Butoh Dance

Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno

Butoh appeared first in Japan following World War II.

The dance developed beginning in 1960 by Kazuo Ohno with Tatsumi Hijikata was the beginning of what now is regarded as "butoh."

The roles of authority were now subject to challenge and subversion. It also appeared as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which Hijikata felt was based on the one hand on imitating the West and on the other on imitating the Noh. He critiqued the current state of dance as overly superficial.

The earliest butoh performances were called (in English) "Dance Experience." In the early 1960s, Hijikata used the term "Ankoku-Buyou"

Hijikata explored the transmutation of the human body into other forms, such as those of animals. He also developed a poetic and surreal choreographic language, butoh-fu (fu means "word" in Japanese), to help the dancer transform into other states of being.

 "Butoh" dance

The first butoh piece, Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours) by Tatsumi Hijikata, premiered at a dance festival in 1959. It was based on the novel of the same name by Yukio Mishima. It explored the taboos of homosexuality and paedophilia and ended with a live chicken being held between the legs of Kazuo Ohno's son Yoshito Ohno, after which Hijikata chasing Yoshito off the stage in darkness. Mainly as a result of the misconception that the chicken had died due to strangulation, this piece outraged the audience and resulted in the banning of Hijikata from the festival, establishing him as an iconoclast.