It is tempting to look at the new Dairakudakan production, "Kanzen-naru Hitobito (Complete People)," as being in some way connected to the title. Searching for meaning in butoh performances has always been a mad sport, though, and the premiere by the largest butoh company extant, at Tokyo's Art Sphere on Sept. 7, increased the odds against.
At almost two hours in length, and with the most diverse, motley crew of performers possible, "Complete People" reaffirms director Akaji Maro's instinctive grasp of theater and the possibility of making performances abstract in conception and immediate in execution.
The meaning of it all, he says, lies closer to his theme tenpu tenshiki, which he interprets as "a gathering of personal brightening." Of all the current crop of aging butoh gurus, masters, disciples and hangers-on, Maro is the most disarmingly direct. For him, there is little of the mystical about the performance and experience of the collection of surreal vignettes that has come to be called butoh. Rather, it is an "experiment that enables us to survive in a more human way."