Photo: Gunnar H Stening
Brutal and beautiful, raw and sublime
Swedish choreographer and Butoh artist SU-EN is pursuing the issues of the body and the world in her artistic activities. With roots in the Japanese Butoh and influence from conceptual and performance art the work is directed towards exploring the urgent and extreme situation of the contemporary body.
SU-EN was living in Japan between 1986-1994. She was for 5 years a disciple of Tomoe Shizune, artistic director of the Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo Butoh group, originally formed by the late Tatsumi Hijikata. SU-EN was also a member of the sister group of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo, Gnome where Yoko Ashikawa was teaching and choreographing.
In 1992 SU-EN danced in the performance Kaze no Cho, designed and choregraphed by Tomoe Shizune and produced with generous support of the dancers in the Tomoe Shizune and Hakutobo group. SU-EN also has a licence in the Izumo school of Jiuta-mai (traditional Japanese dance) as well as a wide experience in various Japanese body methods and martial arts.
SU-EN’s work might be described as a body where the human shapes have been erased. The body is urged to confront other living matters as well as the social, cultural and political situation around. A power in the body beyond the individual human power is aimed for. Images and fragments from nature, its shapes and conditions of living are present and presented. Simple and visual as the dance may appear, it initiates a strong concentration and presence of the viewer.
The activities are based in Sweden where the process of finding a nordic Butoh body is in process. SU-EN is presently active in a wide area of performing; touring to festivals with choreographed pieces, site-specific happenings/art interventions and collaborations with different artists and musicians. Since 1994 performances have been created for and in shopping centres, nature art festivals, rock festivals, scrapyards, castles, trucks, boats and so on.
SU-EN productions have been seen in Germany, Russia, Czech Republic, Japan, USA, Argentina, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, The Netherlands, Belarus, Canada, UK, Armenia, Mexico, Ecuador, Uruguay, Indonesia, and all Scandinavia. Open workshops or lectures are usually held in connection with SU-EN performances. SU-EN regularly runs workshops and choreographs performance projects with participants from the workshops. In the lineage of SU-EN Butoh Company are two dancers active in the world, developing the method and aesthetic body of SU-EN Butoh Method; TO-EN, based in Poland and KAI-EN, based in Sweden. They have the complete training and proper examination from SU-EN.
SU-EN Butoh Company has produced several dance films and also released the book Butoh – Body and the world at Rye Publishing company. In 2012 the company celebrated 20 years of performing and a catalogue was published for the occasion. SU-EN is regularly working with visual artists to develop cross-genre style projects.
Between 2006 and 2014 SU-EN curated Friction International Performance Art Festival that was co-organized with Uppsala Art Museum, and since 2013 curates for KR.O.P.P platform for contemporary dance that is co-organized with Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. SU-EN was awarded the Uchimura prize (from Japan) in 2011 and the prize from Cora feministic art magazine the same year. She has currently a 10-year working grant from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
Haglund Skola, north of Uppsala, is since 1997 the home and work space of SU-EN. The old village school in the forest provides the space for SU-EN Butoh training workshops and camps, artistic research, rehearsals and production.
Photo: Gunnar H Stening
Photo: Junichi Kakizaki
Photo: Eva Björkman