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Butoh Incidents

This timeline explores the birth, growth and continuation of Butoh, focussing on a variety Butoh-instigated events. Over time, Butoh’s influence has extended across races and borders with a strength different to that of other dance forms. This list of Butoh incidents is an opportunity to bring us closer to knowing what Butoh is.

● Butoh group launch

● Festival launch

Trailblazing
Avant-Garde Dance

Hijikata Tatsumi’s Kinjiki is widely considered to be the first Butoh performance. A short, 10 minute duet between Hijikata and Ohno Yoshito, its theme of homosexuality, use of a live chicken, and stiff, rigor mortis like bodies had never before been seen in modern dance, and it caused a huge scandal. This was the first Butoh incident.

Igniting the Butoh flame

Hijikata Tatsumi presents Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours) at the All Japan Arts Dance Association

650 EXPERIENCE

Throughout the 1960s, Hijikata Tatsumi holds a number of recitals at the Daiichi Seimei Hall. “650” refers to the number of seats in the hall.

Bodies in Crisis

Numerous artists begin to gather around Hijikata Tatsumi, creating a hotbed of culture. Collaborative performances take place between Butoh dancers and novelists, poets, artists and musicians, with Hijikata always at the centre. It is the height of post-war economic growth, and Butoh dancers make their living as cabaret show dancers, throwing themselves into their art. Absorbing a huge amount of energy, the new art form Butoh quickly starts to develop.

Collaboration with key cultural figures

Collaborators include Mishima Yukio, Shibusawa Tatsuhiko, Nakanishi Natsuyuki and Kawara On

Butoh dancers make a living as cabaret dancers

Navel and A-Bomb

Hosoe Eikoh directs a film featuring Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Yoshito

William Klein

William Klein’s photobook TOKYO is published, and includes photographs of Hijikata Tatsumi, Ohno Kazuo and Ohno Yoshito’s street performance

High Attainment

A culmination of his work throughout the 60s, Hijikata Tatsumi’s solo Hijikata Tatsumi and Japanese People: Rebellion of the Body, attracts the largest number of people to date, making Butoh far more well known. Around the same time, Hijikata returns to his hometown in Akita, where the photographs for Kamaitachi are taken. Hijikata’s practice reaches new heights onstage, and also becomes more deeply rooted in Japanese identity.

Kamaitachi

Photographs for Hosoe Eikoh’s photobook are taken in Akita

A Rebellion of the Body

Hijikata Tatsumi presents his masterpiece Hijikata Tatsumi and Japanese People: Rebellion of the Body

Trilogy of Mr. O

Ohno Kazuo and Nagano Chiaki create a pioneering experimental film series: The Portrait of Mr. O (1969), Mandala of Mr. O (1971) and Mr. O’s Book of the Dead (1973)

Ishii Teruo’s
Horrors of Malformed Men

Hijikata Tatsumi appears in Ishii Teruo’s horror film Horrors of Malformed Men

Osaka Expo × Astrorama × Hijikata Tatsumi

Hijikata Tatsumi appears in the film The Birth, which is shown in the world’s largest fulldome at the Japan World Exposition in Osaka

The Age of Shows

Butoh troupes begin to multiply quickly and venture out abroad. Shows are produced up in quick succession and individual styles start to develop. Using the money earned in cabarets, Butoh troupes live and work together on their art. Some also expand into more rural areas. Butoh’s energy begins to radiate in all directions.

