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Carlos Fittante
14 May 2016
Known for its spectacles of semi-nude, grotesque and morphed bodies covered in white rice
powder moving with glacial slowness, Butoh is a Japanese avant-garde dance form established in 1959 by
Tatsumi Hijikata, a dancer and choreographer whose work was influenced greatly by solo dance artist
Kazuo Ohno (Trutter 24). A cursory review of both men’s lives provided a background of the tapestry of
experiences and ideas from which Ankoku Butoh was formed by these dance pioneers. Working at first
separately as artists and then together, they mined the stark and horrific events of their lives to develop
simultaneously a new Japanese movement expression. This investigation examined the relationship
between Ankoku Butoh and dissociative mental states such as trance. Central to the thesis is an
understanding of Hijikata’s training method for Ankoku Butoh. The writings of Toshiharu Kasai, a Butoh
practitioner, dance therapist, and professor of psychology at Sapporo Gaikuin University in Sapporo,
Japan, shed light on the consciousness of the Butoh dancer from a clinical psychology perspective. A
review of Ankoku Butoh’s evolution revealed its syncretic response to the specific conditions of its
history.
Tatsumi Hijikata, born in 1928 as Kunio Yoneyama in the rural Akita region of northern Japan,
was the youngest of eleven children. Suffering extreme poverty and abuse as a child, he witnessed his
oldest sister sold into prostitution. Later as a Butoh performer, he grew his hair long so her spirit could
dance in his body (Nanako 20). As a coping mechanism for the harsh conditions of his life, he utilized his
imagination, viewing life as an actor in a theatre playing a role and choosing dance to express himself
(Moore 46). His formal training in dance began with dance teacher Matsumoto Katsuko, who was
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schooled by Eguchi Takaya, a student in German Expressionism at the Mary Wigman Institute in
Germany (Klein 7). Through these studies, Hijikata became exposed to the aesthetic values of German
Expressionism, which brought the dancer’s awareness to the cosmic forces and inner impulses moving the
body (Naranjo). In 1949 on a visit to Tokyo, Hijikata first saw Kazuo Ohno perform with the Ando
Mistuko Dance Institute and was deeply impressed by Ohno’s unique, radiant charisma (MaGee).
In 1952, Hijikata moved to Tokyo to pursue further his desire to dance and joined the Ando
Mitsuko Dance Institute (Fraleigh, Nakamura 22). In Tokyo, he tried lessons in flamenco, tap, jazz,
modern dance, and ballet but, with one leg shorter than the other, he lacked the ideal dancer body type
and grace of movement (Moore 47). Speaking with a regional accent, he was marginalized by the class
conscious urban Tokyoites and associated himself with outcast social groups, criminals, and bohemians
(Moore 46). During this period, he read profusely, especially the works of French avant-garde dramatist,
Antonin Artaud, and novelist Jean Genet, both French homosexual playwrights, who glorified the lives of
the socially disaffected. Hijikata identified with these authors and their quests to find beauty in people
His artistic partnership with Kazuo Ohno began in 1953 (MaGee). They exchanged ideas and
creatively influenced each other with their opposite dispositions -- Hijikata’s fascination with the dark and
macabre and Ohno’s optimistic luminosity. Susan Blakely-Klein, a professor of Japanese literature,
summarized their creative relationship with butoh as the culmination of Ohno and Hijikata's respective
light and dark energies, in which, “both poles…were necessary to create the energy that is butoh” (6).
Ohno, the other progenitor of Butoh, was the oldest of thirteen children. Born in Hokaido, Japan
in 1906. He also experienced abject poverty as a child. While a teenager, due to his family’s lack of
financial resources, medical intervention for his ailing brother was unavailable. Ohno’s brother died in his
arms (Klein 5). In junior high school, Ohno lived with his childless aunt and uncle in Akita prefecture, the
same region where Hijikata grew up. In junior high school, he distinguished himself as a track athlete, and
in 1929, he enrolled in the Japan Athletic College in Tokyo. That same year, he saw the world famous
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flamenco dancer, La Argentina, at the Imperial Theatre. This experience impressed him deeply and
awakened his calling to dance, as demonstrated in his words, “From the first moment, I was moved
almost beyond bearing. I was totally stunned. This was the encounter that changed my life” (Klein 7).
