Researching Ankoku Butoh

The Keio University Art Center (KUAC) houses the Tatsumi Hijikata Archive, which manages a very extensive collection of materials on Butoh (BUTOH). It is safe to say that any researcher intending to write a paper on Butoh or avant-garde theater will inevitably visit this archive. Within this archive, there is a research group called "Portfolio Butoh," which I lead.

The "Butoh" discussed here is not the social dancing referred to in terms like the "butokai" (balls) of the Rokumeikan, but rather an avant-garde art form originating in Japan that has spread worldwide as "Ankoku Butoh." As the name "Ankoku" (darkness) suggests, it does not pursue the graceful, dynamic, and beautiful physical expression seen in ballet; rather, one of its characteristics is an expression that at first glance appears grotesque and morbid (though, of course, this is not always the case). The shaven-headed, white-painted physical expression of the recently deceased Ushio Amagatsu of Sankai Juku was one form of Butoh. Its pioneer was Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986). Although there are various theories, Ankoku Butoh is said to have begun in 1959 with a short piece titled "Kinjiki" (Forbidden Colors), created by and starring Tatsumi Hijikata. Its content, based on the theme of male homosexuality depicted by the French novelist Jean Genet (1910–1986)—who was also once imprisoned as a criminal—borrowed its title from a novel by Yukio Mishima and was scandalous for its time, defying social morals. In any case, the new physical expression initiated by Hijikata subsequently changed its name to "Ankoku Buyo" (Dark Dance) in 1961 and "Ankoku Butoh" (Dark Dance) in 1965, eventually establishing its position as a genre of contemporary art known as "Butoh" or BUTOH.

A major characteristic of Butoh, pioneered by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, is that its formation involved not only dance professionals but also a wide range of avant-garde artists of the time, including musicians, painters, writers, poets, scholars, and thinkers, either directly or indirectly. The first names that come to mind are novelist Yukio Mishima, French literature scholar Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, photographer Eikoh Hosoe, and poet Minoru Yoshioka. Among theater figures, Juro Kara, who visited Asbestos Hall in 1965; Shuji Terayama, also from the Tohoku region (Hijikata from Akita, Terayama from Aomori); and Makoto Sato of Kuro Tento (Black Tent) also saw Hijikata's earliest performances and were inspired to start dancing. In fact, Tatsumi Hijikata was less a dancer and choreographer who refined his works through repeated performances and more a leader of an artistic movement, engaging in a wide range of activities. In the sense that Butoh consciously aligned itself with various fields of contemporary art and aimed from the outset to transcend its own possibilities, it can be described as a transcendental contemporary art form that, from its very inception, possessed a diversity that could not be confined to the single genre of dance. Its goal, so to speak, was to overturn the conventional wisdom of a world tamed by systems, authority, and customs, and I believe this is why it was able to resonate with various artists across different genres.

I am a graduate of the Department of English Literature in the Faculty of Letters at this university and specialize in Shakespearean drama. However, under the guidance of my mentor and "mother figure," the late Professor Kako Kusuhara (a Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Letters at this university and the first woman to become a professor in the Faculty of Letters), I became involved with the Keio University Art Center (KUAC) and stepped into the world of Butoh research. I have previously written about Shakespeare in this "Gakumon no Susume" series, but I am surprised to find that, for me, the seemingly disparate worlds of Shakespeare and Ankoku Butoh are connected as polar extremes of artistic expression founded on anti-conventionalism and diversity.