On March 2, 2025, from 5:00 pm, the workshop “Ko Murobushi as a Deleuze Reader” was held at the Murobushi Ko Archive Café, Shy, in Waseda Tsurumaki Town, organized by EAA. In 2025, we mark both the 30th anniversary of the death and the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995). Not just as a celebration of this milestone, but also as an opportunity to explore how Deleuze’s work can be read in the current context, we invited Professor David Lapoujade (Paris 1 University), who has been editing Deleuze’s lecture record since autumn 2023.

In this event, I introduced the Japanese dancer Ko Murobushi (1947–2015), who was a passionate reader of French thought, especially Deleuze. I discussed how Murobushi was deeply immersed in reading philosophical texts, as well as recording his thoughts and ideas in diaries and workshop notes. Among these texts, Deleuze’s works, such as A Thousand Plateaus, Foucault, and Critique and Clinical, appeared vividly in his notes, which led to the theme of the event: how to think about the dimension of language, which exists alongside dance, the body side.

Professor Lapoujade responded regarding Murobushi’s understanding of Deleuze’s concept of “becoming” (devenir), suggesting that, unlike the typical imagery of dance as an expression of energy, some of his texts may not fully align with this interpretation. He pointed out the significance of the distinction between “bright space” and “dark space” in Eugène Minkowski’s The Time of Being Lived, which could be a reference point for Murobushi’s understanding of “outside” (dehors). Though brief, the discussion highlighted the difference between Western ballet with its narrative structure and dance forms that don’t follow this tradition. It also reaffirmed the current lack of words to fully discuss and rethink the body (corps) itself, in contrast to the formalist terms. This led to a deeper reflection on why Murobushi devoted himself so deeply to philosophical texts, reading them as nourishment for his own work.

Reported by Hanako Takayama (EAA Project Lecturer)