Finding Kokoro through the Eyes: Butoh in Roberta Carreri’s Work and Pedagogy

peer-reviewed article

Simone Dragone

simone.dragone@edu.unige.it
University of Genoa (Italy)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2660-1579

Abstract

In 1984, Roberta Carreri, Odin Teatret actress since 1974, saw Niwa (The Garden), a Butoh dance performance by Muteki-Sha, and attended a three-day workshop with Natsu Nakajima, direct heir of the Butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1986, she traveled to Japan to work with Natsu Nakajima and Kazuo Ohno. The meeting with the Asian masters changed her approach to training and the creative process. For her, the most remarkable aspect of this apprenticeship was the work with the eyes. The way the eyes are used in Butoh conditioned Carreri’s training and the creative process of her solo performance Judith (1988). Since those same years, the Italian actress has been developing her own pedagogy. Today, she travels globally leading the workshop Dance of Intentions, which includes “flexing the eyes,” an exercise whereby the actress transmits to trainees how it is possible to shape the quality of scenic presence through the eyes. Drawing on a rich bibliography, Roberta Carreri’s work diaries, unpublished documents, and audiovisual materials kept at the Odin Teatret Archives, this paper aims to analyze how the actress embodied the ability to find the kokoro (Japanese for “heart” or “soul”), its application to the creative process and the performance, as well as her pedagogic work, and how this Butoh apprenticeship conditioned her professional identity.


Keywords:

Butoh, kokoro, theater anthropology, intercultural training, creative process, theater pedagogy, Eurasian theater

Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double. Translation Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove Press, 1958.
  Google Scholar

Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario, eds. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance London: Routledge, 2019.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536132   Google Scholar

Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario. “Introduction: Dance Experience, Dance of Darkness, Global Butoh: The Evolution of a New Dance Form.” In Baird and Candelario, Companion to Butoh Performance, 1–22.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536132-1   Google Scholar

Barba, Eugenio. “An Amulet Made of Memory: The Significance of Exercises in the Actor Dramaturgy.” TDR 41, no. 4 (1997): 127–132. https://doi.org/10.2307/1146664.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1146664   Google Scholar

Barba, Eugenio. “Angelanimal: Tecniche perdute per lo spettatore.” Teatro e Storia 20, no. 27 (2006): 17–26.
  Google Scholar

Barba, Eugenio. On Directing and Dramaturgy: Burning the House. Translation Judy Barba. London: Routledge, 2009.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203870297   Google Scholar

Barba, Eugenio. The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. Translation Richard Fowler. London: Routledge, 1995.
  Google Scholar

Barba, Eugenio. Theatre: Solitude, Craft, Revolt. Translation Judy Barba. Aberystwynt: Black Mountain Press, 1999.
  Google Scholar

Barba, Eugenio, and Nicola Savarese. A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret Art of the Performer. 2nd ed. Translated by Richard Fowler. London: Routledge, 2006.
  Google Scholar

Barbe, Frances. “Embodying Imagination: Butoh and Performer Training.” In Intercultural Acting and Performer Training, edited by Phillip B. Zarrilli, T. Sasitharan, and Anuradha Kapur, 179–201. London: Routledge, 2019.
  Google Scholar

Buscarino, Maurizio. “Judith, Fotoarticolo.” Teatro Festival 12 (1989): 37–44.
  Google Scholar

Carreri, Roberta. “The Actor’s Journey: Judith from Training to Performance.” Interview by Erik Exe Christoffersen. New Theatre Quarterly 26, no. 7 (1991): 137–146. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X00005418.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X00005418   Google Scholar

Carreri, Roberta. “A Handful of Characters.” The Open Page 8 (2003): 44–55. https://themagdalenaproject.org/sites/default/files/OP8_RobertaCarreri.pdf.
  Google Scholar

Carreri, Roberta. On Training and Performance: Traces of an Odin Teatret Actress. Translated and edited by Frank Camilleri. New York: Routledge, 2014.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315769424   Google Scholar

Citaristi, Ileana. The Making of a Guru: Kelucharan Mahapatra, His Life and Times. Delhi: Manohar, 2001.
  Google Scholar

Cristea, Alina. “The Cultural and Professional Identity of the Actor or the History of Cross-Cultural Theatre.” Revista Română de Studii Eurasiatice 16, no. 1/2 (2020): 211–216.
  Google Scholar

Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre. Edited by Eugenio Barba. New York: Routledge, 2002.
  Google Scholar

