Disco Nightmare

This disco series is to be executed with actual disco/house music.

Exercise 1: Body Shell

(Jo) You are at a disco when you suddenly feel an invisible encasing around every surface of the body (even the fingers). The space is only one centimeter.

(Ha) You hear the music and still want to dance. You want to dance just like everybody else, but you do so only with the one centimeter of space surrounding the body. Various feelings may come up despite dancing like a club-goer, e.g. boredom, frustration, etc.

(Kyu/New Jo) Whatever comes up reaches its climax. Break out of the shell and dance the new feeling of no longer being in the shell.

Exercise 2: Behind World

(Jo) One or more participants dance like an average club-goer and one or more trails in the behind world in ghost or ash walk.

(Ha) The participants trailing behind feel envy because they want to dance, but cannot. Perhaps the dance takes place imaginatively, but the only movement that can be physically executed is trailing behind like a ghost or ash body.

(Kyu/Kyu to New Jo) Feel the climax of the despair. Dance the acceptance of the situation.

Exercise 3: Bullies

(Jo) The participant is stuck in a frozen ash or ghost body due somehow to some lively club-goer bullies who dance around you in a show-off or mocking fashion. They show you that you are as good as dead, and that yet they could not be more alive and well.

(Ha) Though you cannot move, feelings of anger and resentment surface. How dare they take away your ability to live and dance. You wish they would leave, but they continue mocking. The dancing bullies get more and more intense.

(Kyu/Kyu to New Jo) The bullies have exhausted their fun with you and go away to another dance party. You are alone now and wish to dance, but alas you cannot. Resonate with the feeling.

Exercise 4: Benzo Disco

After so much butoh school, the participants wish to go out for a night of disco partying for a change, so they locate a disco. To spice the night up even more, they find drugs, thinking they are uppers or psychedelics, but instead, they unknowingly consume Benzodiazepine.

(Jo) They in result find themselves very sleepy, but wish for that not to spoil the fun, so they dance at the disco while in a very sleepy state.

(Ha) More and more the Benzodiazepine kicks in, and they get more and more sleepy.

(Kyu/Kyu to New Jo) Eventually, they just fall asleep on the dance floor. They dance the dream or nightmare on that floor.

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