For anyone interested in the unusual byways of Japanese performance art, this video is a must see. It features the amazing Saotome Hiromi (a legitimate celebrity in Japan) doing her trademark seppuku (suicide by short dagger) act and much more besides.
Saotome, author, actress and confidant of all the who’s who of the Japanese SM world is a remarkable performer of shocking images and thoughtful dramatics. In this, her signature show, she creates a one-woman presentation that would not be amiss amidst New York’s SOHO art scene.
It begins, daringly, on a bare stage with no music and only the head of a mannequin, its mouth agape, as stage decoration. Quietly, Saotome enters and simply removes her clothes. However, this is no mere striptease but a celebration of her body as, with a beaming smile, she stretches toward the lights as if they were the sun. Astonishingly, once nude we realize she wears a male prosthesis and this appearance of the combination of the sexes is both dramatic and troubling.
Now the open mouth of the mannequin serves its purpose and our hermaphrodite writhes in ecstatic, shocking, release.
Equally shocking is the display of waxing and self suspension that follows. Is it pain or pleasure or both? Saotome seems to relish presenting images at once erotic but also disturbing, dark and poetic.
Darkness truly descends with the simulated harakiri that ends this remarkable performance. Saotome’s face, a portrait of contradictions as the conflicting emotions of pain, punishment and joy flicker across her face just before the dagger’s plunge, is an image hard to forget.
This is a serious artist’s statement and if one puzzles at its meaning the power of the imagery both symbolic and dramatic more than compensates.
