TOP > Episode2 Performance

Performance

The Last Supper (by Butoh Encounters)

 
A chef has been invited to compose a gourmet dinner. Daisuke Yoshimoto dances with the food during a seated performance in a restaurant where the audience are the guests of the specific venue. A restaurant dissolves into Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last supper” images filled with taste, smell, memory and gestures. The Last Supper is a spectacle that enriches ephemeral and sensual experience of dining. In this experimental concept eating becomes much more than a physiological need and dining becomes much more than eating food. Haute cuisine is brought into life, while Daisuke celebrates textures, flavours, scents and colours, craftly combined by a chef. The chef and the dancer are equal creators of the event. This intriguing, yet non intrusive performance is a visual and somatic food narration.
 
Menu:
First Course: King crab, onions, berries(Allergens: King crab)
Main Course: Brisket, Tomato, Burnt Salad(Allergens: Butter)
Dessert: Apples, vanilla, cream, caramel(Allergens: Butter, cream)

Premiere: 26th August 2017
Losæter, Oslo

Concept and direction: Karolina Bieszczad-Stie 
Producer: Food Studio 
Chef: Magnus Morveto
Dancers: Daisuke Yoshimoto and Megumi Wakasa
 
 

I have known Daisuke Yoshimoto since 2000 when we met in Krakow, Poland. I have followed his footsteps ever since (we did many "photo-performances" together - my favourite being one at the shipyard in Gdansk, where Solidarity was born - see the photo attached). I invited him to Norway to perform in my other project that combined Butoh and fashion ("New You-New Me" with famous Norwegian fashion designers Haikw/ during Oslo Runway). But I also wanted to create a more personal project with Daisuke. It was his last performance abroad, he told us, and I wanted to give him an opportunity to say "good bye" in some way. I saw Daisuke in the past performing with, for example, a pomegranate, and I thought the way he used the fruit while performing was very inspiring, opening space for some creativity. I also knew (from his endless Facebook posts!) that he appreciates various artwork, including da Vinci. I was lucky to find a very special location in Oslo, called Losæter - an arena for art and urban farming. We allowed 12 guests to be present at the dining performance. It lasted quite a few hours :)
 
As an artistic director of Butoh Encounters, it is my ambition to discover new connections that Butoh can make with other fields, and in that way expand them both. "The Last Supper" was combining haute cuisine and dance but what I find the most interesting is to create a meeting point between two presumably contrastic worlds - posh restaurant dinners and Butoh's grotesque world. It had a sense of daring, crossing certain boundaries, which of course we did not know how the public would react to.  It turned out the event was well balanced, and although it may have seemed strange to the audience at first, the comments afterwards revealed great enjoyment of the piece - challenging or awkward at times but never intrusive or unacceptable. It offered a very personal encounter with Butoh, also for people who have never seen it before.
 
When it comes to video documenting the work... Of course it does not capture the spirit of the moment, the atmosphere, the feelings...But we need those types of documents to share the memories, residues of what happened. This performance was particularly difficult to video document, as it was a very small venue and the event was very intimate so it did not feel right to invade it with a camera. I imagine that if we could repeat the performance only for documenting with the video camera, we would have gotten much better footage. But it seems like it is always a balance between allowing the audience the best experience of the event in its actual time, and making the best record of the piece for later…
 
Karolina Bieszczad-Stie 

 
 

 
Daisuke Yoshimoto
Majored in Performing Arts and Nihon University. Stage managed Butoh founder Kazuo Ohno’s masterpieces including Admiring La Argentina and My Mother, and in 1982 began creating his own works as a dancer. Established the Butoh company Tenku-Yoran in 2007, and continues to work both in Japan and abroad. His particularly strong relationship with the director of the Grotowski Institute in Poland has created opportunities for Butoh to spread across this country.
 

---

 
最後の晩餐
出演　吉本大輔　ホシノメグミ
コンセプト＆ディレクション　　Karolina Bieszczad-Stie
プロデューサー　Food Studio 
シェフ　　Magnus Morveto