Overview

• Title
• Performer
• Year

• The Topography of the Fantasy II

  The second work based on Atsushi Tanigawa's "The Topography of the Fantasy", following the first in 1998. Asking the question "Who Am I?", the piece is a journey of self-discovery in pursuit of another self. Following the back of a shadowy man, we wander through various worlds. In addition to Waguri and Katata (Shinonome Butoh), performers include young people in their twenties and the pantomime group SOUKI, who are seen here performing butoh for the first time. Using butoh-fu [butoh notation], which formed the basis of Waguri's work, the performance also addresses "transformation", one of the foundational concepts of Hijikata's butoh.
  
  - Tokyo International Arts Festival - Agency for Cultural Affairs International Exchange/Cooperation Programme

  

  Performer(s)

  Kozensha

  Director/Choreographer

  Yukio Waguri

  Venue

  Oribe Hall

  Year performed

  2002

• Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl

  Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl touches on the shadowy life of Japan which many never encounter. DasSHOKU (to bleach) strips off the colour of the superficial to reveal the reality behind the happy face of consumerism, bleaching away the commonly held views of Japanese women as kawai, or cute, polite and submissive. In Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl Yumi pays homage to the roots of Butoh as an anarchic dangerous and at the same time beautiful dance form.
  
  - Winner of the Melborne Fringe Festival Award and Green Room Award, Australia
  - Performed on 7th, 8th, 9th, 14th, 15th and 16th of October, 1999 at the Melbourne Fringe Festival

  

  Performer(s)

  Yumi Umiumare

  Director/Choreographer

  Yumi Umiumare

  Venue

  Czech House

  Year performed

  1999

• Tohoku Kabuki Project 3: Hijikata Tatasumi’s Lecture

  The sound recording of the lecture by Hijikata. The 'Tohoku Kabuki Project', composed and directed by Tasumi Hijikata, included performances by Yoko Ashikawa and the Tohoku Kabuki Research Group, as well as lectures and slides, and was held four times in March, June, September and December 1985 as the 'Studio 200 Butoh Lecture'. In the first session, lectures were given by Nario Gōda and Makoto Ōoka, by Akiko Baba and Kuniichi Uno in the second, Ryōichi Enomoto and Tatsumi Hijikata in the third, and Kazuo Nagao in the fourth. Hijikata was unable to attend the fourth session due to illness and died in January in the following year.
  
  - Tohoku Kabuki Project 3 was held on 28-30 September

  

  Performer(s)

  Studio 200

  Director/Choreographer

  Tatsumi Hijikata

  Venue

  Studio 200

  Year performed

  1985

• TOOBOE (Howl)

  TOOBOE (Howl) is a solo dance performance by Yuko Kaseki, co-created with Marc Ates. The production’s starting point was based on a story of the same name by Japanese author Hyakken Uchida (1889-1971). The story is told through illogical, odd happenings that emerge from the ordinary. Through his peculiar vision of consideration, consciously simple episode of expression success to find out the cleft in the ordinary construction. Through the door to the other side, to possibility of fantasy level, it gives one side anxiety on the other side appear the strange humour.
  Yuko Kaseki expose this situation by absurdity as same as humorous, with brevity way exist herself and her body in this world. Premiered in November 1998 at the loplop in Berlin.
  
  

  

  Performer(s)

  Yuko Kaseki

  Director/Choreographer

  Yuko Kaseki

  Venue

  DOCK11 (Berlin)

  Year performed

  2002

• Through the tunnel. There was a house

  For the first time in a long time, I walked around the town where I was born and raised. The takoyaki restaurant by the canal, the chimney of a deserted sentō, a tunnel around 1m high... between the nostalgic scenes were karaoke bars and convenience stores that I had never seen before. Soaking my mind and body in this town where I had spent my childhood untroubled, something unexpected spilled out of the time and space accumulated there. I waited patiently for it to spill out again.
  