Ohno revisited this experience in 1977 through his solo, Admiring La Argentina, a work examining stage
presence (Klein 7). A 1981 dance review in The New York Times described images from the work:
Dressed in a lavender gown with amazing furbelows and a frumpy bonnet, Mr. Ohno has made
himself up like a glittering old hag. He totters and poses avidly through the opening ''Death and
Birth'' segment, set to organ music by J.S. Bach...''Tangos'' has Mr. Ohno flouncing through...just
The aesthetic of this solo contrasted the conventional image of youthful perfection seen in dance and
Upon graduating college, Ohno was employed as a physical education teacher at a private
Christian girls’ high school, motivating him to study formally dance. From 1934-1936, he trained in
German Expressionism with Japanese dance instructors, Takaya Eguchi and Souko Miya, who studied
with Wigman in Germany. With the advent of World War II, he was conscripted into the Japanese army
and became a prisoner of war. Surviving desperate prison camp conditions, he lost many of his comrades
and would later speak about their spirits present in his dancing (Ohno). In 1949, at age forty-three, he
returned to the stage, where Hijikata first encountered his performance and recognized him as a kindred
artistic spirit.
In 1954, Hijikata began visiting Ohno’s home, establishing a dialogue between the two men.
Ohno taught his style of German Expressionism to Hijikata, and Hijikata taught Ohno about the avant-
garde ideas he absorbed from Artaud and Genet's writings (Klein 8). A prostitute character from Genet’s
Our Lady of the Flowers inspired Ohno’s famous cross-dressing dance solo, Divine (MaGee). In 1959,
this fruitful interchange led Hijikata to create the first Butoh work, Kinjiki or Forbidden Colors, based on
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the novel by Yukio Mishima. A duet for Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno, Kazuo Ohno’s son, this shocking
piece captured the unhealthy relationship between a young attractive man and a “bitter elderly writer”
(MaGee). Performed in silence, Hijikata, as the older man stalked the youthful Yoshito with “grotesque
predatory movements” (Magee). “As a symbol of their love”, the characters exchanged a live white
chicken and ending in darkness, Yoshito strangled the chicken between his thighs, to suggest his
homosexual rape (Nanako 19, MaGee). This work evoked outrage, and as a result Hijikata lost his
membership in the Japanese Dance Association (Magee). With the premiere Kinjiki, Hijikata established
some of Ankoku Butoh’s core values: to create transgressive work and to make work that has “visceral
impact” (Magee).
Hijikata’s new dance-theatre was filled with the dark characters of Genet’s world, Artaud’s
surrealist theatre, and Wigman’s cosmic primal urges in the body. Known today as Butoh, Hijikata
originally called the dance, Ankoku Butoh, the utter dark dance, using the film noir genre as inspiration for
the name (Fraleigh, Nakamura 23). Ankoku literally means darkness; butoh comes from the Japanese
word buyo, meaning dance. Preferring the staccato “t” to the softer “y,” Hijikata changed buyoh to Butoh
believing it better reflected the intent of the style’s “dark cosmological dance” (Nanako 12).
A look at medieval Japan sheds light on Butoh’s indigenous lineage. During the Muromachi
Period (1392-1573), Japanese society was strictly stratified into seven social classes. The emperor, the
head of the hierarchy, was considered a descendant of the sun goddess, followed by the shi, no, ko, sho,
eta, and hinin, or warriors, farmers, artisans, merchants, waste collectors, and beggars, respectively
(Jackson). The kawaramono, an outcast social group from the eta class, lived on the outskirts of towns
and by the riverbanks. Unwelcomed at the court and temple ceremonies, they developed the misemono,
their own shamanistic dances and rituals rooted in ancient beliefs that were documented in Chinese court
annals about Japan from the Han dynasty, 500 ACE (Ortolani 2). Author Donald Richie explained the
function of kawaramono ritualistic theatre in his book, Viewed Sideways: Writings on Culture and Style
in Contemporary Japan:
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The shogunate had its dancers in Shinto kagura and in court Noh drama, but these mirrored only
ideology, liturgical ambitions, and doctrines of salvation. They did not define the forces of a
perceived chaos and, in various forms, damnation...The actor/dancer outcast was given the task of
personifying darkness since it was the sacred kagura, and the noble Noh, that represented light.
