Dancing Cosplay

In New York City, at a time when gender reassignment surgery was not yet legalized, a man wearing a ballet tutu rushed into a hospital, his crotch stained with blood. In his hand, he gripped his severed phallus. Driven by an unbearable sense of gender dysphoria, he had taken extreme, life-threatening action to resolve it himself. At that moment, the white tutu may have been the only thing in his mind that represented being a woman. There is a historical background here; from Romantic ballet to Classical ballet, tutus and pointe shoes have been perceived as the essence of femininity (the history of new dance movements from the early 20th century to the present is also a history of trying to break free from such biased gender images).

While this was a bloody "incident," it was undoubtedly a form of cosplay. On the other hand, there are men who view ballerinas dancing en pointe in tutus as the ultimate feminine beauty and have transformed this into a spectacle of cosplay. This is Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, founded in 1974. All members are male. Naturally, when they perform works like "Swan Lake," the laughter from the audience is non-stop. However, their solid technique and serious dedication to the narrative reveal that they have thoroughly studied these masterpiece ballets and put in a significant amount of practice. It is a physically demanding form of cosplay that does not rely on laughter alone.

The radical dance company La La La Human Steps from Canada had a masterpiece titled "Amelia." Both men and women wear the same black suits, and the way they dance at cutting, ultra-high speeds refreshingly dissipates the stereotypical gender images common on stage. In one scene, a man wears pointe shoes and dances en pointe (on his toes). It is a sharp pointe, like a drill boring into the floor. At this point, it is no longer a male imitation of a female. It is something entirely different from the angelic pointe of a ballerina. This is the moment when "physical cosplay"—rather than costumes or makeup—disrupts gender.

So, what are the historic examples of cosplay in the contemporary dance scene? Michael Clark, the enfant terrible and rebel of the British ballet world, comes to mind. He was an elite dancer with a promising future at the prestigious Royal Ballet School, but he broke away from traditional ballet to create stages full of cosplay, including nudity, drag, and gay aesthetics. In 2012, I traveled to Kochi to see his company perform in Japan for the first time in 20 years, and I spoke with him at an izakaya after the show. The once beautiful young man had filled out and become a "middle-aged man," but I was strangely moved by the safety pin hanging from his pierced ear. It is a symbol of punk. His punk spirit was still alive and well. Could we call a safety pin the smallest cosplay in history?

What remains impressive in Michael Clark's recent work is the scene where he dances to David Bowie's "Heroes." Clark has long favored using Bowie's music. Bowie himself pulled off historic cosplay during his 1972-73 tour, repeatedly transforming on stage. This was the pinnacle of glam rock, "Ziggy Stardust." Ziggy Stardust, the fictional bisexual rock star from outer space, was, needless to say, a reflection of Bowie himself. Cosplaying a non-existent virtual character is something that connects zombies of the past to Hatsune Miku of today. While standing at the peak of glam rock with this work, Bowie decisively retired Ziggy and threw himself into new developments. Cosplayers, then and now, are quick to change their identities.

Finally, regarding the recent buzz in the Japanese contemporary dance world, "About Kazuo Ohno." This is unmistakably cosplay. And it is "ultra" cosplay at that. Kazuo Ohno was a legendary Butoh dancer who passed away in 2010 at the age of 103. Dancer Takao Kawaguchi sketched three of Ohno's early representative works while watching video footage, and he performs them by completely copying every single movement. Butoh has now become incredibly globalized, and coupled with the high level of interest in Ohno, this work has continued to receive critical acclaim and has reportedly been performed in over 30 cities worldwide. On a clothes rack on stage hang faithful reproductions of the costumes Ohno wore, and Kawaguchi dances while changing clothes under the close scrutiny of the audience. It is a cosplay of the elderly Ohno dancing in drag. It is strikingly similar, yet it is ultimately not Kazuo Ohno. It is an overwhelming performance by Kawaguchi. It is literally the thin line between fiction and reality. Kawaguchi's "forgery," into which he poured his heart and soul, is overflowing with true emotion. When cosplay possesses this much throbbing creativity, it transcends play and transforms into "art."