Lindgren, Monica, and Johann Packendorff. “Performing Arts and the Art of Performing: On Co-construction of Project Work and Professional Identities in Theatres.” International Journal of Project Management 25, no. 4 (2007): 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.01.005.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.01.005   Google Scholar

Lopez y Royo, Alessandra. “The Reinvention of Odissi Classical Dance as a Temple Ritual.” In The Archaeology of Ritual, edited by Evangelos Kyriakidis, 155–181. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2007. https://escholarship.org/ uc/item/2r21b9wc.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvdjrr7s.12   Google Scholar

Maehata, Noriko. “Selections from the Prose of Kazuo Ohno.” The Drama Review 30, no. 2 (1986): 156–162. https://doi.org/10.2307/1145736.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1145736   Google Scholar

Nanako, Kurihara. “Hijikata Tsatsumi: The Words of Butoh.” TDR 44, no. 1 (2000): 12–28. https://doi.org/10.1162/10542040051058816.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/10542040051058816   Google Scholar

Naomi, Inata. “Rethinking the ‘Indigeneity’ of Hijikata Tatsumi in the 1960s as a Photographic Negative Image of Japanese Dance History.” In Baird and Candelario, Companion to Butoh Performance, 56–70.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536132-6   Google Scholar

Pani, Jiwan. “Odissi.” In Indian Dance: The Ultimate Metaphor. Edited by Shanta Serbjeet Singh, 147–162. New Delhi: Bookwise India, 2000.
  Google Scholar

Patnaik, Dhirendranath. Odissi Dance. Bhubaneshwar: Orissa Sangeeta Natak Akademi, 1971.
  Google Scholar

Pavis, Patrice. “Underscore: The Shape of Things to Come.” In “Presence and Pre-expressivity,” edited by Ralph Yarrow. Special issue, Contemporary Theatre Review 6, no. 4 (1997): 37–61.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10486809708568435   Google Scholar

Sanders, Vicky. “Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of Butō.” Asian Theatre Journal 5, no. 2 (1988): 148–163. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161489.
  Google Scholar

Sakamoto, Michael Andrew Y. An Empty Room: Butoh Performance and the Social Body in Crisis. PhD dissertation, University of California, 2012. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8xq5x42n.
  Google Scholar

Schechner, Richard. Between Theatre and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press, 1985.
  Google Scholar

Schwellinger, Lucia. “Ohno Kazuo: Biography and Methods of Movement Creation.” In Baird and Candelario, Companion to Butoh Performance, 113–125.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536132-14   Google Scholar

Stein, Bonnie Sue. “Twenty Years Ago We Were Crazy, Dirty, and Mad.” The Drama Review 30, no. 2 (1986): 107–126. https://doi.org/10.2307/1145731.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1145731   Google Scholar

Watson, Ian. “Interculturalism and the Individual Performer: An Interview with the Odin Actress Roberta Carreri.” In Negotiating Cultures: Eugenio Barba and the Intercultural Debate, edited by Ian Watson, 76–87. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
  Google Scholar

Wolford, Lisa. “Grotowski’s Vision of the Actor: The Search for Contact.” In Actor Training, edited by Alison Hodge, 2nd ed., 199–214. London: Routledge, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203861370.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203861370   Google Scholar

Whyman, Rose. “Explanations and Implications of ‘Psychophysical’ Acting.” New Theatre Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2016): 157–168. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X16000051.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X16000051   Google Scholar

Zarrilli, Phillip B. Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach After Stanislavski. London: Routledge, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Download


Published
2023-09-01

Cited by

Dragone, S. (2023) “Finding Kokoro through the Eyes: Butoh in Roberta Carreri’s Work and Pedagogy”, Pamiętnik Teatralny, 72(3), pp. 17–40. doi: 10.36744/pt.1638.

Authors

Simone Dragone 
simone.dragone@edu.unige.it
University of Genoa Italy
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2660-1579

Simone Dragone - PhD student in Digital Humanities Arts, Performing Arts and Multimedia Technologies at the University of Genoa, Italy. From April 2019 to June 2022, he has been responsible for OTA (Odin Teatret Archives) in Holstebro (Denmark). Since 2020, he has been a member of the JTA (Journal of Theater Anthropology) editorial board, magazine founded and directed by Eugenio Barba. Since 2022 Assistant Professor in Archival Science for Traditional and Digital Archives at the University of Genoa, and organizational director of ilFalcone–Genoa University Theatre.



Statistics

Abstract views: 159
PDF downloads: 106


License

Copyright (c) 2023 Simone Dragone

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Pamiętnik Teatralny should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.

From issue 1/2018 to 3/2022 all articles were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.