Yami, the place of darkness, this was where the dancers danced, danced for yami no kamisama,
worldview of Japanese culture, and a long-standing shamanistic tradition showed the dark chaos and
mystery of life. This darkness was carried into the 19th century through the misemono theatre which
Japan's entry into westernization began with the forced opening of its borders by the West in
1853 and the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry from the United States, who was sent to establish
“coaling bases” and unlock the Japanese market to American trade (Griffiths). In 1854, under threat of
United States’ naval bombardment, Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with the United States, resulting
in the sudden influx of United States currency and goods that destabilized the Japanese economy
(Griffiths). Other foreign nations, such as Russia and Great Britain, also secured similar arrangements
with Japan. Rampant inflation in Japan led to the overthrow of the ruling shogunate and the reinstatement
of Emperor Meji during the Meji Restoration from 1868-1912 (Griffiths). Influenced by western
Victorian norms, the Japanese government transformed Kabuki into Japan’s national theatre and
eliminated its licentious lower class elements derived from the misemono (Klein 13).
With the death of Emperor Meji, the Taisho Period (1912-26) began with the reign of Emperor
Meji’s son, Yoshihito, as Emperor Taisho (facinghistory.org). During its forced opening by the West,
Japan endured racist and unjust policies and in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, Japan proposed an
amendment for racial equality that was rejected by the United States and other member nations of the
League of Nations, which exacerbated tensions between the West and Japan (japan-guide.org). By 1921,
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Taisho’s son, Hirohito, was named Prince Regent, coinciding with a period of industrialization marked by
mass political demonstrations and strikes (facinghsitory.org). In 1923, The Great Kanto Earthquake
created mass devastation and martial law was imposed, creating an opportunity for the Japanese Imperial
Army to take power and oppress dissenters. In 1926, Yoshihito became Emperor Showa functioning as
Japan’s constitutional monarch and beginning the Showa Period (facinghistory.org). 1929-1932 was
marked by further political unrest; three prime ministers were removed or assassinated and subsequent
prime ministers came from military backgrounds. In 1940, the Imperial Japanese Army abolished all
political parties. Tojo Hideki of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association became Japan’s 40th Prime
Minister (facinghistory.org).
Japan’s extreme nationalism culminated with aggressive global military campaigns ending in
defeat and devastation in World War II, opening the nation to occupation by the United States from 1945-
1952. The ensuing eight years marked the implementation of the Mutual Defense Treaty and the United
States’ move to populate the Japanese islands with military bases and establish hegemonic western values
over Japanese culture. Japan’s quick adaptation of a western way of life left many citizens feeling
disassociated and spiritually lost (Klein 9). During the post-reconstruction period of the late '50s, leftist
factions and avant-garde elements in Japanese society called for a native expression in art and theatre, not
based on the elite traditional forms of the past, such as Noh and Kabuki, reminding people of the elite
samurai courts of the past and militant nationalism from World War II, respectively.
Concurrently, foreign western dance styles, such as ballet, Martha Graham modern dance
technique, and German Expressionism were introduced and took root. These did not suit the Japanese
body with its “ganimata”, bow legs (Kasai A Butoh Dance Method 2), or reflect the pure Japanese values
of a premodern, pre-western time (Klein 14). During the 1960s in Japan, popular interest emerged in
native pre-western Japanese culture, as articulated by historian Yanagita Kunio, whose writings
influenced the artists of the 1960s, including Hijikata (Klein 31). Kunio extoled the misemono as an
example of indigenous populist theater. According to Kunio, the misemono, formed by a marginalized
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group in society, were “the unconscious bearers of authentic Japanese tradition because of their
structurally inferior position” (Klein 32). Kunio’s belief was based on the assumption the vulnerable
disregarded members of a society, such as the very young, the very old, the handicapped, and the
mentally ill were unencumbered by social mores and free to express their basic instincts (Klein 32). The
misemono also offered a circus like atmosphere and a pastiche of diverse movement styles, including
“elite and popular forms”, as well as macabre aesthetics that were used to undermine the definitions of
conventional society and reinforce the irrationality and uncertainty of life (Klein 21, 32).
