Being Ma in Movement: Space-Time In Butoh, Somatic Practice, and Durational Performance Art PDF
Preview Being Ma in Movement: Space-Time In Butoh, Somatic Practice, and Durational Performance Art
Abstract
Being Ma lives at the nexus of ma and the lived body.1 Ma concept of space-time permeates
traditional forms of Japanese Fine Arts.2 The essence of ma reappeared in the contemporary Butoh
dance philosophy, and through it migrated as a spatial temporal perspective adopted by a number of
movement art practitioners outside of Japan. Being Ma aims to describe a conceptual space-time as
experienced in its relationship with the artistic intent of a moving body.
Having chosen to study a Japanese concept through the practice of North American movement
art practitioners, I come across issues of translation and issues of movement approaches – or, stylistic
forms of action. Of the many artistic expressions using the lived body paradigm, this paper addresses
the experience of movement through the cases studies of Butoh dance-theatre, Somatic practice, and
Durational Performance Art. These forms necessitate awareness of movement, which makes them great
pilots for observation, description and analysis. Therefore, Being Ma looks at the experiential
phenomenon of embodied translation in the action of dancing/performing a movement. In this paper,
I will define the term trans-acting, describe how ma trans-acts the dancing body, and illustrate its
implication in movement performance art.
The process approach is fundamental in following the logical flow leading to the body-as-event
qualifying the ma principle discussed in this paper. Ma is a contributory rather than a known or a
delimiting principle. The study of ma augments the study of the philosophy of dance/movement as
agent of cultural knowledge production.
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