Butoh

Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno
Video of Mushimaru Fujieda Butoh workshop

Butoh (舞踏, Butō) is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The art form is known to "resist fixity"[1] and is difficult to define; notably, founder Hijikata Tatsumi viewed the formalisation of butoh with "distress".[2] Common features of the art form include playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, and extreme or absurd environments. It is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion. However, with time butoh groups are increasingly being formed around the world, with their various aesthetic ideals and intentions.

  1. ^ Waychoff, Brianne. "Butoh, Bodies and Being". Kaleidoscope. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  2. ^ Sanders, Vicki (Autumn 1988). "Dancing and the Dark Soul of Japan: An Aesthetic Analysis of "Butō"". Asian Theatre Journal. 5 (2): 152. JSTOR 25161489.