Coming Too Close to God, or How Art Knows the Meaning of Life. My attempt at explaining.

Tonight, I saw my second butoh show, Jyu Ningen Zu. I cried AGAIN. I cannot begin to describe the show, just details of

how the shadow of her hand momentarily looked like the shadow of a toothed snake, or a dragon, on the talcum powder in the bowl on stage,
how their footprints were black in the spilled powder and white on the black rubber mat of the theatre floor, creating a pattern that seemed to mirror the Japanese character painted onto the backdrop,
how suddenly we saw a headless woman dancing,
how his Oriental face seemed to simultaneously be that of a newborn, and an ancient, and an extraterrestrial, and the face of mankind condensed into one face,
how the powder bowl left a perfect blank in the spilled powder, like a black hole, like a negative sun, and how, incredibly, he managed to leave a footprint in it later

and impressions of
bodies talking and saying the unsayable things,
beautiful ugliness,
expanding the mind like lsd or Tarkovsky, as in "let's look at this bit of lichen floating in this puddle for a few minutes or aeons until we really see it and understand the meaning of everything",
leaving me afterwards needing to run home and hide
because

everything:
shop windows with hat shop dummies wearing fur hats which I hate, Nike trainers in glass display cases
the city of my birth, in its full between-seasons ugliness
bus indicator lights, on-off, on-off
the digital clockface on the side of a building (20:41, +1 C)
the names of shops (TIMBER HEART. NEW LOOK.)
suddenly wears a face of indescribable beauty and meaning, benign and terrible

and because

I am wearing God on my non-believer face and the passers-by will see Him, or I will see Him in their eyes

and because

my too-open soul cannot take any more seeing, no, no, don't show me any more, I can't take it, it's all too beautiful

Butoh saved my day

Last night, straight after seeing the shocking news about Anna Politkovskaja, I went to see my friend's theatre group Naamio & Höyhen (Mask & Feather) perform Hana to Shi - Kukka ja kuolema (Flowers & Death), a Japanese butoh show. Do click on the link and follow up with clicking "pressikuvat", press photos. You won't regret it. I knew just about nothing whatsoever about butoh so didn't know what to expect, and ended up feeling I'd seen every story ever told, in less than an hour: cavalcades of people from throughout the history of man, distorted, suffering, elated, in love, dying, ugly, beautiful, going through every human emotion, heightened and expressed physically. I am quite, quite blown away. They had a great review in Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest daily, which is no mean feat for an independent fringe theatre group. They deserved it wholly. Go see it if you're in town. I cried afterwards.