Dance Video Index

In this database, you will find 373 dance videos which were collected from the 2023 to 2025 fiscal years under the auspices of the EPAD (Eternal Performing Arts Archives and Digital Theatre) .

Overview

• Title
• Performer(s)
• Year performed

• Papillon en Offrande

  Solo butoh performance by Masaki Iwana. First performed in 1992 in Paris, Pescara (Italy), Chania (Greece), St Petersburg, Bucharest and Tokyo. This video is of the performance held at the 3rd MAMU Festival of Butoh and Jazz in Göttingen, Germany, in 1994. It is based on the memory of a woman Iwana met as a child, who had lost her husband in the war and went mad, wandered the streets in an uchikake [formal silk kimono overcoat].

  

  Performer(s)

  Mamu Festival

  Director/Choreographer

  Masaki Iwana

  Venue

  Junges Theater Göttingen

  Year performed

  1994

• Paradise Underground

  Popular contemporary dancer Itoh Kim holds a secret party in this dream-like performance. An explosively energetic 49 minutes, this piece is full of highlights, with humorous and showy underground imagery that is typically Itoh. An absurd performance by the 11 frenzied Tokyo Reiwa Underground Dancers, co-starring Kim Itoh and Kazutoki Umezu.
  
  -Tokyo Real Underground (Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL Special 13): 1 April - 15 August 2021
  -Takao Kawaguchi Selection: Un Certain Regard

  

  Performer(s)

  NPO Dance Archive Network

  Director/Choreographer

  Kim Ito

  Venue

  Filmed at Former Hakubutsukan Dobutsuen Station [Museum Zoo Station]

  Year performed

  2021

• LA PARTIDA

  Chilean artist Víctor Jara was loved around the world for his songs about people's joys, sorrows and their right to live. With a strong will he resisted violence and sang of courage and hope, but was massacred in a coup d'état in 1973. The people's will to live and the universal soul. What was his message? In this work, the artists tackled this question with a live performance of Jara's famous song 'La Partida', together with a group of disabled members of the general public who crawled out of the community, expressing it with their bodies.

  

  Performer(s)

  Performance Troupe TAIHEN

  Director/Choreographer

  Manri Kim

  Venue

  Aster Plaza : Midium Hall

  Year performed

  1999

• The Peacock Boat

  Based in Kyoto, the butoh company Kiraza was founded in 2000 by former Byakkosha member Tenko Ima, with the aim of reviving the power of tamafuri [reinvigoration of the soul through swinging] found in the origins of performing arts through the modern avant-garde form of butoh. From 2007 to 2016, the company performed annually at a theatre in a former hanamachi [entertainment district]. Their third work, "Kujaku-bune" [The Peacock Boat] is based on Kujaku Myōō, a peacock god that dispels evil. Held in a traditional Japanese theatre and with live nagauta music, the performances attracted large audiences.
  
  -Gojo The Power of Sisters series vol.3

  

  Performer(s)

  Butoh Company KIRAZA

  Director/Choreographer

  Tenko Ima

  Venue

  Gojo-rakuen Kaburenjo

  Year performed

  2010

• Penitence

  Performed at Butoh Festival '85 in 1985. Words by Teru Goi in the program read as follows:
  
  Flesh dances to / cries of the dreaming taiko drums / the soul dances not / yet in the sunlight and shadows / the body sways in intervals / the shining heat of the present day / and the wrecked body / rises with awakened desires
  From the lost dream / the liberated body / becomes a lonely dance exposed to the wind
  
  The title 'Penitence' conveys in it the idea of returning the body to the soil, letting it rot, and digging it up again.

  

  Performer(s)

  Nippon Cultural Centre

  Director/Choreographer

  Teru Goi

  Venue

  Yurakucho Asahi Hall

  Year performed

  1985

• People’s Inn

  Noriko Ando Dance Performance. "Peoples' Inn - Revived Humanity," is composed of three parts: Part 1, "Ketch/Yawl Town"; Part 2, "Patch UP!"; and Part 3, "Ceremony for Death." "Ketch/Yawl Town" is a revival of a work first performed in 1962, for which Nobuo Ikemiya was responsible for the original concept and structure. Drawing on images of ketches and yawls (types of yachts) likened to a fictional town, it celebrates life and passion. "Patch UP!" makes use of television commercial narrations from the period. "Ceremony for Death" presents a prophecy of human extinction as "the beginning of a wonderful journey."
  
  - The film has been damaged. Between parts 2 and 3, rehearsal footage of Part 3 "Ceremony for Death" has been inserted, featuring Noriko Ando's voice.
  - Prior to 1960, Noriko Ando was active under the name Mitsuko Ando.

