Excuse Me I am Expanding

: Butoh dance as an embodied method for experiencing and expressing ecological selfhoods

Abstract

This project explores how embodied practice can generate and express experiences of ecological selfhood – the felt sense of being a porous entity which extends indefinitely beyond the skin. Through practice as research, Butoh dance (a twentieth century form originating in Japan) is adapted to interrogate the possibilities for a dancer to intentionally expand their selfhood, and to express this experience directly to others through non-representational performance. The wider contexts are the Anthropocene and the dominant neoliberal capitalist view of selfhood as properly being individualist, skin-bound, and competitive. This research outlines how such individualism is implicated in driving ecological crisis through aggregate behavioural effects, underscoring the need for alternative understandings of selfhood. The project is situated within the fields of Butoh studies, ecological performance, ecological performance discourse, and ecosomatics.

The psychosomatic techniques necessary to expand selfhood are researched through studio practice and documented through journalling. An accessible audio guide is also presented to introduce the newcomer to such work. The use of these techniques as the basis for performance works is explored through a documented stage performance from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and two dance films shot in Japan, Italy, Ireland, and Scotland. The resulting contribution, Playing with the Cut, is a method of altering the boundary between self and not-self through dance; a radial selfhood which expands and contracts contextually. The method is shown to facilitate experiences of ecological selfhood on the part of the dancer, and the generation of performance material for general audiences in which Playing with the Cut is at the core of the creation process. This project presents a distinctive contribution to reconfiguring selfhood as an essential component of humanity’s response to ecological and climate crisis.

Date of Award	30 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Supervisor	Laura González (Supervisor) & Minty Donald (Supervisor)