Overview
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Hot Key
This piece is based on the Ten Bulls, a series of 10 paintings of depicting the relationship between cows and herdsmen - a metaphor for Zen practice according to a Zen Koan from the Northern Song dynasty in China. On stage are four hoofless cows created by Uno Man. What has he gained after his hopeless struggle? Only then does he reach absolute nothingness. This masterpiece, which tackles the difficult text of Zen Buddhism head-on, has been performed in Japan, and received great acclaim in the North, Central and South American continents, as well as France.
- Participated in the TOKYO DANCE SCENERY
- Performer(s)
- UNO-MAN
- Director/Choreographer
- Man Uno
- Venue
- TOKYO FM Hall
- Year performed
- 1992
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Hoppo Butoh-ha Butoh Chronicles 1975-1989
A collection of video excerpts from key Hoppo Butoh-ha performances, including 'Shiokubi' (1975), 'Gekka-no Une' (1982), 'Takazashiki' (1984) and 'Ezo-men' (1989). The recording of 'Shiokubi' is from the first day of the premiere, with Bishop Yamada performing in black paint. On the second day, under Hijikata's instruction, he performed in white paint but no footage of this remains. The 'Ezo-men' section of the film is titled 'My Heart Beat'.
- Performer(s)
- Hoppo Butoh-ha
- Director/Choreographer
- Bishop Yamada
- Year performed
- 1975
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Hope
Pandora is tempted to open a box that should not be opened. The disasters and hopes that leap out take place in the modern world of entertainment.
People suffer from misfortune, illness, lust, despair, jealousy and other calamities.
But even those who have hit rock bottom always have hope at the end of the day.
In overcoming calamity, people find hope.
- Participated in the ACA National Arts Festival 1986
- Performer(s)
- Wakamatsu Miki & Tsuda Ikuko Free Dance Performance
- Director/Choreographer
- Miki Wakamatsu, Ikuko Tsuda
- Venue
- Yomiuri Hall
- Year performed
- 1986
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Hommage a Hideyuki Yano
Based in Paris from 1973, Hideyuki Yano had a major influence on French Nouvelle Danse with a body of work that combined dance, theatre and music. This collection contains excerpts from Yano's Work in Progress (Paris, 1981), 'Epilogue for Salome' (Paris, 1984), 'The Hawk's Well' (Paris, 1985) and 'Salome, Fable of Desire' (Besançon, France, 1985). Elsa Wolliaston and Karine Saporta make an appearance.
- Performer(s)
- Hideyuki Yano
- Director/Choreographer
- Hideyuki Yano
- Year performed
- 1981
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Katsuko Orita – Dance Alone “Home”
The carefree skips of a young girl. In contract to these simple, dashing movements, the performer slowly puts on layers of clothing, demonstrating the passage of time. The girl becomes an overdressed and restricted adult, finally clad in a 'dotera' [padded jacket]. The depicted world is humorous, where adults do their best to move while dressed in this way. Orita Katsuko uses Ishii Midori's Eurhythmics for Dancers to create a work that conveys freedom and restriction using basic movements.
Orita Katsuko often used artwork and costumes by Maeda Tetsuhiko to set the scene in her pieces, and this was no exception. This is the first piece in which Maeda's 'dotera' [padded jacket] was used, which Orita would go on to use often.
- Performer(s)
- Midori Ishii and Katsuko Orita Dance Studio
- Director/Choreographer
- Katsuko Orita
- Venue
- ABC Hall
- Year performed
- 1978
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HIZUME TO KANZASHI
Heaven and Earth / Fire and Water / Water and Oil / Life and Death / Tofu and Hammer / Right hand and Left hand / Stone and Red / Man and Woman / Mortar and Pestle / Shit and Piss / Head and Arse / Moon and Turtle / Light and Dark / Silence and Sound / Laozi and Confucius / Older brother and Younger brother / Goldfish bowl and Pacific Ocean / Red and Black / Kitsune and Tanuki / Flower and Dragon / Inside and Outside / Floor and Ceiling / Snake and Mouse / Mirror and Doll / Dot and Line / Wheat and Soldier / Mud and Sand / Dry and Wet / Hands and Feet / Elbows and Knees / Fingertips and Toes / Drain and Fountain / Rai Sanyo and Kan Chazan / Rushes and Black cattle / Miko and Prayer / Buffalo and Princess / Hoof and Hairpin [Hizume to Kanzashi]
(from the flyer)
- Zokucho no Tabi Butoh performance - V
- This piece was also performed in Tokyo and Nagoya.
- Performer(s)
- TORII HALL
- Director/Choreographer
- Masaru Kaita
- Venue
- TORII HALL
- Year performed
- 1994
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HIDAMARI – Sunday in Life –
Directed by Furukawa Anzu, who was invited from Japan to direct the piece in Germany. Co-choreographed with the members of tatoeba.