Ishii Mitsutaka travels to Europe

He becomes the first person to perform Butoh in Europe

Hosotan (Story of Smallpox)

Hijikata Tatsumi performs Hosotan as part of a month-long series of performances Twenty-Seven Nights for the Four Seasons

Akaji Maro launches Dairakudakan

Asbestos-kan

Performances run at Asbestos-kan until 1976

Carlotta Ikeda launches Ariadone

Amagatsu Ushio launches Sankai Juku

Bishop Yamada launches Hoppo Butoh-ha

Kobayashi Saga and Tachibana Ryuichi
launch Suisei Club (Comet Club)

Furukawa Anzu and Tamura Tetsuro
launch Dance Love Machine

Yamamoto Moe launches Kanazawa Butoh Kan

Murobushi Ko launches Butoh-Ha Sebi

Butoh Words

Hijikata Tatsumi’s literary work Yameru Maihime is serialised in the magazine Shingeki

Yuki Yuko launches Suzuranto

An Enduring Oeuvre

Directed by Hijikata Tatsumi, Ohno Kazuo performs his solo Admiring La Argentina. It is a piece with a personal narrative in honour of La Argentina, a Spanish dancer whom Ohno saw perform at the Imperial Theatre in 1929. Ohno is 71 years old, and everyone in the audience expects this to be his final stage appearance. But Ohno Kazuo continues to perform Butoh for many more years all over the world, until he nears the age of 100.

The astonishing 71 year old

Ohno Kazuo performs Admiring La Argentina

Going Overseas

Butoh continues to draw international interest, and Butoh artists make some daring attempts in their performances abroad. For audiences used to seeing Kabuki and Noh, Butoh is a fresh surprise. Butoh artists discover different opinions, as well as funding that they were not able to get in Japan. It could be said that Butoh was “raised” in Europe.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

Ashikawa Yoko and Tanaka Min perform their Butoh piece Ma, espace-temps [Ma, space, time], organised by Isozaki Arata

Success in Europe

Murobushi Ko, Carlotta Ikeda and Mizelle Hanaoka (Yoshioka Yumiko) perform LE DERNIER EDEN―Porte de l’au-dela in Paris, and it is a huge success

Waguri Yukio launches Kozensha

Defining Incidents

Butoh receives high acclaim when it is presented as part of the Japan program at the exemplary World Theatre Festival in Nancy, France. It becomes absorbed into the Western cultural network, and is featured in major theatres around the world. Originally born out of an underground movement, Butoh is now part of the larger art scene.

Osuga Isamu launches Byakkosha

World Theatre Festival, Nancy

Ohno Kazuo, Kasai Akira, Sankai Juku and Tanaka Min are invited to perform as part of the Japan program. Ohno Kazuo’s international debut at 73 years old shocks the world.

Suzuki Seijun Zigeunerweisen

Maro Akaji stars in Zigeunerweisen, a film directed by Suzuki Seijun

Butoh, to Asia

Amagatsu Ushio takes Sanaki Juku to Europe, while Osuga Isamu leads Byakkosha to Asia. These events create a global sensation, and Butoh begins to attract not only Western, but also Asian audiences.

Toshiba Commercial × Sankai Juku

Sankai Juku appear in a Toshiba TV commercial

Olympics × Sankai Juku

Sankai Juku perform Jomon Sho at the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival

The successful return of performances shown abroad are celebrated in Butoh Festival ’85, in Ginza in central Tokyo.

The festival stars Dairakudakan, Dance Love Machine, Tanaka Min, Byakkosha and Ohno Kazuo

Tohoku Kabuki Keikaku

Hijikata Tatsumi’s final project, which focuses on nature in the Tohoku region

Yamaguchi Sayoko × Amagatsu Ushio

Amagatsu Ushio choreographs the photobook Moon and co-stars in it with Yamaguchi Sayoko

The First European Butoh Festival

Ohno Kazuo, Dance Love Machine and Ishii Mitsutaka are invited to perform at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin

Einstürzende Neubauten

Byakkosha appear in Halber Mensch, a documentary film by Ishii Sogo on the band Einstürzende Neubauten

Yameru Maihime at the opening of Ginza Saison Theatre

Ashikawa Yoko, Kasai Akira, Tanaka Min, Ishii Mitsutaka, Maro Akaji, and Ohno Kazuo appear in an homage to Hijikata Tatsumi

Invading the world of entertainment:
The success of Byakkosha

Tanaka Min—Hakushu Festival (Yamanashi)

Tanaka Min × Ozawa Seiji

Tanaka Min collaborates with Ozawa Seiji to choreograph an opera

Diaspora

As Butoh dancers live, perform, hold workshops abroad and become rooted in local communities, Butoh begins to influence disciplines outside the performing arts.

