Butoh: Mutations 2000

Choreography, Direction and Film: Marie-Gabrielle Rotie

Dancers: Tanja Raman, Efrosini Voutsina, Iris Costa, Linda Remahl, Rachel Gomme.

Lighting: Charlotte McClelland

Original Sound/Assistant Direction: Nick Parkin

Costume: Gabrielle Csyani Wills and Liz Lea and Dance- Ez International

Artificial Womb prop: Becs Andrews

 

A group piece for five female dancers funded for production and research and development by Arts Council of England, Choreodrome, Dance- ez international, Diva Pictures and Lausanne city museum. 

 

Premiered at the Robin Howard Dance Theatre at The Place, November 2002 and toured to Dartington Studio Theatre and The Playbox Theatre in Warwick.

 

Butoh: Mutations draws upon embryological imagery, phylogeny and evolutionary theory to reflect upon birth and human/animal parallels. Projections of specimens in formaldehyde fuse with bodes that, inside an imaginary laboratory, become fish, embryo, specimen, torn sometimes violently between life and death. The work arose from intensive research into Butoh imagery as a means of enacting bodily mutations and transformations to transgress human/animal, animate/inanimate and become other material and immaterial realities. 

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Press Quotes:

 

Roties goulish Mutations is as close as dance gets to an anatomical adventure - the company carve a strange and ethereal beauty from their movement material. Rotie is now an accomplished exponent of Butoh - the Japanese dance form which trades on the power of stillness - and the intense physical control that the form demands is evident in the muscular intensity of her choreography. 

                                                                                                 Keith Watson/ Metro 2002

 

the emotional, mental images that the dancers provoked were haunting: images that one recalls in one's sleep. 

Total Theatre 2003