EN CHAIR ET EN SON

International meetings butoh dance and acousmatic music

Call of participation for acousmatic composer
Call of participation for butoh dancer

Organised by par AEA (Aventures Electro Acoustiques),
Motus compagnie musicale, Le Cube, Centre de création numérique.
Issy les Moulineaux (near Paris), from 6th to 8th of october 2016.

Deadline for propositions : 1st of may 2016

To make a proposition as acousmatic composer
To make a proposition as butoh dancer

Argument

The aim of the butoh-acousmatic festival/meeting project "En chair et en son" is to encourage new collaborations for,
up to now little explored, creative investigation.
Placing the dancer's body at the heart of the machinery of digital sound projection "acousmonium", to confront him
with this 'music of imaginary', the primitive pleasure of the sound perception, to open the butoh dancer's perception
to new creative paths: for the most part between the exterior environment and his skin (the dancer can have the option
to have covered eyes for concentration to aid this skin perception). From then on, the richness of the acousmatic
sound environment can interact with his body and open new ways of motricity and expression.
Butoh and acousmatic sound proceed from a same poïetic (the setting in motion of bodies in space) from the same will
of transgression, from the same desire of a return to the essence of things (the flesh, the sound).
The first edition of the festival in 2015 showed the creative richness and the potential that such meetings contain.

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When Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ōno created « Butoh » in the Japan at the end of the fifties (each other independently),
they choose to qualify their new approach of dance, as a work a dance form, which could encorporate all foreign dances
imported to Japan. At that time and from the moment of its creation butoh dance was defined, as a dance 'from the other',
or an 'other dance', or 'a foreign dance'.It is on this assumed otherness, that butoh dancers took the strength of their
rebellion against the established order, and that they broke with traditional Japanese life and arts.
Inspired by the western modern artistic practices, from German expressionism to surrealism, the butoh dancer is in a quest
of the pure expression than of the illustration of the feelings, and he proposes strong actions rather than images.
In the same period as the Gutaï movement, the butoh dance redefined the practice of the dance and performance on a
multidisciplinary approach. And, while calling itself an "anti-art", butoh dancers affirmed the concrete materiality
of the body and action in agreement with an introspection and availability to the world, they encouraged the grotesqueness
and the ugly, while assuming the political role of their artistic creativity, while being willingly crude and agitated,
transforming common gestures of daily life. Scandalous, animal, inelegant and concrete – but with feet on the ground
as recalls the ideogram tō — step in Japanese. The butoh performer sees the body as a memory, a body which has the memory
of all the scars of the world and that he expresses in return through a meditation in action.
The acousmatic - electro acoustic music also was formed from a concrete materiality: the one of its medium. The recorded sounds,
from which the source is not necessary distinguish , returning a new dynamism in a spatialised expressiveness carried by a set
of speakers. A line of electrical metamorphosis, made with passages, slidings or ruptures and confrontations, which rise again
the question of listening. But this "art of fixed sounds" (Michel Chion) also interrogates the recording itself, this body-memory,
in the past also constituted by the tape or the groove of the vinyl disc.
A meeting and reflection between acousmatic music and butoh dance are evident. It is, in a way, the auscultation of a "MA",
that these meetings want to produce, Ma means a distance which joins, as the Japanese thinking imagines, opposed to the western
thinking of distance, which separates). On one hand to claim the statement of these questions in the field of the contemporary
creation, on the other hand to demonstrate the dynamism of the reflections and creations that can be engendered by a coming
together so "distant and true" as this we propose here. Butoh and acousmatic music will be the other, the one for the other,
in a dynamic of discovery, allowing us to call our received percetions in question and to feed these two disciplines in question.

Call of contribution Acousmatic music / Butoh dance

In the scope of these "Butoh dance and acousmatic music" meetings, we are looking for composers of acousmatic music
and butoh dancers. Selected musicians and dancers will take benefit of time-slots for rehearsals in Le Cube,
Centre de creation numérique (Issy les Moulineaux, close to Paris). And (to be confirmed) in the CND. Centre National
de la Danse, Pantin.
The selected musical works will be interpreted on the 'acousmonium' of the Motus company. The Dancers will be able to select
the musical work with which they want to perform during the festival.
An artistic comity, constituted by composers, dancers and researchers will proceed to the selection of propositions.
The comity will be particularly interested by the motivation expressed by the artists to work on a spirit of
"meetings and exploration" between acousmatic music and butoh dance. The intention of these meetings is clearly
to promote the emergence of new ways of creation and collaboration between dance and music. For purposes of opening
and eclecticism, the comity will be interested by "transgenres" propositions, coming from various influences,
however without to deny the "butoh-acousmatic" specificity.
«En chair et en son» proposes to initiate meetings between composers and dancers, however creations which already
results from an existing cooperation between one composer and one dancer could be proposed.

During the work of each « pairs », the dancer- composer “confrontation“ would imply some adaptations of the musical work:
• Temporal adaptations: in some cases up to a reworking or restructuration of the musical work.
• Spatial adaptations: for example the composer can “divert” the sound during the sound projection on the acousmonium,
depending of the dancer position.

The musical propositions shall have a duration between 15 to 30 minutes. They have to be available on a on-line audio
distribution platform ( like soundcloud, bandcamp…). They shall go with a concert note, written in french or English,
explaining the musical work and the linked desired/seen with the butoh dance.
Proposals shall be sent exclusively by e-mail, to the following address : contact@en-chair-et-en-son.fr
The selection comity will be particularly interested by the proposals which takes into account the “spirit”
of these meetings: music played on a acousmonium and associated with butoh performance: Takes the time to read
the arguments and tracks of reflections proposed, and to visit the website of the festival showing excerpts of
the 2015 edition and some texts of the symposium.

It is asked to submit, via an in-line video platform (as youtube, vimeo,…) an excerpt or the totality of a butoh
performance video captation. They shall go with a note, written in french or English, explaining the motivation
to participate to these meetings and the links considered with acousmatic music.
Proposals shall be sent exclusively by e-mail, to the following address : contact@en-chair-et-en-son.fr
The selection comity will be particularly interested by the proposals which takes into account the “spirit”
of these meetings: music played on a acousmonium and associated with butoh performance: Takes the time to read
the arguments and tracks of reflections proposed, and to visit the website of the festival showing excerpts of
the 2015 edition and some texts of the symposium.

The conditions of the place does not allow to accept groups of dancers with acceptable conditions,
then only propositions of solo dancers will be considered.

Conditions

The comity will be the interface allowing dancers and composers to meet together. All submitted musical works
and video will be put on line on a dedicated page of the website of the festival.
The selection of the artists will be done the 15th of May 2016. From this date, only the musical work and the video
of the selected artists will be put on line. The artists will then have 15 days to perform the choice
of their “partner”: lists by priority orders will be asked and the comity will propose the “pairs”.
From the 1st of June 2016, all pairs should be constituted, the comity will propose planning for rehearsal
organized in Le Cube and (to be confirmed) in the CND.

For any question thanks to send a mail to: contact@en-chair-et-en-son.fr

Special thanks to Carey Jeffries for the translation