Numerous Butoh festivals start to pop up overseas

Tenshikan

Kasai Akira establishes Tenshikan, a eurythmy school

Butoh-Festival MAMU Butoh & Jazz in Göttingen (Göttingen)

The Beginning of Archives

A collection of Hijikata Tatsumi materials are donated to the Keio University Art Center and digitised. Ohno Kazuo re-performs his masterworks, which are recorded at high-quality. It is thanks to the work of these archives that full length recordings of Hijikata Tatsumi’s Hosotan and Ohno Kazuo’s Admiring La Argentina still exist today.

Ohno Kazuo Retrospective series

Ohno Kazuo’s masterpieces are filmed in high quality at the Teatro Fonte for the Ohno Kazuo Retrospective series

Daniel Schmid—The Written Face

Ohno Kazuo appears in Daniel Schmid’s documentary film about Bando Tamasaburo

eX...it! (Berlin)
Wreck Beach Butoh (Vancouver)
The San Francisco Butoh Festival (San Francisco)

Ohno Kazuo—Workshop Words

Work begins on the Ohno Kazuo archive database. The first outcome of this work is the book Workshop Words.

Hijikata Tatsumi Archive at the Keio University Art Center

Keio University Art Center acquires materials from Asbestos-kan, and establishes the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive

Butoh Kaden

Waguri Yukio creates Butoh Kaden, a CD-ROM compiling Hijikata Tatsumi’s Butoh-fu (notational Butoh)

Asheville Butoh Festival (Asheville)
Butô Festival (Paris)
BUTOH BREEZE FESTIVAL (Stockholm)

Yamada Yoji’s The Twilight Samurai

Tanaka Min makes his film debut in The Twilight Samurai directed by Yamada Yoji

Goodbye Asbestos-kan, but Forever Asbestos-kan

A series of performances are held for the closing of Asbestos-kan, including Murobushi Ko’s 3 Improvisations for the Farewell of Asbestos Hall

Kazuo Ohno Archives at the University of Bologna

Kazuo Ohno Archives is established in the Department of Music and Theatre at the University of Bologna

New York Butoh Festival (New York)

Farukh Ruzimatov × Kasai Akira

Kasai Akira choreographs Ruzimatov’s Requiem

Kazuo Ohno Festival (Yokohama)
The International Butoh Festival Thailand (Bangkok)

Antony & the Johnsons

Antony & the Johnsons use photographs of Ohno Kazuo on the album covers of Another World (2008) and Crying Light (2009)

La Voce Del Corpo (Osnago)

New Development,
the Current Wave

Butoh inspires artists and creatives across genres, who create a variety of collaborative works. Artists who are not Butoh dancers create excellent pieces in which Butoh is the subject. Kawaguchi Takao’s About Kazuo Ohno is performed in over twenty countries worldwide. Meanwhile, Kasai Akira, Maro Akaji and other first generation Butoh dancers announce new ambitious works. Butoh continues to be a source of inspiration.

Bartabas × Murobushi Ko’s Le Centaure et l’Animal

Collaboration with French horse trainer and impresario Bartabas

Seattle Butoh Festival (Seattle)
Boulder Butoh Festival (Colerado)

Emmanuelle Huynh × Kasai Akira—Spiel

Collaboration between Kasai Akira and Emmanuelle Huynh, who previously invited Kasai as a lecturer to the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers, along with Murobushi Ko and Tanaka Min

GHOST 3, Butoh Soundart Festival (Dusseldorf)

Catherine Diverres—Ô Senseï

A solo dedicated to Ohno Kazuo by Catherine Diverres, who studied with him in the 1980s

