* co-created with Bill Hsu
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'Butoh is an avant garde performance art, that has its origins in Japan in the 1960's. After the second world war, Japan was a country in transition. It was a country still holding onto its old world traditional values while being forced into western democratic values by America's conquest. During this time there was much student unrest and protest. Theatre groups were performing socially challenging pieces, and there were daily demonstrations in the streets. Butoh was born out of this chaos. Its founders were a young rebellious modern dancer named Tatsumi Hijikata (1928 - 1986), and his partner Kazuo Ohno (b. 1906 - 1010).
'Hijikata was dissatisfied with the Japanese modern dance scene, feeling that it was merely a copy of the work being done in the West. He wanted to find a form of expression that was purely Japanese, and one that allowed the body to "speak" for itself, thru unconscious improvised movement. His first experiments were called Ankoku Butoh, or the Dance of Darkness. This darkness referred to the area of what was unknown to man, either within himself or in his surroundings. His butoh sought to tap the long dormant genetic forces that lay hidden in the shrinking consciousness of modern man.
'His first public performances were wild, primal and sexually explicit. They quite naturally shocked the conservative Japanese dance community, and he was banned from appearing at future organized events. This was the spark that gave birth to butoh. Many of Japan's dancers, poets, visual artists and theatre performers rallied around this exciting and dangerous new art form. Underground performances became increasingly popular, and soon there were numerous groups being formed in the Tokyo area. Musicians, photographers and writers including Japan's leading novelist, Yukio Mishima joined Hijikata to collaborate on spectacular underground performances.
'Butoh loosely translated means stomp dance, or earth dance. Hijikata believed that by distorting the body, and by moving slowly on bent legs he could get away from the traditional idea of the beautiful body, and return to a more organic natural beauty. The beauty of an old woman bent against a sharp wind, as she struggles home with a basket of rice on her back. Or the beauty of a lone child splashing about in a mud puddle - this was the natural movement Hijikata wanted to explore. Hijikata grew up in the harsh climate of Northern Japan in an area known as Tohoku. The grown-ups he watched worked long hours in the rice fields, and as a result, their bodies were often bent and twisted from the ravages of the physical labor. These were the bodies that resonated with Hijikata. Not the "perfect" upright bodies of western dance, or the consciously controlled movements of Noh and Kabuki. He sought a truthful, ritualistic and primal earthdance. One that allowed the performer to make discoveries as she/he created/was created by the dance.
'It is easy to see how this dance, done in a trance-like state, on bent legs with rolled up eyes was disconcerting to the conservative Japanese modern dance community. But the work was soon to sweep the imagination of many younger artists, and by the 1970's butoh began to gain world-wide attention, as groups such as Sankai juku and Dairakudakan were invited to perform internationally. Today there are a number of groups and solo artists performing in North America, with artists in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver and Toronto.
'Butoh has tremendous value as a training method for artists of other disciplines as well. In a year-long experiment at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood, I worked with 2nd year acting students using butoh training methods to help unveil their natural expressiveness. We stripped away the socially acceptable movements and gestures, and encouraged the students to find and embrace hidden movements that lie buried beneath years of conditioned behavior. We bent the legs to view the world from a lower level, as might be considered by plants, animals and children. We purposely distorted the face, to keep out the natural desire to make the right expressions, or to give a calculated appearance. When the body is freed of its social constraints ...... amazing things begin to happen. Hijikata often trained his dancers thru the use of images. He would use give the students surreal images and have them react to them, thus stimulating the body and the subconscious to respond. Examples would be: Butterflies are landing on your right arm, your left arm is covered with cockroaches. Or you are walking in mud and your eyes are on the back of your head. We used music or more specifically sound design creations by artists like Robert Rich, Tuu and Lustmord, to provide an other-worldly vista of auditory inspiration. The results we sudden and dramatic. Almost every student found within themselves a way of moving truthfully, and created many dramatic, original and emotionally charged improvisations. Hidden elements of ones personality also tended to surface during these experiments. These awakenings to the true nature of self proved extremely beneficial to their development as consciously aware human beings, and to the craft of acting as well.
'Another aspect of butoh, that I find especially appealing is that every "body" is a perfect body. Meaning we are not so concerned as to whether or not the student has a perfectly fit and lithe body of a trained dancer, but rather that s/he finds organic expression through the body they have now. Most ballet and jazz dancers are sadly sent to pasture in their mid-thirties, and are soon passed over for younger more physically capable models. With butoh the mature body brings as much or more to the performance as does the youthful body. A prime example is the afore-mentioned Kazuo Ohno, who is now 96 and still performing with a vibrant inner intensity. His withered, aged body is his canvas and he paints with great beauty upon it. Least it sound like butoh is less an art form, than a therapeutic exercise, one must consider that butoh does have its techniques; strength, flexibility and balance are vital components. We learn to become one with the "other". Butoh is a hybrid form of art, incorporating elements of theatre, dance, mime, Noh, Kabuki and at times the Chinese arts of Chi kung and Tai chi. It is up to the individual artist to find their own dance. But it should be a "dance" of discovery, rather than a calculated series of movements meant to manipulate the audience into a desired response.
'Hijikata's first dances were often grotesque, twisted, dark and perverse. Ohno's butoh is more ethereal and floating, ever reaching to the light. Sankai juku are highly refined and tightly choreographed with their polished, other worldly movements of cat-like aliens. Or the masters of pure spectacle ... Dairakudakan with their sensual, imagistic and highly theatrical happenings. Butoh is ever-changing, and is here to stay. Because it gives us a halted, reverberating picture of our muted struggle to be human in this technological age of the disenfranchised body.
'Butoh was formed by an amalgamation of influences. The German expressionistic dances of Mary Wigman and Harald Krautzberg gave butoh its creative freedom. Western writers such as Genet, Artaud and de Sade were read by butoh groups. Surrealism and Dada were another source of inspiration. Ohno was influenced by Marcel Marceau and especially by the passion of a Flamenco dancer named La Argentina, who he first saw in 1923 when he was a young boy. Some modern butoh performers have come from the dance world, others such as myself from theatre, or more specifically from mime. One the greatest butoh performers, and protege of Hijikata was Yoko Ashikawa, who had no previous theatrical or dance experience. Today a great variety of styles and aesthetics can be found in butoh. It has ceased being an exclusively Japanese art-form and is developing all over the world.' -- Don McLeod, 'An Art Form in Transition'
_____________
Dance of Darkness
'Director Edin Velez’s documentary study of Butoh includes archival footage of early Butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata, who is credited as the form’s originator. Kazuo Ohno, another early Butoh performer, is shown performing his famous “Admiring La Argentina,” and other works. Other companies whose works are shown include Akaji Mori’s Dai Rakuda Kan, Isamu Ohsuga’s Byakko Sha, and Yoko Ashikawa’s Hakutoboh. These examples reveal the depth and diversity of Butoh as it has evolved. Many of these dancers worked directly with Hijikata at some point and all speak to his influence, as they are interviewed about the art form. One performer, Akiko Motofuji, explains, “Ballet and modern dance spring from the earth ... Hijikata created a dance, which crawls on the earth.”' -- Open Vault
____
Books
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'In Butoh: Dance of the Dark Soul, Ethan Hoffman creates virtually a new genre of photographic theatre and gives us an invaluable contribution to the literature of contemporary dance and theatre. The performers featured include Kazuo Ohno, Yoko Ashikawa, Akaji Maro and the group Dai Rakuda Kan, Min Tanaka, and many others.' -- ama
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'In Butoh: Shades of Darkness, Jean Viala gives helpful timelines for a lot of the groups, and groups them based on approach. He covers all the groups in Hoffman's group, plus Akira Kasai, Teru Goi, Dance Love Machine, etc, with a quick overview of a number of younger groups. Some of these use very different imagery from the "classic" butoh. Most of the representative figures also wrote one-page notes on their approach.' -- Bill Hsu
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'Steven Barber's Hijikata: Revolt of the Body is a good book on Hijikata. Lots of nutty details of Hijikata's life, and good photos from performances.' -- Bill Hsu
![]()
'Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata in the 1960sis the catalogue for the 2nd Kazuo Ohno Festival including the rare images of Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata in 1960s taken by American famous photographer William Klein and treasured photos from Tatumi Hijikata Archive at the Art Center of Keio University. It includes the interview with Yoshito Ohno as well.' -- Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio
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Tempu-Tenshiki/Dairakudakan
___
Stills
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_________
Select artists
Kazuo Ohno
Mother
The Written Face
Tatsumi Hijikata
Hosotan (Part 1)
A Girl
Dairakudakan
Excerpt
Excerpt
Sankai Juku
from 'Tobari'
from 'Kagemi'
Yoko Ashikawa
Excerpt
A Dream of Calabi-Yau Fetus
Byakko Sha
from 'Tao Matsu'
Min Tanaka
"Min Tanaka & Maijuku" documentary Part 1/5
from 'Rite of Spring'
Akira Kasai
KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2011
Masaki Iwana
Excerpt from 'Magnetic Field'
Excerpt from 'Magnetic Field'
Eiko & Koma
Excerpt from 'Naked'
Eiko & Koma: My Parents 1/2
_____
Further
Kazuo Ohno
Tatsumi Hijikata
Dairakudakan
Sankai Juku
Yoko Ashikawa
Byakko-Sha
Min Tanaka
Akaji Maro
Akira Kasai
Masaki Iwana
Eiko & Koma
*
p.s. Hey. I want to thank d.l. Bill a lot for helping me gather the materials for this post. It's a fairly basic rundown for a form as big and amazing as Butoh, but maybe for those who aren't so familiar with the art, it'll be a decent intro. ** 5STRINGS, I'm more into Sabbath than Ozzy's solo stuff. I guess I miss the heavy doom or something. So, you're, like, old school about writing, or, like, modernist or something? Whatever feeds you and your stuff. I guess that's my motto. I think there's a lot of innovation going on in writing right now. The internet kind of fractured everything and made this new location for writing to mutate and stuff, and, I don't know. I feel like writing is more on fire now than it has been for ages or something. Depression breaking? Hope that's true, obviously. I know that song 'cos ... I heard it somewhere, I guess. It got stuck in my head because, when I was riding back in a car from the 'TIHYWD' show the other night, Jonathan Capdevielle was listening to it on his iPhone and hitting repeat, repeat, repeat, and singing along with it. Chains song is good, yeah. ** Misanthrope, 6 more, and the weekend is only hours away. Cool, I won't worry anymore. I did reject a guest blog post about six years ago because I thought it was misogynist, but ... I think that's the only time. Hm, interesting about the Chabon. I don't read him. Never really got into him. Read, like, the first one and the third one, I think, and then I felt done, but that's interesting, yeah. ** Grant Scicluna, Thank you so much again, man. Oh, in my memory, I thought 'MLT' was one of my best, and reading it again, yeah, I think it definitely is one of my two best, at least. It and 'TMS' are the closest I've come to writing an almost perfect book as far as my intentions go. I guess I was mostly thinking, wow, how did I do that, 'cos I couldn't remember or figure out how I got my writing to get that kind blurry but crystal clear, constantly high strung, etc. effect. And I had forgotten how much it was about George's suicide on an emotional level. And the weirdest thing was that, at one point, it made me cry, which felt, well, weird: crying at my own stuff. It was when Rand's mother and Larry are in the car, and she tells him Rand killed himself, if you remember that part. Anyway, I don't know, I guess reading it made me feel proud or something. It was nice. Well, I obviously really look forward to reading your feature film. Until soon indeed, and indeed x. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Hm, interesting. I can't remember if my youth felt oceanic and burning or not. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. No, I haven't done a Dave Hickey or MoJT post, I don't think. I think someone once offered to do a Hickey post but never followed through. Good ideas. I'll look around and see about doing that. And how did they take to John Waters? I always just kind of assume that everyone loves John Waters' films, especially the young, but, hm. Oh, absolutely about wanting to keep rewriting and revising. That's why publisher's final deadlines really help you let go 'cos it can be too easy to want to change everything, and sometimes you can forget the charm and power of what you've already written, and you can end up editing the life out of things if you're not careful. Mistakes and naiveté can hold some of the most beautiful stuff. ** Tosh, Hi. I feel like growing up in LA gave me a really vague sense of place for some reason. Or a differently organized sense of place, not that I know how other people's sense of place works. But I think one of the reasons I adore Paris so much because it has such a strong sense of place, and that's why it still feels so foreign and magical to me. It's so solid or something. That forthcoming DAP book couldn't possibly be more up my alley, wow. I'm very excited for that. That book is going to turn Amazon or wherever into a drug dealer. ** Rewritedept, Ha ha, okay, but I just thought it was important to say that age has nothing to do with changing your life or meeting and befriending really important new friends. I mean, I just met someone who feels like my best friend of my whole life a few months ago. Life stays really surprising and amazing, I mean. I don't know that you have to go out to get new material material for your art, but I think it definitely helps, depending on what you want to do with your art, I guess. I know Municipal Waste, yeah, and I like them. Haven't seen them live though. That should be really good. Hope you got your layouts done and that band practice was free of too much interpersonal drama or interference or whatever. No, haven't listened to it yet. It's getting ridiculous, but, nope. I will any second, I'm sure. I just haven't been home and without stuff to do. ** Steevee, Thanks for the link to your Soderbergh review. As ever, I'll read it in a bit. Everyone, here's the mighty Steevee's review of the new Steven Soderbergh film, and it's titled 'Second-rate "Side Effects" a tough pill to swallow as Soderbergh's swan song: Beneath the Valley of the Dolls', which sounds fun, no? Good luck with the blizzard. I'll try not to be too envious, just in case. ** Michael J Seidlinger, Mr, Seidlinger! How wonderful of you to grace my humble blog. Your book is amazing, and I'm super proud that this white space was/is able wear it! Much respect, sir! ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh. I guess I talked about 'MLT' up above, hopefully to your satisfaction. Thank you so kindly for loving it. No, I was never called Cliff. I've been called Dennis since I was born, I think. I like the sound too. I do kind of regret that I got stuck with the bleah name Dennis, but the dye was cast. ** Trees, Hi, Ted. Well, I was never very into drinking except for during a couple of bad depressive periods a long time ago. I'll drink a beer or a little wine or something every rare once in a while. That's to say, it wasn't hard at all for me to give it up because the effect of alcohol on me was never very appealing. The being relaxed thing is nice, but I was never so into the lack of clarity and kind of sluggishness. I used alcohol to take the edge off of drugs I was on, or to kill my nervousness at times mostly. I really like being clear headed. I really like thinking of what my body chemistry does to me as a really subtle kind of drug effect. I don't know. You think it will be hard for you? I did check out Ian Loveday, and I liked the stuff a lot. I downloaded some work of his yesterday. Yeah, thank you a lot for that. ** _Black_Acrylic, Wow, that's a serious curatorial home base. That's very cool, even if it means being a roadie at this point. Is he hoping to move up in the ranks there? I've kind of liked Jutta Koether's stuff, at least some of it. Yeah, that could be good. Let me know what that new work is like. ** Sypha, Thanks, James. Well, there's so much new stuff you discover, it's really hard to keep up, but if you get into following the alt lit, etc. scene/ work, it's pretty exciting and excitingly non-stop. Yeah, same publisher for the Boyer and the Killian, Publication Studio, headed up the great writer Matthew Stadler. I get really junky stuff stuck in my head a lot. I'm a real sucker for a genius cheesy hook. Would be amazing if you don't mind doing a guest-post and have the time and find it fun, thank you! I'm a bit in sore need of outside blog help and input right now. I heard the blizzard is going to particularly sock Boston, and you're not so far from there, no? ** Billy Lloyd, Central Park is a real trek. Unless you're staying in Times Square or something. I always stay downtown, and it feels way, way up there. Putting the clarinet together, ha ha, right. I totally forgot about that, and, yeah, that was a total drag. I kind of liked the little suitcase, though. You like the Recorder? It's kind of sweet, right? I mostly play madrigals and that kind of thing on it. I was in a Recorder Consort group called Tag Rag with two other people, one of them my boyfriend of the time. He was really into the Renaissance period and all that, like a lot of hipsters were back in the early 70s. That video you linked to is awesome and funny. Nowadays, the Recorder always makes me think of the Zelda video games. We didn't get any snow either. False alarm. It's bright and sunny here, oh well. That present for your brothers' birthday sounds really great! You should scan it, no? Wait, your brothers are twins? Is that right? Did I know that, if so? That's trippy. What are they like? ** Un Cœur Blanc, There is wisdom and freedom in Stephen's book, yes! Mescaline, yum. I used to like that stuff a lot back in my heavy psychedelics taking days, but it used to be pretty hard to find. How was that book? ** David J. White, Hi, David! Listen, man, thank you so much! The film is very beautiful! I do have one question or confusion that obviously is strictly a writer-of-the-source-material question. That is: why did you decide to have the voiceover voice not be the voice of the boy on the far left? In the story, it's important that it is his voice, so I'm curious about the decision to make that voice and the things it says come from an outside perspective. I didn't really understand that, although it's not a criticism, just a confusion about the decision to do that and why you wanted the text to have that kind of distance? Thanks a lot! ** Stephen, Hi, Stephen! My great honor and pleasure, sir! I'm glad you thought it was okay. Lots of respect and love to you, man! ** Bill, Thank you again so very much for helping me out so much on the post. It totally made the difference. Ulli Lommel, nice! I should do an Ulli Lommel post, actually. I think I will. Great! I haven't seen 'Chronicle,' no, but I've been wanting to for a while. I'll try to track that down. Oh, what is the name of that kind of odd museum in Amsterdam that you went to? I'm blanking on its name, and I'll be going up there shortly, and I definitely want to visit it. Do you know the museum I'm thinking of? Thanks a lot again for everything, Bill! ** Okay. Butoh is on the agenda today. Check it out it. See you tomorrow.
'Butoh is an avant garde performance art, that has its origins in Japan in the 1960's. After the second world war, Japan was a country in transition. It was a country still holding onto its old world traditional values while being forced into western democratic values by America's conquest. During this time there was much student unrest and protest. Theatre groups were performing socially challenging pieces, and there were daily demonstrations in the streets. Butoh was born out of this chaos. Its founders were a young rebellious modern dancer named Tatsumi Hijikata (1928 - 1986), and his partner Kazuo Ohno (b. 1906 - 1010).
'Hijikata was dissatisfied with the Japanese modern dance scene, feeling that it was merely a copy of the work being done in the West. He wanted to find a form of expression that was purely Japanese, and one that allowed the body to "speak" for itself, thru unconscious improvised movement. His first experiments were called Ankoku Butoh, or the Dance of Darkness. This darkness referred to the area of what was unknown to man, either within himself or in his surroundings. His butoh sought to tap the long dormant genetic forces that lay hidden in the shrinking consciousness of modern man.
'His first public performances were wild, primal and sexually explicit. They quite naturally shocked the conservative Japanese dance community, and he was banned from appearing at future organized events. This was the spark that gave birth to butoh. Many of Japan's dancers, poets, visual artists and theatre performers rallied around this exciting and dangerous new art form. Underground performances became increasingly popular, and soon there were numerous groups being formed in the Tokyo area. Musicians, photographers and writers including Japan's leading novelist, Yukio Mishima joined Hijikata to collaborate on spectacular underground performances.
'Butoh loosely translated means stomp dance, or earth dance. Hijikata believed that by distorting the body, and by moving slowly on bent legs he could get away from the traditional idea of the beautiful body, and return to a more organic natural beauty. The beauty of an old woman bent against a sharp wind, as she struggles home with a basket of rice on her back. Or the beauty of a lone child splashing about in a mud puddle - this was the natural movement Hijikata wanted to explore. Hijikata grew up in the harsh climate of Northern Japan in an area known as Tohoku. The grown-ups he watched worked long hours in the rice fields, and as a result, their bodies were often bent and twisted from the ravages of the physical labor. These were the bodies that resonated with Hijikata. Not the "perfect" upright bodies of western dance, or the consciously controlled movements of Noh and Kabuki. He sought a truthful, ritualistic and primal earthdance. One that allowed the performer to make discoveries as she/he created/was created by the dance.
'It is easy to see how this dance, done in a trance-like state, on bent legs with rolled up eyes was disconcerting to the conservative Japanese modern dance community. But the work was soon to sweep the imagination of many younger artists, and by the 1970's butoh began to gain world-wide attention, as groups such as Sankai juku and Dairakudakan were invited to perform internationally. Today there are a number of groups and solo artists performing in North America, with artists in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver and Toronto.
'Butoh has tremendous value as a training method for artists of other disciplines as well. In a year-long experiment at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood, I worked with 2nd year acting students using butoh training methods to help unveil their natural expressiveness. We stripped away the socially acceptable movements and gestures, and encouraged the students to find and embrace hidden movements that lie buried beneath years of conditioned behavior. We bent the legs to view the world from a lower level, as might be considered by plants, animals and children. We purposely distorted the face, to keep out the natural desire to make the right expressions, or to give a calculated appearance. When the body is freed of its social constraints ...... amazing things begin to happen. Hijikata often trained his dancers thru the use of images. He would use give the students surreal images and have them react to them, thus stimulating the body and the subconscious to respond. Examples would be: Butterflies are landing on your right arm, your left arm is covered with cockroaches. Or you are walking in mud and your eyes are on the back of your head. We used music or more specifically sound design creations by artists like Robert Rich, Tuu and Lustmord, to provide an other-worldly vista of auditory inspiration. The results we sudden and dramatic. Almost every student found within themselves a way of moving truthfully, and created many dramatic, original and emotionally charged improvisations. Hidden elements of ones personality also tended to surface during these experiments. These awakenings to the true nature of self proved extremely beneficial to their development as consciously aware human beings, and to the craft of acting as well.
'Another aspect of butoh, that I find especially appealing is that every "body" is a perfect body. Meaning we are not so concerned as to whether or not the student has a perfectly fit and lithe body of a trained dancer, but rather that s/he finds organic expression through the body they have now. Most ballet and jazz dancers are sadly sent to pasture in their mid-thirties, and are soon passed over for younger more physically capable models. With butoh the mature body brings as much or more to the performance as does the youthful body. A prime example is the afore-mentioned Kazuo Ohno, who is now 96 and still performing with a vibrant inner intensity. His withered, aged body is his canvas and he paints with great beauty upon it. Least it sound like butoh is less an art form, than a therapeutic exercise, one must consider that butoh does have its techniques; strength, flexibility and balance are vital components. We learn to become one with the "other". Butoh is a hybrid form of art, incorporating elements of theatre, dance, mime, Noh, Kabuki and at times the Chinese arts of Chi kung and Tai chi. It is up to the individual artist to find their own dance. But it should be a "dance" of discovery, rather than a calculated series of movements meant to manipulate the audience into a desired response.
'Hijikata's first dances were often grotesque, twisted, dark and perverse. Ohno's butoh is more ethereal and floating, ever reaching to the light. Sankai juku are highly refined and tightly choreographed with their polished, other worldly movements of cat-like aliens. Or the masters of pure spectacle ... Dairakudakan with their sensual, imagistic and highly theatrical happenings. Butoh is ever-changing, and is here to stay. Because it gives us a halted, reverberating picture of our muted struggle to be human in this technological age of the disenfranchised body.
'Butoh was formed by an amalgamation of influences. The German expressionistic dances of Mary Wigman and Harald Krautzberg gave butoh its creative freedom. Western writers such as Genet, Artaud and de Sade were read by butoh groups. Surrealism and Dada were another source of inspiration. Ohno was influenced by Marcel Marceau and especially by the passion of a Flamenco dancer named La Argentina, who he first saw in 1923 when he was a young boy. Some modern butoh performers have come from the dance world, others such as myself from theatre, or more specifically from mime. One the greatest butoh performers, and protege of Hijikata was Yoko Ashikawa, who had no previous theatrical or dance experience. Today a great variety of styles and aesthetics can be found in butoh. It has ceased being an exclusively Japanese art-form and is developing all over the world.' -- Don McLeod, 'An Art Form in Transition'
_____________
Dance of Darkness
'Director Edin Velez’s documentary study of Butoh includes archival footage of early Butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata, who is credited as the form’s originator. Kazuo Ohno, another early Butoh performer, is shown performing his famous “Admiring La Argentina,” and other works. Other companies whose works are shown include Akaji Mori’s Dai Rakuda Kan, Isamu Ohsuga’s Byakko Sha, and Yoko Ashikawa’s Hakutoboh. These examples reveal the depth and diversity of Butoh as it has evolved. Many of these dancers worked directly with Hijikata at some point and all speak to his influence, as they are interviewed about the art form. One performer, Akiko Motofuji, explains, “Ballet and modern dance spring from the earth ... Hijikata created a dance, which crawls on the earth.”' -- Open Vault
____
Books
'In Butoh: Dance of the Dark Soul, Ethan Hoffman creates virtually a new genre of photographic theatre and gives us an invaluable contribution to the literature of contemporary dance and theatre. The performers featured include Kazuo Ohno, Yoko Ashikawa, Akaji Maro and the group Dai Rakuda Kan, Min Tanaka, and many others.' -- ama
'In Butoh: Shades of Darkness, Jean Viala gives helpful timelines for a lot of the groups, and groups them based on approach. He covers all the groups in Hoffman's group, plus Akira Kasai, Teru Goi, Dance Love Machine, etc, with a quick overview of a number of younger groups. Some of these use very different imagery from the "classic" butoh. Most of the representative figures also wrote one-page notes on their approach.' -- Bill Hsu
'Steven Barber's Hijikata: Revolt of the Body is a good book on Hijikata. Lots of nutty details of Hijikata's life, and good photos from performances.' -- Bill Hsu
'Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata in the 1960sis the catalogue for the 2nd Kazuo Ohno Festival including the rare images of Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata in 1960s taken by American famous photographer William Klein and treasured photos from Tatumi Hijikata Archive at the Art Center of Keio University. It includes the interview with Yoshito Ohno as well.' -- Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio
Tempu-Tenshiki/Dairakudakan
___
Stills
_________
Select artists
Kazuo Ohno
Mother
The Written Face
Tatsumi Hijikata
Hosotan (Part 1)
A Girl
Dairakudakan
Excerpt
Excerpt
Sankai Juku
from 'Tobari'
from 'Kagemi'
Yoko Ashikawa
Excerpt
A Dream of Calabi-Yau Fetus
Byakko Sha
