CO-PRODUCTION: REQUIM OF FLOWER 花の鎮魂歌
The piece is produced in collaboration with Höyhentämö-Pluckhouse. The piece premiered in April 2017 at Seattle Butoh Festival.
“This piece is about the life and death of a flower.
In this piece, I mostly focus on the moment of death of a flower. This message gives the title for my piece, Requiem of Flower.
The lifetime of a flower is short lived. However, in a short period of several days, it is as eternal as the universe, expressing beauty in the moment.
At the moment the flower blooms, it is the most beauty and erotic time, and then the pollen is diffused and dedicated to the whole universe, and again conceived for future descendants.
After that the flower has dedicated its beauty, it starts to die. There is no regret at this moment and that figure which will be decaying to the earth while being truly beautiful.
The theme of this piece is the law of universe, creation, and destruction. The concept of this work takes a form of poetic and dramatic expression and conveys it from heart to heart while providing it to the audience as a means to cultivate image and creativity.
I wish that the important things that cannot be expressed by words or story alone can be conveyed to the audience through body expression and expression of heart and feeling. If you replace the life of immeasurable flowers with human life, you will be impressed by the existence of an important life’s essence.
Flowers bloom equally to all human beings, animals, plants, insects, and give out the greatest beauty during their short lifetime, after that the flowers will decay. As one of the reasons for focusing on this flower’s lifetime, the moment of the beauty of the dedicated flower shines full of wisdom and compassion, and the appearance of the flower that became a corpse without regrets is an eternal beauty. This is a message from the flower which is pure and truth and everything is condensing here for the purpose of human life.” – Ken Mai