  

  Performer(s)

  Mitsuko Ando Dance Company

  Director/Choreographer

  Noriko Ando

  Venue

  Nakano Sunplaza Hall

  Year performed

  1974

• Petite Hanako – The Actress Who Captured Rodin’s Heart

  A docu-drama with English narration based on the extraordinary life of Hisa Ota, also known as Hanako, a Japanese actress who lived from the Meiji to the Showa era and spent much of her career in Europe. She was the only Japanese person to model for Auguste Rodin, and was also the inspiration for Ogai Mori's novel "Hanako". In this drama, Hanako is played by Anzu Furukawa.

  

  Performer(s)

  TV Asahi Corporation

  Year performed

  1994

• Pieta ’97

  I am dancing 'Pieta' again at DANCE EXPERIENCE, as I did last year, but the image of Pieta has in fact been with me for more than ten years now, and it is still deepening and transforming, still inviting me and motivating me to dance. "I know for sure that you will not look back. But I also know that when I approach death the one who will embrace me is you." (from the flyer)
  
  - Participated in the 3rd OSAKA DANCE EXPERIENCE
  - Masami Yurabe Butoh Performance

  

  Performer(s)

  TORII HALL

  Director/Choreographer

  Masami Yurabe

  Venue

  TORII HALL

  Year performed

  1997

• Pikka Don

  A performance of a solo work previously presented at The Kitchen (New York), designed for video cameras.

  

  Performer(s)

  Yoshiko Chuma

  Director/Choreographer

  Yoshiko Chuma

  Year performed

  1982

• Playing with the Universe

  Second meeting of Kazuo Ohno and the theatre company Taihen, following their meeting in May 1994. Part 1 is a performance of 'Reimai' by Taihen (directed by Kim Manri), Part 2 is a butoh dance by Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno, and Part 3 is a collaboration between Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno and the Taihen company.

  

  Performer(s)

  Performance Troupe TAIHEN

  Director/Choreographer

  Kim Manri, Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno

  Venue

  AI Hall (Itami City Theater Hall)

  Year performed

  1996

• Poetry Restaurant Theatre: Shiraishi Kazuko VS Byakko-sha

  This footage documents dancers from Byakko-sha appearing in poet Kazuoko Shiraishi’s "Poetry Restaurant Theatre," performing to Shiraishi’s recitation with saxophone accompaniment by Keizo Inoue. Shiraishi frequently collaborated not only with jazz musicians but also with butoh dancers, and also attended Byakko-sha’s summer camps. As a performance of "Television Like Minakata Kumagusu" at Kyoto KBS Hall was scheduled approximately three weeks later, elements such as Sanae Hiruta’s solo and the stone-striking movements performed by the male dancers can also be seen in this work.

  

  Performer(s)

  Byakko-sha

  Director/Choreographer

  Isamu Osuka

  Venue

  Yao Seibu Hall

  Year performed

  1984

• Point, Distant View and Cantata; Wave; Fiume

  'Wave' was the first of Katoh's performances, and has a simple structure, expanding and returning to single point with surges of energy.
  'Point, Distant View and Cantata' features black spots on white costumes, inspired by Calder's paintings, with chanting and bell players sitting on both sides of the stage. It is a minimalist dance, performed with Asian footwork.
  'Fiume' means 'river' in Italian. It is an eternal stream that flows from a single point to the sea, swallowing everything in its path. Movement, sound and voice merge to weave in the workings of life.
  
  - Presented at the KATOH MIYAKO DANCE SPACE 1982
  -'Wave' was premiered in 1980.
  -'Point, Distant View and Cantata' was awarded Grand Prize for the 1982 Japanese Creative Choreography Competition
  

  

  Performer(s)

  Miyako Katoh Dance Space

  Director/Choreographer

  Miyako Katoh

  Venue

  Sogetsu Hall

  Year performed

  1982

• Pollen Revolution

  "Pollen Revolution", the solo masterpiece by butoh dancer Akira Kasai, premiered at Theater Tram in 2001 and has since garnered widespread acclaim internationally. Here the work is performed by his son, Mitsutake Kasai. With the goal of passing this legacy on to the next generation of dancers, the direction and choreography have been refined with each performance, evolving and maturing over time.
  
