Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Portrait of Ōno Yoshito by Yomota Inuhiko

2021; University of Hawaii Press; Volume: 38; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/atj.2021.0020

1527-2109

Colleen Lanki,

Chinese history and philosophy

Reviewed by: Portrait of Ōno Yoshito by Yomota Inuhiko Colleen Lanki PORTRAIT OF ŌNO YOSHITO. By Yomota Inuhiko. Translated by John K. Gillespie. Tokyo: Canta Co. Ltd, 2017. 210 pp. Hardcover, ¥3000. Portrait of Ōno Yoshito is a gorgeous and timely combination of personal history, performance criticism, and autobiographical photo album, serving as a tribute to butō dancer Ōno Yoshito (1938–2020).1 Scholar, culture critic, and poet Yomota Inuhiko offers elegant descriptions of [End Page 347] past performances, personal insights into Yoshito's life and work, and an intimate history of one of the founders of the art of butō. Yomota, who attended performances and toured to China with Yoshito, writes from the perspective of a witness to Yoshito's philosophy and artistic work. His stated purpose for this publication is "to discuss Yoshito as a butō dancer, his background, his presence, and to broach the issue of his place in the history of butō" (p. 25). This book was first published in 2017, less than three years before Ōno Yoshito passed away on 8 January 2020. It serves as a powerful elegy and important memorial to Ōno's life and work. Ōno Yoshito was the son of renowned butō artist Ōno Kazuo (1906–2010). Yoshito began his work in dance studying with his father and made his stage debut performing alongside him in Kazuo's theatrical choreography Ryōjin to umi (The Old Man and the Sea) in 1959, directed by celebrated butō artist Hijikata Tatsumi (1926–1986). In May 1959 Yoshito was enlisted to perform in Hijikata's controversial choreography Kinjiki (Forbidden Colors), the performance touted as the beginning of what was termed ankoku butō (dance of utter darkness). Yoshito stopped performing for many years but later returned to support his father's work, becoming a director, teacher, and performer. After Kazuo's death, Yoshito continued to tour and teach, both maintaining his father's legacy and forging his own unique style. Ōno Kazuo and Hijikata are known as the cofounders of ankoku butō; the third dancer in Kinjiki, Ōno Yoshito, is rarely given credit for his contribution to this foundational work. Yomota argues that Yoshito's youthful body was the material on which butō was created and his contribution to the artform's development deserves more attention from critics and scholars. Portrait of Ōno Yoshito takes a first step towards filling this gap. Yomota begins the text with a prologue describing scenes from a 2013 production of Ōno Yoshito's choreography and performance of Hana to tori (Flower and Bird), and returns to this work at the end of the book creating a sort of aesthetic frame. In these powerfully descriptive sections, Yomota acts as both an admiring audience member and culture critic, illustrating the textures in the performance with loving detail and offering his readings of the work through its multiyear development. Yomota saw Hana to tori at least eight times and witnessed multiple rehearsals, so his account is both critical and deeply personal. He ultimately shows that Hana to tori is a culmination of the praxis of both Hijikata and Ōno Kazuo manifested through the body and imagination of Ōno Yoshito. Yomota concludes that Yoshito takes the images "flower" and "bird" (a sort of legacy from Hijikata—see below) and through this choreography and performance, Yoshito finds a sense [End Page 348] of completion and steps into his role as a butō artist on his own terms. Hana to tori becomes a metaphor for the trajectory of the book. After the initial description of Hana to tori, Yomota shifts into the role of biographer and writes about Yoshito's life as an artist in three chronological sections. The first, "Up to 'Forbidden Colors'," recounts Yoshito's early life and beginnings in dance, including the impact of his family on his world view and creative practice. Yomota writes about Kazuo's nine years serving in the Japanese military, the "family secret" that Yoshito's maternal grandfather was an Englishman, and his grandmother's fervent devotion to Buddhism which influenced Yoshito's idea that butō is "essentially an action of prayer" (p. 49). The section also discusses Yoshito's early involvement with butō. The next two...