Butoh

"The soul becomes ashes. Its breath spills down my body. I also breathe. My soul spreads out across the vast sky, then becomes ashes and falls." (Kazuo Ohno, translated by John Solt)

From the exhibition Min Tanaka - Between Mountain and Sea, the Yume-no-shima garbage dump, photography by Masato Okada.

"I am an avant-gardist who crawls the earth. I am a body with language. Language is symbiotic with the functions of the body. Dance comes into being between body and body, arising as a result of mental effort." (Min Tanaka)

"Once the dance begins, a place that one had believed familiar, a place nothing out of the ordinary, is transformed into a place of celebration. That’s because dance has the power to take us away from our everyday lives. If people can share that transformation, the dancer is admitted to the place; if not, he remains an interloper. So, in that instant when I begin to dance, I am open completely, more than even I can tell. Ideally, I am in a state in which I know exactly what to do, if I can just reach for it." (Min Tanaka)

"When Min Tanaka's body confronts the darkness of the camera, it disperses the light and confuses what we witness. It is an invitation to an expanded kind of perception, beyond the sense of vision. Some sort of 'primeval feelings' are being bared." (Masato Okada)

I first got to know Butoh as an artform when I read a book by Lin Hwai-Min, the artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. It was a collection of images of many forms of dance and included one of Kazuo Ohno. I later researched into Kazuo Ohno and was fascinated by him as a person and as an artist, although sadly never had the privilege to see him perform on-stage (I was a high school student in Taipei). Then when Japan's renowned Butoh group Sankai Juku toured Sadler's Wells Theatre in London (probably about 10 years ago) I went to the performance, and fell instantly and deeply in love. I have since seen them perform in London three times, including Toki a while ago, and every time the beauty and magic take my breath away.

For me, what distinguishes Butoh from other forms of dance is its highly philosophical approach and aesthetics, the heavy emphases on grace, strength and concentration (particularly on an abstract level), the focus on form and spirit as well as the transcendence and unity of both, and the meditative (in a way almost trance-like, albeit the contradiction to "meditative" this term might seem to bear) state of mind that it brings to the viewers. It requires just as much silent intensity and interpretative response from the audience to deliver and complete a brilliant Butoh performance.

Frances Barbe (lecturer of Dance and Theatre Studies at University of Kent) has written some very good articles on the developments of Butoh in Japan.


Kagemi, Sankai Juku; photographed by Chris Stewart for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Kagemi, Sankai Juku; photographed by Chris Stewart for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Kagemi, Sankai Juku; photographed by Jacques Denarnaud.