Presented with assistance from Japan Society
An evening of intimate talks by three butoh masters – Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi and Yoshito Ohno – about their art and their unique perspectives on this international form.

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This series of lectures will trace the sources and legacy of the avant-garde dance form that emerged in post-World War II Japan as ankoku butoh (literally “dance of darkness”). Lectures by prominent critics and scholars will offer an in-depth and specialized look at butoh by giving historical context to its emergence (with a focus on butoh co-creators Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno) and by delving into topics related to the intersections between butoh and their personal academic research and inquires.

Sondra Fraleigh tells the story of the founding of butoh through the partnership of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, as she weaves its aesthetic development with the social and political issues of post-World War II Japan. She paints a vivid portrait of each individual: Hijikata, an artist keenly aware of the strictures of society and who wanted to uncover the dance already happening in the body; and Ohno, who survived nine years as a soldier in World War II, danced into his nineties, and become one of the most beloved figures in the contemporary dance world.

Yukio Waguri will share his exploration of the nature of butoh choreography, with its intense physicality and deep relationship to poetry and the visual arts. Butoh-Fu is a system that Waguri has developed directly from the words and choreography of his teacher, Tatsumi Hijikata. Sometimes sounding like poetry, each word or phrase represents a specific movement and its relationship to the body.

Butoh originated and developed in its formative period as an experimental, underground movement. In the 1970s, after only two decades of work, butoh began to gain the acclaim and interest of the international dance scene. Why did this occur? The body of the ankoku butoh dancer (Hijikata’s dance project) may be linked to Asian shamanistic traditions. From this perspective, one can understand why the butoh body has been sought after and embraced across the world. Tatsuro Ishii will discuss various aspects of butoh as they relate to Shamanistic traditions in Asia. Though butoh was born within the limited historical and artistic context of 1950s and 1960s Japan, it has carried with it certain universal aspects of the body that permeate ancient traditions of the body in Asia.