  - Participated in the 6th OSAKA DANCE EXPERIENCE: 1st half
  - Osamu Jareo and Misako Terada Dance Performance

  

  Performer(s)

  TORII HALL

  Director/Choreographer

  Osamu Jareo + Misako Terada

  Venue

  TORII HALL

  Year performed

  2000

• Three

  Three modern-day dancers copy three masterworks by the founders of butoh: Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno. Mikiko Kawamura, Takao Kawaguchi and Dai Matsuoka respond to the spirit of butoh with modern methods. Kawamura reproduces Hijikata’s "Hosotan" (Story of Smallpox), Kawaguchi reconstructs Kazuo Ohno’s "Admiring La Argentina", and Matsuoka recreates Yoshito Ohno’s "Hijikata Sansho". With careful study of archived footage from the original performances and intense training, they transport butoh to the here and now.
  
  - Tokyo Real Underground festival (Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL Special 13): 1 April - 15 August 2021

  

  Performer(s)

  NPO Dance Archive Network

  Director/Choreographer

  Naoto Iina

  Venue

  Filmed at Former Hakubutsukan Dobutsuen Station [Museum Zoo Station]

  Year performed

  2021

• Thoughts on Yesenin

  The Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, who had many colourful relationships, including marriages to Isadora Duncan and Tolstoy's granddaughter, was considered the 'last of the rural poets', writing about nature and comparing rural women to the Virgin Mary. He regarded himself a 'distanced poet', a wanderer with a fear of restraint. Taking from his final message the idea that "Life is a joke, but if there is no greatness in life, it cannot be that there is only greatness in death", the work contrasts Yesenin with the character of a clown.
  
  - Participated in the ACA National Arts Festival 1975

  

  Performer(s)

  Wakamatsu Miki & Tsuda Ikuko Free Dance Performance

  Director/Choreographer

  Miki Wakamatsu, Ikuko Tsuda

  Venue

  Toranomon Hall

  Year performed

  1975

• 5th Third World Theatre Festival, Seoul

  A record of Byakko-sha’s first overseas tour. At the 5th Third World Theatre Festival, held on stages across Seoul, the International Youth Theatre Center (KSEC)'s performance of "The Straits" attracted significant attention. "The Straits" combined dance by Byakko-sha, a play about a Korean war veteran and his daughter living in Japan by Saburo Ri (Park Byung-yang)'s Korean Theatre Performance Society, and rock music incorporating pansori by Poe Pak and Rise. In addition to the stage performance, the video also shows scenery from train windows and, briefly, theater scholar Jan Kott, who highly praised Byakko-sha.
  
  - The original footage consists of five rolls of 8mm film and has no sound.

  

  Performer(s)

  Byakko-sha

  Director/Choreographer

  Isamu Osuka

  Venue

  Munye Theater, Seoul

  Year performed

  1981

• Thieves Guild

  The first Tohoku region performance by Daizu-ko Farm, who celebrate the human spirit. The stage and seating were set up over the flowing Hirose River, beneath the Ohashi Bridge near Aoba Castle, with an eight-metre tall stained glass window erected on the river’s surface behind the stage. The performance portrays the colourful lives of the river dwellers - the women as 'yotaka' [low-ranking prostitutes], the men as thieves - stealing, laughing, getting caught and crying, depicted in muddy, unpretentious humanity.
  The performance was repeatedly interrupted by rain, and the river eventually flowed over the stage. The piano, which had been used since their street performance days, was finally put to rest.

  

  Performer(s)

  Butoh Orchestra Daizu-ko Farm

  Director/Choreographer

  Hoshino Rashinban

  Venue

  Temporary outdoor stage under Ohashi bridge at the Hirose River

  Year performed

  1999

• “There’s Another Way to Look at It” & “Untitled”

  This piece, performed as one of a series of butoh performances for "Whispers of Strange Matter II O", consists of solo and duo performances by Mitsutaka Ishii and Masahide Omori. Emphasising the improvisational nature of butoh, the solo parts are entirely unchoreographed, and the duo sections created with just a few prior arrangements. A loose and highly improvised composition, each dancer attempts to see how they can blend with the body of the other.
  
