UNDERSTANDING BUTOH: BECOMING OTHER--"The Hollow Space of Dust & Breath"
UNDERSTANDING BUTOH--BECOMING OTHER THE HOLLOW SPACE OF DUST & BREATH I. Soil and the Low Center II. Moisture and Decay III. The Internal Crucible IV. The Dust of Disintegration Written by ARA FIG MMXXVI — The space is a hollow of dust and breath. She crouches. Twenty-four years of bone and blood folded into the oldest shape the body remembers: the squat of a creature that has forgotten uprightness, that has chosen the ground as its only honest axis. Her knees press outward, heels planted, thighs open yet heavy, the weight of her pelvis sinking into the concrete floor as if the floor itself were soft clay still remembering the river that once carried it. The small potted tree stands before her, no taller than her bowed head, its branches skeletal, leaves curled into brown fists that refuse to fall. Between her and the dying thing there is only the thickness of air and the white that covers her. The paint is not costume. It is second skin, second death. From the roots of her c...
