “The Effect of Open Access”).