Butoh Dance: an individual way to understand dance

Butoh Dance is the collective term used to identify the whole range of techniques, motivations, and activities that are used in performances, movements, and dances inspired by the movement called Ankoku-Butoh.  This type of dance usually involves grotesque yet playful imagery of taboo topics and of absurd or otherwise extreme situations.  Traditionally, it is performed by dancers whose bodies are totally covered by white make-up.  The motions are very slow and are overly controlled.  Interestingly, this dance is performed regardless of whether there is or there isn’t an audience.

Butoh dance does not have a particular style set.  It can simply be a concept that the performer wishes to convey without incorporating any kind of movement at all.  The Japanese legends of dance, Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata have been credited as the main originators of this type of dance.

Tatsumi Hijikata performed the first ever Butoh piece in 1959.  It was at a dance festival and it was entitled “Kinjiki” meaning “Forbidden Colours”.  It was based on the novel by Yukio Mishima which had the same title.  It touched on the taboo topics of pedophilia and homosexuality.  By the end of the show, the audience was outraged and this led to the eventual banning of Tatsumi Hijikata from the entire festival.  In later performances, he continued to challenge and undermine the conventional concept of dance through his Butoh dances. 

In 1960, Kazuo Ohno joined Hijikata and they developed what is now known as the Butoh dance.  From this partnership, Ohno has come to be known as the “soul” behind the art of Butoh dance while Hijikata is regarded as the “architect” that expounded this dance.  Later on though, these two masterful artists went their separate ways and cultivated their own unique ways of teaching Butoh dance.

Most Butoh dances use imagery in different levels.  Ankakoh Butoh dancers use insects and even razor blades in their performances.  Dairakudakan Butoh dancers use water jets and different kinds of threads.  Seiryukai Butoh dancers go to extremes in their performances by involving difficult acts such as rods going into the body.  The general notion is that the body is moved by a source, whether internal or external, rather than the body moving itself.  The element of “control against no control” though, is always present in many of these dances.

There is however a big difference from Butoh dances that originated from Japan and those that originated from the western countries.  Japanese Butoh dances – with the possible exception of those choreographed by Kahuo Ohno - usually have specific postures or general body shapes that the dancers adhere to.  Western dances on the other have very little or no specific postures or shapes at all.  This leads to the thinking that Butoh dance is regarded in the west more as a state of mind rather than a specific type of dance.  Thus, Butoh becomes an influence to the body – whether directly or not - to move and to project what it feels.  As Iwana Masaki, a famous Butoh dancer once said: real Butoh is very much like real life; it cannot be ranked or scored. It is its own ultimate expression.