Review: Kaiku, nuoli ja ketju
Screaming, horror and screaming
Ikuyo Kuroda brings absurd butoh elements to contemporary dance
Helsinki Dance Company’s guest choreographer Ikuyo Kuroda is, in typical Japanese fashion, a contemporary choreographer who masters many performance techniques.
However, it is not just a question of dance techniques – which Kuroda also draws well from in his varied stage style – but of the surprisingly sovereign mastery of stage means that the 32-year-old choreographer demonstrates in his work.
I’m always a little amused when the Japanese explain, apologetically, that contemporary dance is still in its early stages.
Behind contemporary dance there is a strong and still amazingly vivid and fascinating theatrical history with kabuki and nõ theatres, from which Japanese contemporary dance draws. Buto has been declared dead many times already, without any justification – buto is alive and well.
In Kuroda’s new work, the slightly absurd butoh elements, best represented by the ghost figure, were seamlessly combined with the themes of ballet and contemporary dance.
Ikuyo Kuroda’s Echo, Arrow and Chain already expresses the repetitive structure of the work, in which the sequences are repeated and repeated only slightly modified. The choreographic work is not so much dominated by dance movement as by screaming, hysteria, wailing, body shudder and vibration.
The piercing cry is repeated at set intervals, Sofia Hill’s wailing Give it back, please persistently until the voice falls into silence as other topics emerge.
The wildest part of the work’s soundscape is represented by the loud explosion sounds that are repeated a few times. How did it happen, a live broadcast from South Ossetia?
The soundscape of the work is almost wilder than the world of movement.
But there is one scary person among the dancers, a ghostly figure masterfully played by Kai Lähdesmäki . The diabolical man, who smiles madly and hangs his tongue obscenely, is a grinning devil reminiscent of the jokers in the Batman movies.
The stage expression has strong links to old, especially 50’s Japanese cinema, which I admire, and of which I remember similar situations from silence to explosion-like thunderstorms, from restraint to full hustle and bustle.
Jiro Matsumoto’s music remains largely on the sidelines, but he has composed a few atmospheric episodes and songs. The stage lit by Kimmo Karjunen is dark-toned, as is the mental landscape of the work itself.
In the past, the dancers’ horkka expression was so thoroughly present in Finland that the slightly boring sense of déjà vu in the horkka scenes cannot be avoided.
Lähdesmäki and Hilli get to carry the key tasks of the performance, and they do them well.
Hill’s thankless task is to endlessly beg for something (flower? love? life?) that he feels he has lost. The young woman, who jumps happily at the beginning, is buried in frustration and grief during the performance.
She has the ability to bring out the matter she has experienced thoroughly, down to every bone and muscle of her delicate body.
Other contributors to Kuroda’s work are Jenni-Elina Lehto, Inka Tiitinen, Valtteri Raekallio and Mikko Lampinen. Everyone has their tenth moment, Inka Tiitinen’s emotional song is one of the most memorable. And the group also has its yummy moment, a dance number in a bikini made of flowers.