To Prison Hijikata Tatsumi 1, who caught @ cold by looking ara stone and became anxious on seeing 2 landscape with no one init, grew up thinking myself maimed One day ¢ man stood next co my father; a tree cracked and my father fell Chutchinga sone, resisted; my father was being beaten up. That was the start of my perception of an unhappy world There must, however, be more fruitfil mistakes in bleeding nature [ grew up always sniffing out criminals that isto say, ich company as theits. Everyone bests the burden of being 2 human child, yearning for com- ppanions to eum away fom home with My anger over that alone was ample A gang of pals contains the dimension of smell The word ‘ world” was nothing but raving co me who had spent my youth like a cur. Bleeding na- ‘ure always overflows the allotments of history and sociology, and my gaze hnever waveted fiom it The friends I made in Tokyo wete 10 to speak n= hhabitants of the transparent, mechanical “world,” without any ties to bleeding. nature and even without smell [could not belp seeing them a: corpses Isa’t there some work thar stews absolute pucrefaction and graphic terror theoughout the world? { have always chought [ would like to put my hands ¢o the axle of anger that sustains that kind of work Todiy [am no longer a dog Albeit clumsily extremely clumsily, [am definitely recovering What, howevet, docs my recovery signify? What on. earth does recovery mean to me? Haven’s I already recovered? Don't | con tinue to recover in order to be sick? In any ease. my cutrent situation is that ‘of walking around a room with the windows wide open while holding a imatehlock masker Lam desperately trying to escape fiom the cellar of che freedom of being tied and fom the relationship berween the ropes used for tying [ was frus- trated in boyhood because of alk of an unfortunate tice paddy. One thing for sure, though. I will no longer be cheated by a bad check called democracy [No future correspondence will each me from slightly soiled pigeons set ice by society s hands and I arm enforcing silence too on my youth, when I was not even a dog licking the wounds of capitalism. At any tate [have a match- lock at the window But for some reason my finger does not seach the trigger {s thete any greater misery than entrusting a dream to a reality from which fone will sometime have to wake? [should shut the window immediately and continue the conversation between ehis, my only hfe, and the universe. What Twas unable to find even in childhood I have ¢ ls, just transformed fom 4 dog into a living creature called a human being Neu Yr ery te Matas Usa of Te “a44° Het Passi 1 Fiji Tetsann Ent no bata (Enaly’ Rose, 1960), choreographed bby Hyikata Teton. Photo outesy of Keddie Unwosiey Art Canter) All of a sudden a naked body has come into the gun port The naked body fs bleeding, Amidst a continuity resembling anger T make repairs to arms and legs, which conscantly go astray in an individual organie body Forgetting the otigin of legs and even that of arms Tam a body shop; my profession is the business of human ichabilitation. which goes today by the name of dancer All the power of civilized morality, hand in hand with the capitalist coo- ‘nomic system and its politcal institutions is utterly opposed to using the body simply for the purpose, means, or tool of pleasure. Still mote, to a produc- sion-oriented society, the aimless use of the body. which [ call dance, isa deadly enemy which must be taboo. Iam able to say that my dance shares a ‘common basis with crime, male homotexalty. festivals, and rituals because is behavior that explicitly flaunts its aimlessness in the fice of a production-oriented society In this sense my dance, based on human self activation, cluding male homosexuality, crime. and a naive battle with nature can natu- rally be a procest aguinst the “alienation of labor’ in capitalist society. That is probably the reason too that I have expresly taken up with criminals There are some common points in the tacitamity of criminals. and there are crushing mistakes that extend straight on 1 am always dragged by the legs ‘of the young criminals today who pass me by They are legs which have never cattied politics as accomplices for korsing around Youth who chase far be- yond suspicion the internal medicine and surgical knife, which roday's civili- zation dispenses co them I wager reality on a nonsensical vitality that has pltrged the echo of logic fom my body and I dream of the day when I am sent to prison with them In prison I will earn to play football ‘They are the legs of criminals with no need to learn how to stand in such a place Tam studying that kind of “criminal dance ” Im the outside wortd, criminals have always been forced to stand In outside reality, they filly experience that there i nothing worthy of belief From vati~ ‘ows standpoints. a funy for chem cannot be a single unie where they ate able to sit Today's material, they have acquired 2 protective instinct that thinking is dangerous. First of all, I posit to begin with a composition in which I stand and they are made to stand I walk and they are made to wall. All of a sudden they start to ran and [ too run [fill down. They sun They get up without any injury fiom where chey fell Why isthe place where they get up different from that where I get up bleeding? It is futile. in the end, to question what causes my activities constantly to erode Human remodeling is accomplished only in connection with young people who wncessingly experience the natu- zal movements that kick the mattix of today’s good sense I dream of such @ criminal dance There will no longer be any hesitation over torching theatres To the open air In real life Iwill be able to become a seconderate mur deter I would like to have my own subjectivity. which wavers in mixing and confising the imaginative process and the real-life process I would like to be sitting, without even a passpoxt, smack in the middle of a mistake From a closed room 20 the open air, from the open air to prison—that will inevitably be my path. My naked body will be carried without aay pretext of inconvenience. It will be allowed to pass without any inspection of my per sonal effects, and 1 will get another look at dance that can be narrated by bate hhands and by walking The phrase ‘ walk tirelesly always points to che ex sence of dance Georges Bataille said, "Nakedness offers a contrast to sli-pos- sesion. to discontinuous existence, in other words." He also siid, "It isa state ‘of communication revealing a quest for a posible continuance of being, be- yond the contines ofthe seit Bodies open out co a state of continuity through secret chanmels that give us a (eeling of obscenity. Stripping naked is «een in civilizations where the act has fll significance if not a¢ a simulaceum ofthe act, of killing at least a an equivalent shoen of gravity "” These words of Bataille’ seem to approximate most closely che human solidarity of naked body, swhich is first attained, even as the body is solitary, thiowgh the continuity of boeing, which isco say, death I see in prison such a stage of seagedy, a sage of drama where the naked body and death are inseparably joined That I am dazed by the beauty ofa prison gate is nothing but a posture of ppemplexity with myself, made to stand 2t the minimum distance fom being na- ed That is how terrifying ic i to be naked yet in che outside world we are already completely naked For today the authovity and significance of a prison gate being shut are declining. In any case, it is equivalent to being released. | will be cattied metsily Speech probibited, sound contzived not to reach my cats in garb of nondescript color, I shall continue to be conscious that I am sill standing naked as is No theatre mazehes this one which is equipped with To Pason 45