Work in progress showing
Doing the dance of insects decomposing the body and them taking over
the thrown aside corpse. bloated, livid pus is flowing. being devoured by: various worms skeleton with flesh and blood fleshless skeleton with wet blood a skeleton with no flesh nor blood disconnected bones scattered a hand bone foot bone a shoulder bone bones bleached white bones heaped up bones rotted and crumbled to dust
Francesca Kamil here will perform a Butoh exploration of the second stage of the Nine Cemetery Reflections: being devoured, new life taking over the dead.
The Nine Cemetery Reflections are used in Buddhist meditation practice to curb lust through an honest look at the body as a body inside and out as it decomposes.
This performance takes place within the wider performance context of Butoh work which asks: what does it mean to ‘become something other?” How can we understand the body as not a fixed or separate entity, and instead surrender, listen, melt, breathe and move with the different pulses, energies and creatures which lie within? As we slow down we enter into geological time, the time of nature with the endless cycles of growth and decay. One conditioning the other.
The full dissertation performance will explore all Nine stages through movement, actions in a durational installation outside.
She is looking for feedback on the loving moments in the performance and how the audience would like to feel cared for when looking at the movement.