Tanabe Tomomi × Kawaguchi Takao—The Sick Dancer

A duo performance based on Hijikata Tatsumi’s Yameru Maihime

Moving Bodies Festival (Dublin)

Kasai Akira × Maro Akaji—Hayasasurahime

A historic collaboration between Tenshikan’s Kasai Akira and Dairakudakan’s Maro Akaji

Kawaguchi Takao—About Kazuo Ohno

A popular work that “totally copies” the movements of Ohno Kazuo, based on video archive footage

Jeju International Butoh Festival (Jeju)
Beijing Butoh Festival (Beijing)

Trajal Harrell—The Return of La Argentina

A bold reinterpretation of Ohno Kazuo’s Admiring La Argentina

Festival EN CHAIR et EN SON (Paris)
Butoh Ekiden (Tokyo)

Trajal Harrell—In the Mood for Frankie

A multimedia piece inspired by Hijikata Tatsumi and Comme des Garçons’ Kawakubo Rei

KYOTO BUTOH-KAN

A theatre entirely dedicated to Butoh is established in Kyoto, and starts holding long performance runs

VOGUE x Ohno Yoshito

Ohno Yoshito and Mukai Taro appear in the British VOGUE magazine, with photographs by Tim Walker

Kamaitachi Village Art Festival (Akita)
Baku Ishii/Tatsumi Hijikata Memorial, International Dance Festival “ODORU-AKITA” (Akita)
Cuerpos en Revuelta - International Butoh Festival in Latin America (Mexico City)

Hirai Ken × Kudo Taketeru

Kudo Taketeru collaborates with Hirai Ken on the music video for Non Fiction

Hokkaido Butoh Festival (Sapporo)
ButohOUT! Festival (Melbourne)
Butoh Encounters (Oslo)
Chiangmai International Butoh Dance Festival (Chiangmai)
Taiwan International Darkness Dance Festival (Taipei)

Marcelo Evelin—Dança Doente (“Sick Dance”)

A challenge on Hijikata Tatsumi’s ideas in Yameru Maihime on the “weak body”

Choy Kai Fai—UnBearable Darkness

A unique work performed by Neji Pijin that attempts to get closer to the late Hijikata Tatsumi through the use of a 3D avatar and spiritual summoning

Ana Rita Teodoro—Your Teacher, Please

A lecture performance based on the experience of studying with Ohno Yoshito

New York Butoh Institute Festival (New York)
Kyoto International Butoh Festival (Kyoto)
Sans État Solo Dance Collection (Tokyo)
Boston Butoh Festival (Boston)

Fulldome film—HIRUKO

A fulldome film directed by Iida Masashige and performed by Mogami Kazuko, HIRUKO wins the “Fulldome - Best Long Form” award at the Macon Film Festival

Kasai Akira—DUO no kai

Kawaguchi Takao and Kasai Mitsutake perform three duo dances that were once performed by Kasai Akira and Ohno Kazuo: Sacrificial Ceremony, At the Foot of the Hill and Yameru Maihime

François Chaignaud × Akaji Maro’s GOLD SHOWER

A great rivalling of the brilliant world of contemporary dance and the charismatic world of Butoh

shi, odoru

A collaboration between a poet and three dancers with backgrounds in Butoh—Tamura Ikko, Suzuki Yukio and Asai Nobuyoshi—at the Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center

Beneath the Cherry Trees—Dancing Kasai Akira

Kasai Akira declares this piece “post-Butoh”

Post-Butoh, and Beyond

Norikoshi Takao (Writer, Dance Critic)

Looking at Butoh from an outside perspective

It has been over half a century since the start of Butoh, and one after another new approaches have been popping up.

Originally, Butoh was a form that devoured anything new and recent, disturbing and destroying old-fashioned values in both Japan and overseas. But at the same time, it emphasised a search for true nature of the body. So for the longest time, it was said that most people pursuing Butoh dedicate their lives to it, and that it therefore wasn’t easy to find new approaches.

