A life, and body, devoted to art

Veteran butoh master Akira Kasai began his full-evening solo “Pollen Revolution” at the Aratani/Japan America Theatre on Wednesday wearing an elaborate floral kimono and wig from the Kabuki classic “Musume Dojoji,” a dance of transformation by a woman who is not a woman but the incarnation of evil.

By no coincidence whatsoever, “Pollen Revolution” also turned out to be a dance of transformation, carrying Kasai from this opening vision of feminine grace (with glints of masculinity) to a statement of brusque male force (with glints of femininity) and on to androgynous balletic lyricism.

The ending found him dodging, kicking and leaping to Run-D.M.C. hip-hop amid a shower of confetti, and in all the phases of the solo he seemed to be drawing dance styles into his body and then violently shattering them.

In the process, he also recapped a number of key achievements by the co-founders of butoh, starting with the eerie psychic transferences in Kazuo Ohno’s fabled drag solo “Remembering La Argentina” and embracing as well Tatsumi Hijikata’s belief that the body holds powerful memories and movement drives that can erupt uncontrollably. Like a fever, a series of crazed, spasmodic impulses periodically seized Kasai, sometimes to comic effect, but often with ominous implications.

Premiered in April 2001, “Pollen Revolution” includes spoken predictions about “waves of blood” coming our way and so many sudden falls to the floor and other examples of Kasai’s body failing him that when he began another speech-cycle with the words “not only in Japan,” he seemed to be issuing one more warning.

However, few performers in their 60s can dance, flail and dive through the air this tirelessly (the 75-minute solo has only one break, for an onstage costume change). And few of any age can produce facial expressions as varied and intense as those Kasai expended on the theme that held “Pollen Revolution” together: a meditation on the role of dance in the contemporary world.

Kasai has loved dance all his life -- not only butoh but also ballet and European modernism -- and, as he writes in a program essay, he offered up his body to the art “as an eternal sacrifice.” But now he wonders what difference it makes as we all hurtle through time toward those waves of blood.

All the dance idioms and self-indulgent glamour that he evoked, confronted and tore apart so ruthlessly in this remarkable performance may have defined him as man and artist, but what hedge can they offer against apocalypse, against the arrows that he depicted being shot in our direction?

Maybe only one last shared affirmation of the need for art. “When this dance is over,” Kasai said on this same stage eight years ago, “the end of the world will come.” Clearly he spoke a little too soon -- and clearly we should all take comfort that he’s still dancing.