Butoh dance: Kea Tonetti
live music: Tivitavi
duration time: 60’
“there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you…”
(Charles Bukowski, Bluebird)
A journey within, where the body and the soul are laid bare, passing through multiple layered personalities that veil memory. Azul, forgetful of its origin, experiences crisis, allowing the wounds of the unloved child to surface, encountering suffering, anger, disappointment, desires, pleasure, and attachments. It searches for a suit and a body with which to identify, trying on different faces, from the power-hungry man to the innocent child, but never finding peace, because in reality it wants to show itself for who ut is.
But can a soul reveal itself naked in the center of the circus of the world without compromising itself and without risking vanishing? Revealing the harsh truth of existence can cause us to lose all our masks, perhaps even those necessary for living: “I’m not going to let anybody see you,” writes Bukowski. But Azul’s call is irresistible! It is a roof that opens up and lets the sky into a room, it is seeing again with the amazed and pure eyes of a child; it is a rebirth to a new breath, beyond all the barriers that veil its essence. Azul is immaterial and transparent like the sky, receptive and clear like water, it is the luminous void that permeates reality. It is man and woman. It is androgynous, light and shadow, sun and moon, right and left brain, strength and fragility, harmony and chaos. Azul is the path to infinity, where reality is transformed into imagination, into dreams; it is the other side of the mirror. In Him, in Her, sounds and movements vanish, drown, disappear like a bird in the sky, and creation becomes spontaneous, natural, effortless, free. Reborn, Azul dances the divine game of creation. His/her rebirth is an irresistible call and a profound surrender to the beauty of his/her own soul, to his/her own divine essence.
Freely inspired by Arcanes XV, Le Diable, and XX, Le Jugement, of the Tarots of Marseille and Charles Bukowski’s poem, Bluebird.
Selected for various theaters and festivals, the performance has been presented at: Kulturraum Rosenhof Festival, Tegernau – GER (2013); Jurányi Art Incubator House, Budapest (2014); One Theatre, Krasnodar – RU (2014); Evolutive dance festival “Behind the movement” Acud Kunsthaus, Berlin (2014); Brotfabrik, Berlin (2014); Brady Arts Centre, London (2014); Un Teatro Centro Cultural, Mexico City (2014); Festival “Grandezza Naturale”, Oggiono (LC) – IT (2014); Moving Bodies Butoh Festival, Bologna (2014); Festival Solliloquios y dialogos bailado, Teatro Los Tailleres, Mexico City (2015); “In Butoh #3 Les racines du mouvement”, Théâtre Le Gai Savoir, Lyon (2015); Espai 30, Barcelona (2016).
Photos by Anastasya Stolyarov, Laura Triscritti, Claudio Cassanelli, Josep M.G., Gabriel Unevisual