Ko Murobushi was born in Tokyo in 1947. In 1968, his meeting with Tatsumi Hijikata, the initiator of the “Buto” (“Dance of Darkness”) movement and creator of the show “The Rebellion of the Body,” was crucial. Murobushi worked alongside him for some time and was decisively influenced by him. In 1970, Murobushi left Tokyo to practice asceticism in the mountains as a “Yamabushi” (itinerant monk). In 1972, he became a member of the Buto Dai Rakuda-Kan dance company, with which he worked in numerous shows until 1980. In 1974, he founded and directed, as a choreographer, the only female Buto dance company in Japan: Ariadone. In 1975, he produced and directed, for Ariamone, the show “Female Vulcan,” presented in Tokyo and Kyoto. In 1976 he founded the Sebi company (“Back Fire”) and opened a school in an isolated region in the north of Japan, where he produced the first show for the Sebi group in collaboration with Dai Rakuda-Kan. It was entitled “Monaco vagabondo”.
In 1977 he began creating the dance series Hinagata (“Matrice tenebrosa”). In 1978, in Paris, he created “Le dernier Eden: porte de l’au-delà”, performed by the Sebi and Ariadone companies. In 1980 for Ariamone, he created “Zarathoustra”, and opened the Lotus Cabaret company (fusion of Sebi and Ariamone). The following year he composed a solo for the dancer Carlotta Ikeda: “Utt”, and opened his own work space in Tokyo (“Shy”) with a solo show: “Hinagata VII: Nèon ou néant”. He toured Europe several times with Ariamone and Lotus Cabaret. In 1982, in Paris, in collaboration with Carlotta Ikeda, he created “improvisation”. The solo “Hinagata VIII” was created in the same year. In 1983, in Paris, he created the solo “iki”, also presented in Italy, at the Polverigi Festival. From 1984 to 1986, the Ariadone group toured the major festivals and cities of Europe.
Can Westerners dance Buto? This is the question that has often been asked of Ko Murobushi during his various shows in Europe. “I deeply believe in the universality of Buto as a form of corporal plasticity” – says the Japanese choreographer – “the work with Western dancers aims to be a search to meet bodies conditioned differently from mine”. “Tears of Eros”, the new show that Ko Murobushi will propose in Rovereto with a company composed of Western dancers, not only aims to answer these questions but also wants to explore a concept, already expressed by George Bataille, of sacrifice and abandonment, to which Ko Murobushi adds that of ecstasy: “All the images of “Tears of Eros” will be full of the freshness of abandonment that allows us to encounter something outside of ourselves”.
