Tribute to Butoh II

Choreography by
Celeste Hastings & Moeno Wakamatsu

“AMAZONAS” by Celeste Hastings

Four women from the limbo dreamtime haunt the deep jungles of the Amazon, caught up still between “spirit and flesh in 17th century memories of their lost journey through rain forests in search of the opera house.” The eternal jungle rules — this journey will never end.

Celeste Hastings is a NYC based choreographer, performer, costume and soundscape designer, experimenting with video. Her work fuses dance, theater and Japanese butoh. A lead dancer for 12 years with postmodern butoh company Poppo and Gogo Boys, she has collaborated with many artists such as Moeno Wakamatsu, Anemone Dance Theater, Richard Move, Noemie Lafrance, Black Moon Theater, and more. She is director/choreographer of the satirical Butoh Rockettes (appearing this Sept. in Noemie Lafrance’s Agora II). With training ranging from ballet and modern to flamenco, butoh, tai chi and yoga, she views the individual as an archetype of humanity, exploring the life-force which encompasses and transcends all time.

“PROJECT OVID” by Moeno Wakamatsu

“Make me a thing that neither lives nor dies…”
(from “Cinyras and Myrrha” of The Metamorphoses by Ovid)

Inspired by The Metamorphoses by Ovid, Project Ovid was created in 2006 for a performance series at Boris Vian Foundation in Paris.

“On one hand, I see the body as an object as it would be when we are dead, yet Life is its source and also its struggle. This leads me to desire to die and yet not be dead — this is the principal motif in the dances of Project Ovid. In each scene of Metamorphoses there is our own despair and hope, and also our prayer and curse, to be not what we are…”
— Moeno Wakamatsu

Though Moeno Wakamatsu considers Butoh as one of the strongest influences in her work, she chooses to call her work simply “dance.” For her, “dance is to blur the boundary between the living an the non-living, to display the body in its struggle between being the perfection of the object and the human desire that revolts against this perfection. It is to suspend within the moment where inner desire meets outer phenomena.” Born in the house of a Jodoshu Buddhist temple in downtown Tokyo, Moeno was trained at an early age as a pianist and later as a pipe organist. After leaving this field from incredible stage frights, she established herself as an architect. To work in architecture with the felt-sense of space drew her back once again to stage work, and eventually to devote herself in dance theatre. At age 28, she began her solo career as a dance performer, and she now presents her work internationally in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Her recent work was presented at the Paris 7th Butoh Festival and Rome 6th Butoh Festival, and her new project Project Ovid will be presented at the Boris Vian Foundation in Paris, and in New York City.