In freezing cold Berlin, sunlight attracts us as an oasis in a desert. Not just humans, but beasts, insects and flowers transform as they unwind in the light and relax in the darkness.
In this work, the lives of living creatures are woven into a tapestry of shadows in the interplay of light and darkness.
- Premiered in April 1989 at Künstlerhaus Bethanian in Berlin.
- Performer(s)
- tatoeba
- Director/Choreographer
- Anzu Furukawa, tatoeba
- Year performed
- 1989
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HEN BAI
Hen Bai is an ritual performed in Onmyōdō [commonly known in the English as Ying Yang] for leaving, or calming down. It later entered Shintoism and Esoteric Buddhism, and even the world of Yūsoku Kojitsu. This is where Uno Man got his inspiration. It begins with a body supported by a rope, which appears to be a symbol for anti-gravity, followed by a scene in which two men have a tube connecting their mouths to their buttocks. In the second half we see a ritual of throwing salt by a performer in a white costume. This work further develops the Onmyō world from the final dance of his previous work 'Hot Key'. Performed only once at the MAMU Festival.
- Performer(s)
- Mamu Festival
- Director/Choreographer
- UNO-MAN
- Venue
- Junges Theater Göttingen
- Year performed
- 1994
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The Hanged Man
A 1976 dance film made in memory of sculptor Wim de Haan (1913-1967), who had a great interest in Eastern spirituality.
The story begins at the Magere Brug [Skinny Bridge] in Amsterdam. Ishii Mitsutaka walks with what appears to be a wooden cross while his friends follow behind. Next there is dance in performed in a prison-like room, reminding us of de Haan's time as a Japanese prisoner of war, and Ishii performs the dance of a young girl in de Haan's studio. The piece ends with Ishii, dressed in a kimono, playing the role of a hanged man.
- Performer(s)
- Mitsutaka Ishii
- Director/Choreographer
- Meino Zeillemaker
- Venue
- Amsterdam
- Year performed
- 1976
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Half-Demon (Nama-nari)
A solo performance on 'nudity, immobility and verticality', 'Half-Demon (Nama-nari)' was first performed in 1985 and became a major turning point for Iwana Masaki. Wanting to bring out his inner femininity, he performed for the first time in a European dress. That same year, Iwana began calling his own works 'butoh'. Nama-nari is the Noh mask of a woman with slight protruding horns, before she becomes a hannya [female demon].
- Performer(s)
- TORII HALL
- Director/Choreographer
- Masaki Iwana
- Venue
- TORII HALL
- Year performed
- 1999
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Guerrilla Kuyo-Kuyo ga onnen (Guerrilla Kuyo-Kuyo is Here with Grudge)
Memorial performance for Guerrilla Kuyo-Kuyo, an actor who died tragically at the age of 30 due to administrative mismanagement.
- Performer(s)
- Performance Troupe TAIHEN
- Director/Choreographer
- Manri Kim
- Venue
- Suita City Hall
- Year performed
- 1985
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Green Fever
Premiered at the Institut français du Japon - Tokyo. Wrapped in a black costume, Yamada Setsuko transforms her introspective world into movement. Three performers repeat gentle movements like children in a kagura performance. Korean critic Kim Tae-won commented: "I will never forget the shock I felt when I saw Yamada Setsuko for the first time. Her transparent will and precision of technique are the ideals of expressive solo dance". This work, which consciously abstracts reality, clarifies Yamada's unique dance movement and method.
- Participated in the Chang Mu Chum Festival
- Yamada Setsuko Butoh Performance
- Performer(s)
- Setsuko Yamada
- Director/Choreographer
- Setsuko Yamada
- Venue
- Chang-Mu Dance Theater
- Year performed
- 1987
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Grain
Created while living in Catskills upstate New York, the piece was premiered in Kampo Cultural Center in 1983 and was performed again as part of Dance Theater Workshop's 1984 winter season, for which Eiko & Koma received the inaugural Bessie New York Performance award.
-Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance Award)
-Premiere: January 1983 at the Kampo Cultural Center
- Performer(s)
- Eiko & Koma
- Director/Choreographer
- Eiko & Koma
- Venue
- American Dance Theater Workshop
- Year performed
- 1984
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Golden Powder Show 1993
The piece was invited to be performed at the Kunsthaus Tacheles (1990-2012) in former East Berlin, which since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was occupied by avant-garde artists and had became the centre of the Berlin counterculture. In the 1970s and 1980s, when there was very little funding for dance, many butoh dancers earned their living and performance costs through cabaret dancing. The Golden Powder Show can be considered a highlight of cabaret dance.