However from around 2010, those “outside Butoh” (including foreign artists) gradually began creating some notable challenges to this concept. These people treat Butoh as just an element of their work. This cool and objective approach is expanding the world of Butoh, giving birth to new features. Of course, just as contemporary dance makes use of ballet and folk dance in their works, these artists do not lack respect for Butoh.

Let me give some examples.

About Kazuo Ohno (2013 premiere), a work based on “totally copying Ohno Kazuo’s archived performance footage” by Kawaguchi Takao—a dancer who has almost nothing to do with Butoh—has been invited to cities all over the world, and was nominated for a NY Bessie Award.
This is a remarkable approach. By maintaining a certain distance from Ohno but improving the accuracy of the copy, Ohno’s dancing soul emerges in a way that is not a simple homage.

Berlin-based Singaporean artist Choy Ka Fai’s UnBearable Darkness (2019), is another remarkable work, which “invokes the spirit of Tatsumi Hijikata to create a new dance”. It also makes great use of motion capture technology, which Neji Pijin wears onstage while linked to CG.

Hasegawa Ney (FujiyamaAnnette)’s ENIAC—How long can you keep on dancing? looks back at the life of dancer Ishimoto Kae, and at her background in Butoh. It includes scenes such as Hasegawa, playing the role of an interviewer, dancing with the spirit of Hijikata Tatsumi.

The d-soko Theater holds a Dance ga mitai! performance series in which a different theme is chosen each time, and presents a number of challenging works. In 2018 the theme was “performing Yameru Maihime”, and a variety of artists of different genres and ages took part. The vitality of this event, in which even Kasai Akira has taken part among many younger artists, is astonishing.

Brazilian Marcelo Evelin’s Demolition Incorporada refers to Yameru Maihime to explore the “weak body”. For those who practice Butoh, Yameru Maihime has long been like a bible, a means to approach the spirit of the founder Hijikata Tatsumi. But now artists outside of Butoh have also begun to use it as a source of inspiration. Just as people have done with the actual bible.

The pitfalls of looking at the tree, and not the forest

The examples I’ve given so far are all of performers “outside of Butoh”, and included two foreigners.

Additionally, although it is not a performance, an international competition for the “Tatsumi Hijikata Memorial Award” began in 2016 as part of Baku Ishii / Tatsumi Hijikata Memorial International Dance Festival—Dancing. Akita, which started the same year. This is not a Butoh competition, and genre is irrelevant. They make use of Hijikata’s name referring to him as a dance reformer.

It is interesting to see, looking at the timeline, that works using Butoh as a component have been on the rise since 2010. But if you delve deeper into Butoh, you’ll find a lot of individuality and different styles among those who practice it. As a result, an attempt to “define a Butoh that includes all styles” tends to come to a dead end. It is the same as how focusing on every detail in an image blurs the overall picture. In this way, those who are a bit distanced from Butoh are not obsessed with the details. By roughly using “what I think of as Butoh” as the topic, they come closer to something resembling the essence of Butoh.

The Impact of “Swinging Back” from Butoh

However after 2020’s Coronavirus pandemic, Butoh will no doubt show remarkable developments, “swinging back” as it were, to the external themes of Butoh.

First, Kasai Akira’s DUO no Kai. Although he was quite young when Butoh began, Kasai Akira re-choreographed three duos that he once danced with Ohno Kazuo—who was 37 years his senior—and presented them together with new works. The dances were Sacrificial Ceremony (1963), At the Foot of the Hill (1972) and Yameru Maihime (2002).
Although it was Kasai Mitsutake and Kawaguchi Takao who performed them this time round, Kasai Akira appeared at key points and talked while sharing valuable images from the time. In a way it was a piece about the origin of Butoh, with someone who was really there. The energy of that time really came through this work.