from 'Tao Matsu'
Min Tanaka
"Min Tanaka & Maijuku" documentary Part 1/5
from 'Rite of Spring'
Akira Kasai
KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2011
Masaki Iwana
Excerpt from 'Magnetic Field'
Excerpt from 'Magnetic Field'
Eiko & Koma
Excerpt from 'Naked'
Eiko & Koma: My Parents 1/2
_____
Further
Kazuo Ohno
Tatsumi Hijikata
Dairakudakan
Sankai Juku
Yoko Ashikawa
Byakko-Sha
Min Tanaka
Akaji Maro
Akira Kasai
Masaki Iwana
Eiko & Koma
*
p.s. Hey. I want to thank d.l. Bill a lot for helping me gather the materials for this post. It's a fairly basic rundown for a form as big and amazing as Butoh, but maybe for those who aren't so familiar with the art, it'll be a decent intro. ** 5STRINGS, I'm more into Sabbath than Ozzy's solo stuff. I guess I miss the heavy doom or something. So, you're, like, old school about writing, or, like, modernist or something? Whatever feeds you and your stuff. I guess that's my motto. I think there's a lot of innovation going on in writing right now. The internet kind of fractured everything and made this new location for writing to mutate and stuff, and, I don't know. I feel like writing is more on fire now than it has been for ages or something. Depression breaking? Hope that's true, obviously. I know that song 'cos ... I heard it somewhere, I guess. It got stuck in my head because, when I was riding back in a car from the 'TIHYWD' show the other night, Jonathan Capdevielle was listening to it on his iPhone and hitting repeat, repeat, repeat, and singing along with it. Chains song is good, yeah. ** Misanthrope, 6 more, and the weekend is only hours away. Cool, I won't worry anymore. I did reject a guest blog post about six years ago because I thought it was misogynist, but ... I think that's the only time. Hm, interesting about the Chabon. I don't read him. Never really got into him. Read, like, the first one and the third one, I think, and then I felt done, but that's interesting, yeah. ** Grant Scicluna, Thank you so much again, man. Oh, in my memory, I thought 'MLT' was one of my best, and reading it again, yeah, I think it definitely is one of my two best, at least. It and 'TMS' are the closest I've come to writing an almost perfect book as far as my intentions go. I guess I was mostly thinking, wow, how did I do that, 'cos I couldn't remember or figure out how I got my writing to get that kind blurry but crystal clear, constantly high strung, etc. effect. And I had forgotten how much it was about George's suicide on an emotional level. And the weirdest thing was that, at one point, it made me cry, which felt, well, weird: crying at my own stuff. It was when Rand's mother and Larry are in the car, and she tells him Rand killed himself, if you remember that part. Anyway, I don't know, I guess reading it made me feel proud or something. It was nice. Well, I obviously really look forward to reading your feature film. Until soon indeed, and indeed x. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Hm, interesting. I can't remember if my youth felt oceanic and burning or not. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. No, I haven't done a Dave Hickey or MoJT post, I don't think. I think someone once offered to do a Hickey post but never followed through. Good ideas. I'll look around and see about doing that. And how did they take to John Waters? I always just kind of assume that everyone loves John Waters' films, especially the young, but, hm. Oh, absolutely about wanting to keep rewriting and revising. That's why publisher's final deadlines really help you let go 'cos it can be too easy to want to change everything, and sometimes you can forget the charm and power of what you've already written, and you can end up editing the life out of things if you're not careful. Mistakes and naiveté can hold some of the most beautiful stuff. ** Tosh, Hi. I feel like growing up in LA gave me a really vague sense of place for some reason. Or a differently organized sense of place, not that I know how other people's sense of place works. But I think one of the reasons I adore Paris so much because it has such a strong sense of place, and that's why it still feels so foreign and magical to me. It's so solid or something. That forthcoming DAP book couldn't possibly be more up my alley, wow. I'm very excited for that. That book is going to turn Amazon or wherever into a drug dealer. ** Rewritedept, Ha ha, okay, but I just thought it was important to say that age has nothing to do with changing your life or meeting and befriending really important new friends. I mean, I just met someone who feels like my best friend of my whole life a few months ago. Life stays really surprising and amazing, I mean. I don't know that you have to go out to get new material material for your art, but I think it definitely helps, depending on what you want to do with your art, I guess. I know Municipal Waste, yeah, and I like them. Haven't seen them live though. That should be really good. Hope you got your layouts done and that band practice was free of too much interpersonal drama or interference or whatever. No, haven't listened to it yet. It's getting ridiculous, but, nope. I will any second, I'm sure. I just haven't been home and without stuff to do. ** Steevee, Thanks for the link to your Soderbergh review. As ever, I'll read it in a bit. Everyone, here's the mighty Steevee's review of the new Steven Soderbergh film, and it's titled 'Second-rate "Side Effects" a tough pill to swallow as Soderbergh's swan song: Beneath the Valley of the Dolls', which sounds fun, no? Good luck with the blizzard. I'll try not to be too envious, just in case. ** Michael J Seidlinger, Mr, Seidlinger! How wonderful of you to grace my humble blog. Your book is amazing, and I'm super proud that this white space was/is able wear it! Much respect, sir! ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh. I guess I talked about 'MLT' up above, hopefully to your satisfaction. Thank you so kindly for loving it. No, I was never called Cliff. I've been called Dennis since I was born, I think. I like the sound too. I do kind of regret that I got stuck with the bleah name Dennis, but the dye was cast. ** Trees, Hi, Ted. Well, I was never very into drinking except for during a couple of bad depressive periods a long time ago. I'll drink a beer or a little wine or something every rare once in a while. That's to say, it wasn't hard at all for me to give it up because the effect of alcohol on me was never very appealing. The being relaxed thing is nice, but I was never so into the lack of clarity and kind of sluggishness. I used alcohol to take the edge off of drugs I was on, or to kill my nervousness at times mostly. I really like being clear headed. I really like thinking of what my body chemistry does to me as a really subtle kind of drug effect. I don't know. You think it will be hard for you? I did check out Ian Loveday, and I liked the stuff a lot. I downloaded some work of his yesterday. Yeah, thank you a lot for that. ** _Black_Acrylic, Wow, that's a serious curatorial home base. That's very cool, even if it means being a roadie at this point. Is he hoping to move up in the ranks there? I've kind of liked Jutta Koether's stuff, at least some of it. Yeah, that could be good. Let me know what that new work is like. ** Sypha, Thanks, James. Well, there's so much new stuff you discover, it's really hard to keep up, but if you get into following the alt lit, etc. scene/ work, it's pretty exciting and excitingly non-stop. Yeah, same publisher for the Boyer and the Killian, Publication Studio, headed up the great writer Matthew Stadler. I get really junky stuff stuck in my head a lot. I'm a real sucker for a genius cheesy hook. Would be amazing if you don't mind doing a guest-post and have the time and find it fun, thank you! I'm a bit in sore need of outside blog help and input right now. I heard the blizzard is going to particularly sock Boston, and you're not so far from there, no? ** Billy Lloyd, Central Park is a real trek. Unless you're staying in Times Square or something. I always stay downtown, and it feels way, way up there. Putting the clarinet together, ha ha, right. I totally forgot about that, and, yeah, that was a total drag. I kind of liked the little suitcase, though. You like the Recorder? It's kind of sweet, right? I mostly play madrigals and that kind of thing on it. I was in a Recorder Consort group called Tag Rag with two other people, one of them my boyfriend of the time. He was really into the Renaissance period and all that, like a lot of hipsters were back in the early 70s. That video you linked to is awesome and funny. Nowadays, the Recorder always makes me think of the Zelda video games. We didn't get any snow either. False alarm. It's bright and sunny here, oh well. That present for your brothers' birthday sounds really great! You should scan it, no? Wait, your brothers are twins? Is that right? Did I know that, if so? That's trippy. What are they like? ** Un Cœur Blanc, There is wisdom and freedom in Stephen's book, yes! Mescaline, yum. I used to like that stuff a lot back in my heavy psychedelics taking days, but it used to be pretty hard to find. How was that book? ** David J. White, Hi, David! Listen, man, thank you so much! The film is very beautiful! I do have one question or confusion that obviously is strictly a writer-of-the-source-material question. That is: why did you decide to have the voiceover voice not be the voice of the boy on the far left? In the story, it's important that it is his voice, so I'm curious about the decision to make that voice and the things it says come from an outside perspective. I didn't really understand that, although it's not a criticism, just a confusion about the decision to do that and why you wanted the text to have that kind of distance? Thanks a lot! ** Stephen, Hi, Stephen! My great honor and pleasure, sir! I'm glad you thought it was okay. Lots of respect and love to you, man! ** Bill, Thank you again so very much for helping me out so much on the post. It totally made the difference. Ulli Lommel, nice! I should do an Ulli Lommel post, actually. I think I will. Great! I haven't seen 'Chronicle,' no, but I've been wanting to for a while. I'll try to track that down. Oh, what is the name of that kind of odd museum in Amsterdam that you went to? I'm blanking on its name, and I'll be going up there shortly, and I definitely want to visit it. Do you know the museum I'm thinking of? Thanks a lot again for everything, Bill! ** Okay. Butoh is on the agenda today. Check it out it. See you tomorrow.