P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

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P.S.1 Newspaper

2007 Fall

Leave Nothing Behind: A Conversation between Alanna Heiss and Min Tanaka

Min Tanaka

Dream Island, Bay of Tokyo

1977

290 x 430 cm

Gelatin silver print

Photograph by Masato Okada

Courtesy Masato Okada Esate

Born in 1945 Japan, Min Tanaka is one of the world’s leading Butoh dancers and choreographers. Trained in classical ballet and modern dance, Tanaka was a student of Butoh’s founder, Tatsumi Hijikata, and has been performing internationally for over three decades. P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center has hosted various performanc­es by Tanaka, including his legendary 1978 dance on the snowy rooftop of the Clock­tower Gallery. In an interview with P.S.1 Di­rector and longtime friend, Alanna Heiss, Min Tanaka spoke about his role and com­mitment to Butoh dance.

Alanna Heiss: Your performances in the nude earned you a lot of praise, but also caused a lot of controversy—you were ex­pelled from the Modern Dance Association! Did this negative action force you to view dance differently and ultimately lead you to Butoh?

Min Tanaka: For me, dancing has always been a sort of escape from the prevailing so­ciety, as well as a decomposition of myself. I think that one can secure freedom for dance expression only if one can freely move in and out of society. I believe Butoh’s significance has always been supported uniquely in this sense.

AH: Butoh is as much a mental dance as it is a physical one. It may be accurate to compare the amount of ex­ertion and concentration in your perfor­mances to that of an athlete. Have you ever been interested and/or involved in sports?

MT: I was actually a basketball player in college and a candidate for the Japanese Olympic team but I was pushed out of the competition. “Death” is my only ambition. My dance, as well as my own self, is characterized by a certain excessiveness and concentration that nurtures my admiration for my pre­decessors, who may often be invisible. My attempt to extend the horizon of a fleeting moment could have something in common with sports, though in Butoh, there are no goals to attain or any expec­tations of remuneration.

AH: As you may know, we both have farms—I have Roe Farm in Long Island and you have the Body Weather Farm, though yours also serves as a dance studio, where Butoh dancers work, practice, and live. Tell me more about this farm, and how it came to be.

MT: In the 1970s I was struck with the idea of connecting the body with weather. This allowed me to extend my imagination and creative activities. Then in the 1980s, body, weather, and farming became reality in words, as well as in terms of the way we live—these are all primordial terms. Yet at the same time, at the present moment, don’t they also imply a very forward-looking direc­tion for humanity? I think that those who offer themselves to Butoh—I don’t mean dancers in general—are capable of accepting and per­ceiving pain and joy at the same time.

AH: The beautiful photographs in the ex­hibition, Min Tanaka: Photos by Masato Okada 1975-2005, depict your dances in some very in­teresting places—including a glacier! You once said “I do not dance in the place, I dance the place”. Do you make conscious choices about location, or does its energy draw you to it?

MT: I was once just standing still in front of a glacier, and fortunately, the photographer Masato Okada was with me. A place is where I am able to stare at my own corpse. That is why I can dance. Thanks to the interaction be­tween subterranean magma and life on earth, molecules that produce energy are tempted to dance. I am just there, caught in the ex­change.

AH: We’re all very excited that you’ll be performing again at P.S.1, debuting your new Locus Focus series in New York. Can you tell me more about it and how it differs from your previous work? How does P.S.1 inspire you?

MT: All of my tools and instruments are inside my body. Materials of my materials are also there. When a performance is finished, my work leaves nothing behind. I let dance rise be­tween one body and another—nothing more, nothing less. I am currently looking for the only place that accommodates this act inside the body. Nothing has changed, but everything has changed. I stay with ever-changing life, and I will leave nothing behind.

Let me ask you: What inspiration, if any, do you think I signify for P.S.1?

AH: The past and the future. For me and for many others.