In Paris, François Chaignaud, who has presented many LGBT themed works, performed with Dairakudakan’s Maro Akaji in a piece called GOLD SHOWER, based on the Roman emperor Elagabalus, known for his sexual perversions. It could be said that it revived some of Butoh’s “chaos”.

shi, odoru was performed at Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center as part of the “Culture City of East Asia in Kitakyushu 2020”, a cultural project spanning Japan, China and Korea, in which three dancers with connections to Butoh (Tamura Ikko, Suzuki Yukio and Asai Nobuyoshi) dance to poems written by a Kyushu poet. It explored the possibilities of a next-generation Butoh.

In 2021 Akira Kasai advocated the existence of “post-Butoh” in the pamphlet handed out at his Beneath the Sakura Tree—Dancing Kasai Akira. From one perspective, contemporary Japanese dance could be seen as a form that unintentionally breathes in a Butoh-like atmosphere. This could be thought of as a re-evaluation of the role that Butoh has played as one of the influences of Japanese contemporary dance.

Mogami Kazuko’s HIRUKO (directed by Iida Masashige) won the “Fulldome - Best Long Form” award for a feature-length fulldome film at the 2019 Macon Film Festival. Although the use of a fulldome may appear to be an “outside” approach, Hijikata Tatsumi did in fact appear in a fulldome film called The Birth, made for the world's largest fulldome at the 1970 Osaka World Expo. This link within Butoh’s history spans across more than half a century.

I cannot help but feel the sudden change happening around 2020. One of the factors could be the amount of time people have had to reflect on themselves while at home during the Coronavirus pandemic.

As if in retaliation to this “outside perspective” of the Butoh of the 2010s, in the 2020s many things seem to be becoming clearer… the chaos and obscurity of the original Butoh is in fact it’s most fashionable element, as is the sincere deepening of the self while receiving inspiration from other genres of art. It’s as if the essence of Butoh and Butoh’s achievements are trying to come to a culmination.

Having observed the international dance scene for the last 30 years, I feel there is a strength in the “Butoh brand” that has spread through the world. But now, over half a century since the birth of Butoh, it has become impossible to understand the true strength and power of Butoh without an external perspective and approach.
I’d like you to think about this. The truth is, there are far more people watching Butoh performances abroad than there are in Japan. To “talk about Butoh in the world of dance” is mostly to talk about it from the outside.

And when we think about the next ten years in Japanese dance, many of the faces on the front line now are from a different generation.
For Butoh, an open minded perspective has never been more necessary than now.
I hope this project can play a part in that.

Content consultant & contributor

Norikoshi Takao

(writer, dance critic)

Director of Japan Dance Plug, Ltd. Studied in the United States at the invitation of the NY Japan Society in 2006. Japanese Director of the Giappone Dance festival in Genoa, Italy in 2007. Recently Norikoshi has been working on a wide range of projects for theatres, foundations and festivals as an advisor or judge in both Japan and abroad. He has also written a number of books including Kontenporari dansu tettei gaido HYPER [PERFECT GUIDE BOOK of Contemporary Dance] (Sakuhinsha), Douse dansu nanka minaindaro [ESSAY] (NTT Publishing), and Dansu Baiburu [Dance Bible] (Kawade Shobo Shinsha). He currently has columns in the monthly magazines Bravo, Act Guide and Ballet Web.

Illustrations

Ishihara Yo

(artist)

Born 1988. Completed a PhD in Art and Design from the Tohoku University of Art and Design in 2020. Her paintings explore the invisible boundaries and unconscious filters between “them” and “us”, and “you” and “me”. Among numerous exhibitions, her recent activities include a solo exhibition Who, which was held online in May and in real life in August 2020 at the Seizan Gallery. She also creates works as part of a collective.

Reference: Butoh Archive pages

Ohno Kazuo Archives (NPO Dance Archive Network)

https://dance-archive.net/en/archive/

Hijikata Tatsumi Archives (Keio University Art Center)

http://www.art-c.keio.ac.jp/old-website/archive/hijikata/