Lou – What is Body Weather and how did you become interested in it as a dance form?

Gretel – Body Weather was developed by Min Tanaka who worked with Hijikata, founder of ‘Butoh’ (‘dance of darkness’). Butoh emerged after Hiroshima when Japanese society was focusing on economic reform and the superficialities of everyday life rather than acknowledging the atrocities and pain of the war.

Butoh did the opposite by using the body to express psychological trauma and the depths of the inner self, as well as explore societal taboos such as homosexuality, nudity, cruelty and perversity. Butoh has since become indefinable with many qualities other than ‘darkness’, as its spirit has spread throughout the world.

The branch of Body Weather which most interests me at the moment is about embodiment of place, particularly of Australian wilderness areas. By training our bodies to have heightened sensory awareness, our experience of the space or landscape we inhabit intensifies also. For example, by applying my surroundings via my imagination to my body, my fingers can become long grasses in the wind, my elbow the cry of a crow, my face a storm.

I’ve been influenced by Melbourne Butoh teachers- Yumi Umiumare, Lynne Santos and Tony Yap, and have trained at Min Tanaka’s Body Weather Farm in Japan twice now.

Lou – How does the Body Weather Farm operate?

Gretel – I was amazed I got through the first training at the Body Weather farm. There is about 4-5 hours of training a day and 6 hours working in the field so it is very physically demanding and I was exhausted while I was there but my body was powering when I came home. The dancers who live on the farm live communally and have a shared pool of money etc.

Lou – So you would be totally consciously aware of your physical landscape though working in the fields for 6 hours a day.

Gretel – Yeah. It is about the practicality of working the land, and through this experience the landscape seeps into your body. I’m working at the moment on developing methods for Australian dancers to feel, touch, smell and taste their environments and incorporate this body knowledge of place into their movement.

Lou – Are you wanting to focus primarily on natural environments as the space for your workshops as opposed to human constructions such as urban landscapes or rural areas?

Gretel – Yeah I do although I don’t want to discount things like traffic noise ‘cause things like that are part of our landscape but what I am doing stems from environmental concern and the idea that if humans actually knew nature they may be more motivated to protect it and live more sustainable lives. I’m focusing on all different landscapes such as dunes, coastal regions, deserts and forests.

I used to do dance pieces that were more of an angry reaction to what is happening to the environment and I found that audiences would tune out to being scolded. This work is more abstract, subliminal and perhaps celebratory.

Lou – As far as ‘activism’ goes what you are doing is embodying the concept through physical expression [through sensory perception devoid of societal constructs] and through communal sustainable living like on the Body Weather Farm.

Gretel – Yeah, I guess it is activism. Although I don’t know if I’d use that word, but yeah…It’s so rare that people actually even sit under a tree and notice it’s foliage. Urban life is becoming faster and faster and people have forgotten the sacredness of the land. Physical experiences of nature are probably more tangible to many of us than esoteric attempts to ‘re-connect’.

Lou – What about the audience’s connection to the performance and to the landscape that it is situated in?

Gretel – I hope that audiences viewing the performances that evolve from this practice may shift on some level towards a more empathetic relationship to nature.

Gretel Taylor is conducting a workshop entitled Bodyscapes: Coast (Body Weather/ Butoh/ physical perception and movement absorbed from the coastal areas of the Mornington Peninsula) Friday 30th November to Sunday 2nd December 2000. Call- 0425 759988 for bookings and enquiries.