Motimaru is a dance company founded in Tokyo by Motoya Kondo and Tiziana Longo, based in Berlin since 2010 , who have taught and performed internationally. Their background is in performing arts, modern dance, martial arts, and Butoh. Motimaru define dance as a way to experience deeper reality of our existence and are experimenting to create a new authentic dance method beyond any genre.
TWILIGHT the first of two productions they are performing here in Sydney is dark and mysterious , powerful and hypnotic , taking us to a trancelike meditative state. Is the work perhaps evoking the creation of the world aeons ago? It is full of the elemental forces of nature, combining and contrasting quietude and forceful movement.
The soundscape by Hoshiko Yamane includes dripping water, a pebble repeatedly dropped, the sound of various insects at night, tinkling yet stormy crashes and fast, surging bamboo pipe music.
At first all is almost total darkness. Eventually what emerges appears to be one organism but is actually two ,tightly entwined : the blending of Yin and Yang? Kondo and Longo are sculpturally enfolded for almost the entire show. They mostly are melded together but split explosively, or come together very intensely and passionately clinging together. As this is a Butoh based performance , an arm moves, a leg moves – gliding very slowly. Hand are like spiders inching across the universe of skin. There is convulsive rocking contrasted with backbends, or arms held high at some points with hands angled like barbed wire. For one section it is like the dancers are floating under water. Both performers have silky long black hair that cascades like inky moonlight.
Exploring dance based on the Butoh style TWILIGHT examines the purpose of human existence, and evoking nature tries to discover the very meaning of Life.
Motimaru’s [Facebook] TWILIGHT runs at the Old 505 Theatre,Newtown [Facebook] 29 May – 3 June.
Direction, Concept, Choreography, Dance by MOTOYA KONDO TIZIANA LONGO Music Composition by HOSHIKO YAMANE