- Performer(s)
- tatoeba
- Venue
- Kunsthaus Tacheles
- Year performed
- 1993
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Galactic Rebellion ’91 – I Just Wanted to Kiss the Moon –
Premiered in June 1989 at the AI Hall in Itami. In this work, the theatre company Taihen - a theatre company for people with disabilities - breaks away from their previous style and creates a new expression developed solely through the movements of the performers' bodies, without fancy costumes or dialogue. Miyajima Ichiro's calligraphy and leotards reveal the movements of the performers clearly and, enhanced with lighting and the use of paper and cloth, a dynamic performance is created. The theme is the liberation of one's own mind and oneness with the universe.
- Performer(s)
- Performance Troupe TAIHEN
- Director/Choreographer
- Manri Kim
- Venue
- Kitazawa Town Hall
- Year performed
- 1991
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Furi
Japanese dance can be divided into three main groups: 'mai', 'furi' and 'odori' [all translate to 'dance' in English]. The title of this piece 'Furi' [also meaning 'choreography'] was named after a desire to open up the dynamism of this type of dance to its original meaning. The recorded music was composed for this performance by Hattori Koichi, conducted by Tezuka Yukinori, and performed by Orchestra Sonore, while the artwork was created by the at the time up-and-coming artist James Kawada. Ten female and twelve male dancers were performed the piece, dressed in simple leotards and tights.
- Participated in the ACA National Arts Festival 1971
- Awarded the ACA National Arts Festival 1971 Excellence Award
- Performer(s)
- Wakamatsu Miki & Tsuda Ikuko Free Dance Performance
- Director/Choreographer
- Miki Wakamatsu, Ikuko Tsuda
- Venue
- Asahi Seimei Hall
- Year performed
- 1971
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Fruit of Knowledge
Adam and Eve, encouraged by the serpent, eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge and incur the wrath of God. Forced out of paradise, mankind build a world using knowledge, creating a pleasant urban life.
Humans change and evolve, but they also produce abnormal people. A girl is assaulted, becomes mentally ill and her parents suffer. A group of doctors represent the duality of both Adam and Eve, and the serpent.
During her convalescence, the girl steps on a snake and gets better from the shock.
With the help of the serpent, she returns to the world of knowledge... The myth is reborn in the present day. Human joy is shown to be entangled with nature.
- Participated in the ACA National Arts Festival 1985
- Performer(s)
- Wakamatsu Miki & Tsuda Ikuko Free Dance Performance
- Director/Choreographer
- Miki Wakamatsu, Ikuko Tsuda
- Venue
- Yomiuri Hall
- Year performed
- 1985
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Yamazaki Kota’s ‘From Picnic’ and Mori Miyako’s ‘Solo & Soul’
'From Picnic' is a fleeting dance in which the last man dances ""for someone he cannot see"". It is a development of Yamazaki Kota's 'Picnic', which was presented at Spiral Hall in Tokyo in July 1997.
Mori Mikayo performed 'Solo & Soul'. In this piece, she connected with what emerges on the other side of her own intentions, from the space between her thoughts and the energy of feelings that occur when different thoughts and images pass through her body to the outside.
- Participated in the 4th OSAKA DANCE EXPERIENCE Dancce Battle - Before Dance / After Dance - Yamazaki Kota x Mori Miyako
- Performer(s)
- TORII HALL
- Director/Choreographer
- Kota Yamazaki, Mikayo Mori
- Venue
- TORII HALL
- Year performed
- 1998
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From Darkness to Light
There are two types of death dances: Danses des Morts, rooted in religion, and Danses Macabres, where the living also have a little fun with death. There is a legacy of 'death-loving cultures' all over the world. Population booms always follow mass deaths caused by famine and war. I began to realise that life is valued only through death after experiencing the death of several of my own loved ones, and that the performing arts are about identifying pain.
My dance has recently become less an art for the gods or the Absolute, and more an art for human beings and their fragility in fleeting life.
- Participated in the ACA National Arts Festival 1979
- Awarded the ACA National Arts Festival 1979 Excellence Award
- Performer(s)
- Wakamatsu Miki & Tsuda Ikuko Free Dance Performance
- Director/Choreographer
- Miki Wakamatsu, Ikuko Tsuda
- Venue
- Yomiuri Hall
- Year performed
- 1979
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Frankenstein’s Fable
The story of an imperfect life form born from a doctor's obsession with life.
Unable to accept the death of a loved one. People who wish for a happy future with their loved ones.
A man is removed from the circle of reincarnation, from life to death, and from death to life, and is broken.
The doctor was exposed to the mystery of life, and wanted to know everything.
A horribly tragic fable.
- Participated in the ACA National Arts Festival 1980
- Performer(s)
- Wakamatsu Miki & Tsuda Ikuko Free Dance Performance
- Director/Choreographer
- Miki Wakamatsu, Ikuko Tsuda
- Venue
- Yomiuri Hall
- Year performed
- 1980