  Participating Festivals
  4-5 Jan 2018: Contemporary Dance Festival: Japan + East Asia (Japan Society, New York)
  March 2020: Melbourne Performance
  2022: 4th HOTPOT East Asia Dance Platform
  
  -JaDaFo Dance Award 2017

  

  Performer(s)

  Tenshi-Kan

  Director/Choreographer

  Akira Kasai

  Venue

  Theatre Tram

  Year performed

  2017

• Quiet House

  A room strewn with rubble. People buried in the rubble, motionless. As if time is rewinding, they regain their bodies.
  People who treat life like pebbles. Struggling. Giving up. History repeats itself. The story moves forward, traveling back and forth through time.
  And so, I perform a ritual to mourn my body.
  
  - BACC Performative Art Festival #8 (Bangkok, Thailand) / Project “Bombie Protocol” (Vientiane, Laos)

  

  Performer(s)

  Yuko Kawamoto

  Director/Choreographer

  Yuko Kawamoto, Teerawat 'Ka-ge' Mulvilai

  Venue

  THEATER X

  Year performed

  2019

• RAPSODY

  News of Kisaragi Koharu's death reached Hitsujiya Shirotama in December 2000 while she was on a residency in New York. Subsequently, a request was made to revive Koharu's 'DOLL', and, 20 years after its first performance, 'DOLL' was revived by Yubiwa Hotel under the name 'RAPSODY'. The girls who disappeared in the sea in 1983, reappeared on a roof-top tennis court in 2003. Koharu's 'DOLL' dealt with the suicide of high school girls, and this work attempts to embrace Koharu's themes of the death of young women and raise it to new heights as 'feelings of life'.

  

  Performer(s)

  YUBIWA Hotel

  Director/Choreographer

  Shirotama Hitsujiya

  Venue

  Rosa Kaikan's roof tennis court

  Year performed

  2003

• Rashamen Tempura, Part 3

  Work by the Fukuoka-based theatre company Shanghai Noodle Factory, featuring Mitsuyo Uesugi who choreographed and performed her own solo parts. The performance was presented as part of the ASIA TRI programme, an Asian focussed portion of the Kazuo Ohno Festival. Uesugi even appeared in a wheelchair, evoking an image of her teacher, Kazuo Ohno.
  
  -Asia Tri
  -Kazuo Ohno Festival 2012

  

  Performer(s)

  Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio

  Director/Choreographer

  Mitsuyo Uesugi, Azuma Shinkai

  Venue

  BankART Studio NYK

  Year performed

  2012

• REACHING FOR INSPIRATION: Butoh and Performance

  Through Hijikata, to beyond Hijikata. Through myself, to beyond myself. The place of butoh, the presence of butoh, resides here within my body. - Nobuo Harada (from the flyer)
  
  - Akiko Motofuji's first performance in Kyushu
  - Related event: "Butoh no Genba '98 Second Project NON-STOP-BROWING" at Kego Park (24 October 1998)
  
  -GENERATIVE BUTOH 98 in KYUSHU
  -HIJIKATA TATSUMI '98

  

  Performer(s)

  Butoh Seiryukai

  Director/Choreographer

  Nobuo Harada

  Venue

  NTT Yume Tenjin Hall

  Year performed

  1998

• REBIS – Flowers are fragrant in the incense burner

  Performed by Yamada Setsuko and Kamiryo Kunishi, on a set of log turrets and stones set in mud which resemble an ancient ritual site. Kamiryo's animalistic movements intersect Yamada's sacrificial butoh. This work by two former students of Tenshikan (run by Kasai Akira), is imbued with the connections made in Tenshikan between dancing and mysticism. After performing in Tokyo, this work was invited to the Festival d'été de Châteauvallon in France.
  
  - Yamada Setsuko and Kamiryo Kunishi Butoh Performance
  

  

  Performer(s)

  Setsuko Yamada

  Director/Choreographer

  Setsuko Yamada, Kunishi Kamiryo

  Venue

  Institut français de Tokyo

  Year performed

  1984

• Recorded prior to Europe (1971), and in Düsseldorf (1979)

  A digitised compilation of 8mm film reels of Mitsutaka Ishii, one which appears to have been taken in 1971 in Chigasaki, and another taken in 1979 at a gallery and on the streets on Düsseldorf. Ishii was the first butoh dancer to travel to Europe in 1971, performing in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

  Performer(s)

  Mitsutaka Ishii

  Director/Choreographer

  Mitsutaka Ishii

  Year performed

  1969

• Renge Village

  Light movements are gradually overlaid with Indian music and skillful use of props. This work is a perfect example of Katsuko Orita's own characteristics in movement.
  
  -Presented at the Modern Dance May Festival.
  -In 1985, the work was presented to the Korean Dance Association and Korean dancers.

  

  Performer(s)

  Midori Ishii and Katsuko Orita Dance Studio

  Director/Choreographer

  Katsuko Orita

  Venue

  Toyoko Theater

  Year performed

  1984

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