  -Ammonite Claw Extravaganza
  -Bigakko Annual Report 2011

  

  Performer(s)

  Terpsichore

  Director/Choreographer

  Masahide Omori, Mitsutaka Ishii

  Venue

  Terpsichore

  Year performed

  2011

• Theoria of the Mirror

  A new butoh work by Akiko Motofuji examining the issues of existence, nothingness, time and eternity, based on the book 'Kagami no Theoria' [Theoria of the Mirror] by Chimako Tada and incorporating a version of the mirror legend from Nagoya. It was performed as part of 'Eventalk Part VI: Visualising Tatsumi Hijikata' organised by the Aichi Arts Centre. Led by Akiko Motofuji with the Asbestos-kan troupe, a collaborative butoh atmosphere was created featuring Yoshito Ohno and a special guest appearance by Kazuo Ohno.

  

  Performer(s)

  Asbestos-kan

  Director/Choreographer

  Akiko Motofuji

  Venue

  Aichi Prefectural Art Theater : Mini theater

  Year performed

  1997

• Terminal Paranoid

  A site-specific work performed at an abandoned boarding school in Graz, Austria.
  The piece was created during a two-week intensive workshop with students of Yumiko Yoshioka, and co-choreographed by Eugeny Koylov, who was invited from St Petersburg. There was also a powerful installation by artist Joachim Manger, which worked together with the dance. It was the 2nd running of a project that has been held annually since 1995. Video footage for the 3rd run, set in a huge quarry used as an aeroplane repair site, has unfortunately been lost.
  
  - Butoh dance/theatre project

  Performer(s)

  tatoeba

  Director/Choreographer

  Yumiko Yoshioka, Eugeny Koylov

  Venue

  Closed school in Graz

  Year performed

  1996

• Tentai no Aki

  This work marks a turning point for Yamada Setsuko, where she began calling her work 'dance' instead of 'butoh'. Through an installation by Naito Hisayoshi, the manufactured space of Studio 200 in Seibu Ikebukuro became a stage leading to the other world - the ends of the earth, with bronze surfaces, rusty iron, scrap wood and white sand. Starting with the guitar piece 'International' by Shomura Kiyoshi, synthesised sounds by HIROKI intersect with Yamada's centripetal dance movements of rhythmic tension, creating a world formed of simplicity.
  
  - Yamada Setsuko Dance Performance

  

  Performer(s)

  Setsuko Yamada

  Director/Choreographer

  Setsuko Yamada

  Venue

  Studio 200

  Year performed

  1989

• Tengu

  Live improvised performance with Tadashi Endo, Aki Takase and Itaru Oki. It was presented at the first Mamu Festival, an annual "butoh and jazz" festival held in Göttingen, Germany, which invited butoh dancers to perform alongside jazz musicians.

  

  Performer(s)

  Tadashi Endo (Butoh Centre MAMU)

  Director/Choreographer

  Tadashi Endo

  Venue

  Junges Theater Göttingen

  Year performed

  1992

• 10 Motions

  A solo piece, composed of 10 movements in various combinations.
  
  -Participated in the 80 Summer/Autumn Dance Collection.
  

  Performer(s)

  Bonjin Atsugi

  Director/Choreographer

  Bonjin Atsugi

  Venue

  Sanbyakunin Theatre

  Year performed

  1980

• Television like Minakata Kumagusu: When People Die, They Become Stars (open-air version)

  A creation myth inspired by the wide-ranging, interdisciplinary curiosity of the naturalist Kumagusu Minakata. First performed in 1984, it was later staged at the inaugural Tokyo International Theatre Festival in 1988, in a massive tent where temperatures soared to nearly 50°C. "There is no group in the world so foolish as Byakko-sha in failing to achieve its purpose" (Bessatsu Taiyo 60's-90's, Heibonsha, 1991).
  
  The video here is recorded from the performance at Tankaku Castle Park in Shingu (Wakayama Prefecture), and was one of three outdoor productions held to commemorate Byakko-sha’s 10th anniversary. The other two performances took place in Fujisawa (Kanagawa Prefecture) and Tanabe (where Minakata once lived in Wakayama Prefecture).
  
