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Relay Column: Hands & Fingers, Manicure – Technology & Sorcery Embedded in the Body (Teita Iwabuchi)
PROFILE
Teita Iwabuchi
Choreographer & Dancer
Studied theater at Tamagawa University, simultaneously learning Japanese dance and Butoh. From 2007 to 2015, participated in Butoh performances by the late Koh Murobushi, receiving profound influences that affect him to this day. Since 2005, began creating works focusing on 'body structure', 'interactions between body, space, and music'. Started collaborative works around the relationship between the body and music with musicians such as Yoshio Otani and Shuta Hasunuma from 2010. In 2012, won the French Embassy Prize for Young Choreographers at Yokohama Dance Collection EX2012 with "Hetero" (co-choreographed with Kaori Seki), and stayed at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine (CNDC) in France. Developed his own method termed 'networked body', based on Butoh and martial arts and inspired by biology and neuroscience, utilizing the physicality and sensibility of Japanese people. Part-time lecturer at Tamagawa University and Obirin University. DaBY Resident Artist.
Photo by Sakiko Nomura
My First Manicure Experience
August 2020, I applied manicure to my nails for the first time. Whenever I washed my hands, picked up something, handed something to someone, or typed on a computer keyboard, a glance at my nails made me momentarily forget they were mine and startle at the sight of someone else's hands. I admired and played with these beautiful nails, intertwining and rubbing my fingertips together as if to confirm whose hands they were. The fingers with beautiful nails I came to adore were those of a man in his 40s, with prominent veins, bony hands, and hairy fingertips, shining red as if wet. Beautiful yet grotesque fingers.Manga artist Hirohiko Araki, in an interview, recounted his impression when he saw sculptures in Italy during a research trip. He spoke of the beauty and strength of Italian sculptures, suggesting 'by looking at the hand, one inherently understands the entire body, as the shape of the hand leads to the form of the body'. The ultimate antagonist in the fourth part of "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," Yoshikage Kira, has a fetish only for women's hands from the wrist onwards, keeping them and living with them as part of his murderous pursuits. He might have felt and conjured up an ideal woman from these hands alone, admiring an imagined perfect presence created from merely a part of the body – the hand, though just a part, sufficiently evokes the essence of the entire body.
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