The Dancing Gaze Across Cultures: Kazuo Ohno'sAdmiring La Argentina
Mark Franko
Dance chronicle March 14, 2011 DOI: 10.1080/01472526.2011.549404 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 6 |
| Key points | Argues that Ohno's Admiring La Argentina can be read as a Bergsonian meditation on "pastness" in performance, and proposes "excorporation" or heteropathic identification as the premise that ultimately emerges from analyzing Ohno's relation to La Argentina, framed variously as spirit possession, cultural anthropophagy, and memorialization. |
Abstract
Kazuo Ohno's 1977 butoh dance Admiring La Argentina is studied as a Bergsonian reflection on “pastness” in performance. As the work questions the absolute quality of the present, it is initially compared with Paul Valéry's concept of La Argentina's dance as existing in the dimension of temporal immediacy. Ohno's relation to La Argentina is discussed as spirit possession, primal identification, cultural anthropophagy, productive consumption, and memorialization. Ultimately, the analysis leads to the premise of excorporation or heteropathic identification. The essay concludes with a 2007 meditation on Yoshito Ohno's homage to his father, Emptiness ( Kuu ).