Revolt of the body in stillness

Abstract

ABSTRACT The project choreographs revolt as performed in Butoh willful stillness. Stillness is a political intervention, which in its slow and sustained study reveals the functioning of in/visible economies of violence. Indeed, Butoh aesthetic of stillness, demands self-reflexivity that troubles voyeuristic passivity to create space for ethically facing the other in moments of violent cultural annihilations and suffering. Beyond underscoring the role of performance art in confronting the apathy of observing and consuming violence, the essay exemplifies Butoh as a choreographic method that performs the discomfort of seeing, thus, cuts across academic and aesthetic critiques of witnessing.