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April 27, 2024
 

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BUTOH

Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 28, 2020
Deconstructing the avant-garde art of butoh with Taketeru Kudo
As Taketeru Kudo takes a new approach to butoh, the dancer says the art is gaining a strong following overseas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2018
'Portrait of Ohno Yoshito': A deeper look at butoh's mythical figure
Here, Inuhiko Yomota takes on Yoshito Ohno (born 1938), the "mythical figure" of butoh — a genre so undefinable that poet Miyoshi Toyoichiro once called it "a dance, performance, acting, or whatever you like." Donald Richie (1924-2013) wrote of his friend, and founder of butoh, Tatsumi Hijikata (1928-86), that "pain, exhaustion, death" were "the elements of his dance."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 15, 2018
Dairakudakan's 'unearthly' butoh meets a tortured Russian tale
Following a January press conference in which the New National Theatre, Tokyo, announced that Dairakudakan, one of the world's leading butoh companies, would be staging two performances of "Tsumi to Batsu" ("Crime and Punishment") in March, troupe founder Akaji Maro delivered a triumphant statement.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 29, 2017
Takao Kawaguchi pays homage to butoh icon Kazuo Ohno by retracing his every move
To see a performance of butoh, the Japanese dance form in which the body twists and contorts on stage, is to almost feel like you're being transported to another world. And noone was more otherworldly than the late Kazuo Ohno (1906-2010).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Oct 21, 2017
Cultural disorientation is dancer Yumi Umiumare's artistic drive
At a certain level, the act of resettling overseas unsettles the idea of home itself. It ruptures the narrative of belonging that we construct through attachments to people and places. For the immigrant, home is no longer an immutable fact, but a space between memory and desire — always elsewhere. This sense of estrangement is perhaps most strongly felt when returning "home" after a long period of leave. As Czech novelist Milan Kundera once put it, going back reveals "the substantial strangeness of the world and of existence."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Jun 17, 2017
Performance artist Eiko Otake is a stranger in New York
Move to rest, sleep, and dream. Move to pass time, bloom, and linger.' These are the opening lines of performing artist Eiko Otake's 'Delicious Movement Manifesto.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 7, 2016
New butoh venue aims for intimacy
Butoh has found a permanent home in Kyoto. Appropriately, for a form of dance that originated in Japan but has flown under the radar here, that home is a tiny 154-year-old kura, or storehouse, hidden down an alley and squeezed between a medical college and residential buildings slap bang in the middle of the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 28, 2016
'Butoh': the dance of death and disease
The first dance in Japan may well have been a mythological striptease. In one of the most famous episodes from Japanese folklore, the goddess Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto entices Amaterasu Omikami, the sun deity, to come out of hiding by ripping off her clothes and dancing. The elemental irreverence of this moment is still visible today in butoh, a style of dance also known as ankoku butoh ("the dance of utter darkness").
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
May 30, 2015
Sayoko Yamaguchi, an enigma to the end
You may not know the name, but there is a good chance you know the face. As Clara Bow, Greta Garbo and Twiggy were iconic of their times, Sayoko Yamaguchi was everywhere in the 1970s. Even if you weren't a dedicated follower of fashion, it would have been difficult to avoid her cool gaze, which appeared in magazines, TV and film, on album covers and as a shop-front mannequin all over the world. It is not an overstatement to say that for years Yamaguchi's face and style were almost synonymous with contemporary Japanese womanhood and femininity outside of Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2014
Insects inspire butoh master Maro
"I think if you looked at Earth from space, you'd see that the ones who really hold the reins here are not humans, but insects," Akaji Maro, a master of the expressionist Japanese dance genre butoh, declared in a recent interview for The Japan Times.
New JAL chief concerned about yen’s ‘excessive’ weakness
Mitsuko Tottori became Japan Airlines’ first female CEO on April 1, having risen through the ranks as a flight attendant and heading the flight attendant and customer experience divisions.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Yen inches closer to intervention point as BOJ meeting starts
The rate of the yen against the U.S. dollar is displayed in the trading room at foreign exchange brokerage Gaitame.com in Tokyo on Thursday.
Princess Aiko makes debut at imperial garden party
Princess Aiko attends an imperial garden party in Tokyo on Tuesday.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Tokyo's Koto Ward by-election a race unlike any other
Natsumi Sakai, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s candidate and one of four female candidates running in the by-election, touts her experience as a cancer survivor and midwife as having prepared her to tackle issues that women currently face.
Kyotographie's strong 12th edition shines light into the margins
Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, who goes by Yoriyas, turned to photography, shooting motion while in motion himself, after an injury forced him to give up his career as a professional breakdancer.
For amateur sumo, a fresh start offers hope against time-wasting and gamesmanship
Wrestlers prepare for the start of a bout at the 2023 Sumo World Championships in Tokyo. Starting this month, placing one hand on the clay first is no longer allowed.
LDP veteran Nikai's youngest son expected to succeed him in Wakayama
Toshihiro Nikai, former secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, announced in March that he would not run in the next Lower House election to take responsibility for the political funds scandal that rocked his party and his own faction.
New workers name Shohei Ohtani as 'dream boss' for two years running
Shohei Ohtani has been overwhelmingly voted as the “dream boss” for people who started working in April, according to a survey.

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