Quai d’Angers

Described since the beginning of his career as an "angel descended to earth" and "the Nijinski of butoh," Akira Kasaï appears as a woman in Akira Pollen Revolution, which has toured all over the world. The piece explores the codes of butoh (traditional Japanese theatre) and of Western dance.

Kasaï’s startling solo Pollen Revolution suggests that kabuki can break new ground. The evolution of movement in the piece and the stylistic changes in the music and Mr. Kasaï’s costumes appear to refer to connections between modern Western dance and one of the forms of traditional Japanese theatre. The founders of butoh - Akira Kasaï, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno - were able to work on these various influences by inventing the dance of shadows of which Akira Kasaï is an heir. The figure of the cross-dresser originally formed the basis for the work of the male actor Onnagata, who plays female kabuki roles, and who gradually evolved into a street dancer and now a traveller.
At the beginning of Pollen Revolution we see this female essence walking slowly on the stage according to an extremely precise ritual. But gradually, as he passes from white to black and relinquishes the splendor of his heavy garment and the rice powder that whitens his face, Kasaï shatters images and expectations to open up new gestural paths in the interior and imaginary space of the body.