  - Byakko-sha 10th Anniversary + 50th Anniversary of the Death of Kumagusu Minakata: Contagious Media Trilogy I, Volume - Heaven
  - Kumano Kodo Pier and Kodo Festival ~Prayers to the Sky~

  

  Performer(s)

  Byakko-sha

  Director/Choreographer

  Isamu Osuka

  Venue

  Temporary outdoor stage at the Tankaku Castle Park

  Year performed

  1990

• Teleport TBS 6

  As an introduction to butoh, parts of the Butoh Festival '85 were shown on Teleport TBS 6, a local news programme on the TBS TV channel. It included commentary by Tatsumi Hijikata, Miyabi Ichikawa, Akaji Maro, Teru Goi and Min Tanaka, as well as shots of Dairakudakan and Maijuku's rehearsals. It provides a glimpse into the butoh of that period.
  
  - Covering Butoh Festival '85: Collection of Confessions Seven Seasons and Castles

  Performer(s)

  Nippon Cultural Centre

  Year performed

  1985

• Tefutefu 7

  Kisanuki Kuniko began her experimental solo dance series Tefutefu at 23 years old in 1982, exploring the theme of where she is from. 'Tefutefu 7' is the seventh work in the series, a story of rebirth in which her body crawls out and howls, following the various lights and darks explored in the previous work 'Tefutefu 6'. If the series up to 'Tefutefu 6' were a series of wild imaginings, 'Tefutefu 7' is an internal reality that emerged out of the ashes of the previous works.
  
  - Kisanuki Kuniko Solo Dance Performance

  

  Performer(s)

  Kuniko Kisanuki

  Director/Choreographer

  Kuniko Kisanuki

  Venue

  Laforet Museum Akasaka

  Year performed

  1986

• Tao

  Katsuko Orita is a creator of innovative contemporary dance. This new work 'Tao', bring the ceremony of her 1979 piece 'City of Memory' and transforms it in a more open space. It is an exploration of what can occur when the internal mechanisms and inherent drama of human beings intersect, which has been externalised and manifests in work of the dancers and choreographer. Tao shows ancient dreams to heretics whose memories are stuck in the past, opening their minds to the future. (Taken from the performance program)
  
  -Presented at the Orita Katsuko Dance Performance as part of the Dance Performance Tokyo '85 Festival of Tao.

  

  Performer(s)

  Midori Ishii and Katsuko Orita Dance Studio

  Director/Choreographer

  Katsuko Orita

  Venue

  Haiyuza Theater

  Year performed

  1985

• TANIGUKU

  Butoh theatre by Butoh Art Company TondeKarashizuka, inspired by the novels of Kenzaburo Ooe, Dojidai gemu [The Game of Contemporaneity] and Sui Shi [Death by Water]. Drawing inspiration from the 3,300m² terraced rice fields of Tsubono Village in Matsunoyama (Tokamachi City, Niigata Prefecture), the lives of the locals, local folk tales, and the life of TondeKarashizuka founder Toyo Matsubara, this work was brought to life with the support of musician Yuji Murai, who provided the performance space, the cooperation of the Tsubono Village residents, and collaboration with artist Satoshi Iwama, who runs the Sato Matsuri festival in the same village. The performance, which took place in the summer of 2012, was the culmination of a month-long residency and preparation involving 60 people, including 13 performers, 4 musicians, 3 set designers, construction staff, and others. "Taniguku" is an old term for a toad.
  
  -Outdoor performance by Butoh Art Company TondeKarashizuka - Rice Field Theatre - Taniguku
  -Performed at Sato Matsuri (24-27 August) in Tsubono Field Park (work no. Y087 / Satoshi Iwama) as part of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2012. During the performance, the animation "Kagee no Machi "[Shadow Town], created by artist Kenichi Aoyama, was projected onto a cliff.
  
  -Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2012

  

  Performer(s)

  Toyo Matsubara

  Director/Choreographer

  Toyo Matsubara

  Venue

  Tsbono field park

  Year performed

  2012

1 2 3 4 5 6 … 19