Winter Wedding

"The spirits of the dead are in constant state of yearning".
Kazuo Ohno




The third part of my show Stitches is called Winter Wedding and was influenced by Japanese dance - Butoh, Japanese ghost stories and movies, especially Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.





Years ago I studied and performed with some Japanese Butoh dancers and that experience made a lasting impresion on me. I've been thinking about making my own version of a "ghost dance" for a long time...ghost or spirits are a popular subject in Japanese theatre and literature.





In Japanese folklore there are spirits that are kept from a peaceful afterlife because of some powerful emotions and keep returning to the physical world. For example ghosts of those who died at sea or samurai -warrior ghosts or, my favourite:), the seductress ghosts, who have a post-death love affair with a living human.




These spirits haunt a particular person or place until their purpose is fulfilled and they can move on to the afterlife. They usually appear between 2 and 3 a.m., the witching hour for Japan, when the weils between the world of the dead and the world of the living are at their thinnest.






The ghosts are represented by wearing a white kimono, which is used for funeral rituals and the hair is long, black and disheveled, they lack legs and feet and their hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists.