New York Butoh Festival 2003 Opening Celebration

The festival celebrated its opening at the CAVE Gallery with a free event: a collaborative installation/performance by local artists, with live music and a reception of free food and drink. The performance installation was by the CAVE Ensemble, a video installation by Shine Moriya, photographs by Ethel Kambourian, opera singing by
Benjamin Marcantoni, and a music performance by Kenta Nagai.

The first New York Butoh Festival was a festival celebrating the origins and the international evolution of this vital form. Butoh dance emerged in post-World War II Japan and has become a worldwide movement influencing artists in many disciplines. This festival presented emerging artists and established masters from Japan, Europe and the Eastern and Western coasts of the U.S. The New York Butoh Festival served as an East Coast hub for a growing regional and international network of butoh performers and audiences, and was presented by CAVE Organization, the oldest existing experimental art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Since its conception in 1996 as an artists-in-residence, gallery and performance space, the CAVE has confronted the complex challenges and possibilities of the urban landscape. 

The New York Butoh Festival reflects the organization’s intention to attract, provoke and support exploration, generative confrontation and collaboration among artists and audiences from diverse disciplines and cultures. This festival was created through donated work, and we are grateful to the performers, staff and volunteers who have made it possible.