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."