CUNY LECTURE PROGRAM: Perspectives on the Origin and Legacy of Butoh

NYBF. One day lecture series featuring Sondra Fraleigh, yukio waguri, and tatsuro. They discussed the the emrergance of butoh as well as its intersections with politics, academic resarch and self expression.

Nov. 12, 2007, 2:00-9:00 p.m : This series of lectures will trace the sources and the ongoing legacy of the avant-garde dance form, which emerged in post-World War II Japan as ankoku butoh (literally “dance of darkness”). Lectures will offer an in-depth look at butoh, by providing the historical context to its emergence (with a focus on butoh co-creators Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno), and by delving into topics related to the connections of butoh with other disciplines. Participating lecturers: Sondra Fraleigh, Wukio Waguri, and Tatsuro Ishii.

An Introduction to Butoh’s Founders: Hijikata and Ohno by Sondra Fraleigh, 1hr

Sondra Fraleigh tells the story of the founding of butoh through the parnership of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, as she weaves its aesthetic development with the social and political issues of post-World War II Japan. She paints a vivid portrait of each individual Hijikata, an artist keenly aware of the structures of society and who wanted to uncover the dance already happening in the body; and Ohno, who survived nine years as a soldier in World War II, danced into his nineties, and became one of the most beloved figures in the contemporary dance world.

An Introduction to Butoh Choreography: Hijikata’s Butoh-Fu from Waguri’s Notebooks by Yukio Waguri, 1.5hrs

Yukio Waguri shared his exploration of the nature of butoh choreography, with its intense physicality and deep relationship to poetry and the visual arts. Butoh-Fu is a system that Waguri has developed directly from the words and choreogaphy of his teacher, Tatsumi Hijikata. Sometimes sounding like poetry, each word or phrase represents a specific movement and its relationship to the body.

The International Spread of Butoh: Body as Object by Tatsuro Ishii, 2hrs

Tatsuro Ishii discussed various aspects of butoh as they relate to Shamanistic traditions in Asia.Though butoh was born within the limited historical and artistic context of 1950s and 1960s Japan, it has carried with it certain universal aspects of the body that permeate ancient traditions of the body in Asia.

The 3rd biennial New York Butoh Festival celebrated the origins, and international evolution of butoh in a series of performances, workshops, films and lectures. Butoh is a contemporary dance form that emerged in Japan. Fusing the traditional with the avant-garde, complex choreography with improvisation, wild physicality with meditative stillness, butoh defies easy definition and embraces paradox. After almost half a century since Hijikata’s Ankoku Butch Project, butoh dancers have been appearing like mushrooms across the world taking myriad forms and paths; some retain the butoh label as a marketing strategy, or to declare affiliation with original butoh artists. Others continue the teachings of their masters, make crucial discoveries, and perhaps later become susceptible to stagnation in these once-vital realization till others have gained great inspiration from their studies, evolved their learning and art process to create their own butoh. This Festival celebrates the life-work of dancers whose bodies demonstrate the pursuit of honesty, going beyond found styles or forms. Butoh is born and dies with every dancer; that is its fundamental power.

NYBF 2007 showcased over 60 emerging and established local and international artists. Because are currently the only festival in the United States presenting butoh’s international spectrum, and was a rare chance to see a number of these legendary dancers perform, many for the first time in New York. In this year’s Festival we were pleased to open our programming to US-based dancers at Japan Society and CAVE.

This festival was presented at CAVE Organization, a nonprofit artist collective, founded in 1996. CAVE’s produced more than 300 visual art exhibitions, multi-media installations, workshops and performances throughout the last eleven years. The New York Butch Festival is a natural outgrowth of CAVE’s ongoing commitment to presenting international art and to promoting interdisciplinary and multicultural exchange.