Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance
Theatre
June 11-15, ODC Theater
THE BUTOH FESTIVAL is gone, but Butoh is not. Koichi and Hiroko
Tamano helped pique the Bay Area's fascination with this indigenous
Japanese art form upon their arrival in Berkeley in the late 1970s.
Since that time they have trained dozens of dancers, who often took
the art in new directions, sometimes becoming less interested
in perfecting it than in extracting from it what they needed for their
own development. But the Tamanos have stayed with it; today they are
perhaps reluctantly elders of the Bay Area dance community.
One of Butoh's most intriguing aspects lies in the fact that a dance
that springs from such an anarchical impulse can be so highly ceremonial.
For this, the silver anniversary concert of their Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance
Theatre, the Tamanos have invited Japanese dancer Eri Majima and have
assembled a group of dozen or so dancers to present the world premiere
of Eclipse. The full-evening work brings together images
in the Tamanos' words "of life and death, the sun and the
moon, the future and the past." The music is a live mix by Santa
Cruz composer Douglas Brody. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8 p.m.; Sun/15, 2 p.m.,
3153 17th St., S.F. $14-$25. (415) 863-9834. (Rita Felciano)