Saburo Teshigawara has been creating dance for more than 30 years with his company KARAS. He is the only Japanese choreographer that has created work on the Paris Opera Ballet, and POB étoile Aurelie Dupont – on whom Teshigawara choreographed Darkness is Hiding Black Horses in Paris last year – premiered Sleep with Karas, in Tokyo, last week. Here, dressed in black simple clothes, she was present on stage as another member of KARAS and not as the glamorous prima ballerina.
The stagecraft and lighting, also designed by Teshigawara, were stunning. Several transparent acrylic boards were placed on stage and/or hung from the ceiling, creating a mirror-like effect that reflected or blurred the dancers' bodies, at times shining from the lighting. The boards functioned like a maze or cage, in which the dancers hid themselves, got lost, or captured. The stage was otherwise dark and the backlight cast shadows on the dancers, creating a strange atmosphere borderline between sleep and awakeness.
Teshigawara and Rihoko Sato, lead dancer from KARAS, are both strong, with versatile technique based on Butoh: low centrebalance, very flexible, often bent back backs...The movements of their hands are swift and large, and create post action effects. The dancers turn across the floor like whirlwinds, a pattern typical of Teshigawara's vocabulary. Their dancing alone, with contrasting slow breathing and speed, is mesmerizing.
On the other hand, Dupont's ballet based movements are slow, gentle, yet disciplined and controlled. With her willowy arms, she was floating in a dream like world, drifting like a leaf, but at the same time confronting heaven, reaching out to the skies. She went back and forth between two worlds, that of reality and dream, consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death. She seemed fragile at times, very strong at others,and this is beauty in such a simple and profound form. She was a complete stranger here, and her presence created a disharmony which was strangely beautiful.