Basile Doganis is a French philosopher particularly interested in the field of Japanese culture (see his work about the silence in Ozu’s cinema for example). His book, Pensées du corps: La philosophie à l’epreuve des arts gestuels japonais (danse, théâtre, arts martiaux) (Body thinking: Philosophy confronted to Japanese Gestural Arts (dance, theater, martial arts)) (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 2012) is an analysis of the way the body is considered in those arts and how it can be approached through concepts created in Western Philosophy (Deleuze, Bergson, Whitehead etc.). The book is also prefaced by Alain Badiou who used to be B.Doganis’ professor. In his research, jujidsu, kendo, butoh, no have all in common to depersonnalize the body in order to make it a “puppet” subjected to the forces of its environment. Of course, this requires some explanations not to be detrimental to both Japanese gestural arts and B.Doganis’s writing; and that is why he goes back recurrently to this idea along the book in order to provide a clear visualization of this paradoxal status (one would think that the puppet is precisely what one would want to avoid to be in the situation of dance or fighting).
My translation (all originals excerpt at the end of the article):
We therefore come up with a paradoxical situation that we could formulate as the following: if the body, in its most primary manifestation and its mere existence, presents more intensity and depth than a conscious artistic intention, then we would have to seek the minimal degree of intention that is of particularity, of personal will. However, since a part of consciousness and will always remains in action, the regulatory ideal will consist in “being dead” while being alive or, at least, to give to the body some properties based on pure inertia. For Hijikata, as we saw it, the will to dance always goes, in butoh, with a surprising desire of dispossession and handicap. Handicap is like a limit, where the body is silent and refuses any principle of will and control. The dancer chooses to give up progressively all his ordinary capacities to become only an instrument, a tool, a mere support through which an uncontrollable intensity acts. (P62)