In Gerald A. Figal’s, Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan, Japan’s
historical convention of the grotesque were discussed, demonstrating a further link between the misemono
and Butoh:
Among the stories told by the rakugo performers (story tellers) a good number were ghost
(strangers)…dramatization in rakugo is achieved through the skillful coupling of the real with the
unreal…From this juxtaposition of the real everyday world as the audience knew it with an
unreal, fantastic worlds that defied the laws of that everyday world, rakugo attained its grotesque
(and usually humorous) effect and its power as a carnivalesque expression of social critique. (The
scholars) Sasaki and Morioka have argued …Grotesque can be a pointedly realistic denunciation
of a sham reality, of a world that has become absurd and fake. (26-27)
This was a striking parallel with Hijikata’s purposeful artistic vision for Butoh. He sought to create a
Japanese dance theatre that delved into the body and earth, rather than to aspire upward, as in ballet from
the West (Richie 167). In Butoh the dancer found the “god of weight” and gave expression to the dark
primal forces of existence and death, allowing them to be reclaimed and honored (Kasia, A Butoh Dance
Hijikata’s dance form, Ankoku Butoh, the dance of utter darkness, reclaimed ancient Japanese
populist beliefs. This was a direct response to Japan’s identity in crisis, a situation provoked by the total
devastation caused by the United States dropping the atomic bombs and subsequent military occupation,
followed by a ten-year reconstruction period that imposed foreign western values. These circumstances
provided a framework for Hijkata to create a dance theatre returning to Japan’s premodern, pre-western
period. With the fabric of Japanese society torn apart, he wanted to create a form that did not deny the
underlying erotic driving forces of the human psyche and reestablished a conscious shamanistic
connection to nature in which cosmic forces greater than the individual self are seen (Klein 14). Hijkata
stated, “The origins of Japanese dance are to be found in this very cruel life that the peasants endured…I
have always danced in a manner where I grope within myself for the roots of suffering by tearing at the
superficial harmony" (Sakamoto).
Interdisciplinary artist and scholar Michael Sakamoto addressed Butoh as a trance dance in his
article, Parallels of Psycho-Physiological and Musical Affect in Trance Ritual and Butoh Performance,
“Butoh artists at root engage in psycho-physiologically dissociative states highly similar to the locus of
mental imaging in initiatory, shamanic journeying” (Sakamoto). Ohno’s instructions to Butoh dance
students reinforced the altered state of consciousness necessary for this dance form, “Push yourself right
to the very edge of sanity…Our dance becomes godlike once the ghosts of the universe surge forth from
the depths of our consciousness” (Sakamoto). Kasai stated, for Butoh to happen the control of the
conscious mind must be loosened to facilitate the “unconscious reactions” of the body (A Butoh Dance
Method for Psychosomatic Exploration 5). Furthermore, Kasai explained there exists a multiplicity of
consciousness for the Butoh practitioner in the dissociated state (A Note on Butoh Body 4), and there are
parallels between the altered states of consciousness found in hypnosis and Butoh. Both practices
included verbal and movement exercises (New Understandings of Butoh Creation 23). Finally, Kasai
explained in Butoh the practitioner refrains from objectifying the body with the conscious mind in order
to experience movement where, “the self and the environment and the movements are not separated” (A
Note on Butoh Body 4).
To facilitate this state of consciousness, Hijikata developed a choreographic process leading his
dancers in rehearsals through a rigorous mental and physical practice using his movement scores, Butoh-
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fu, verbal directives based upon surrealist images. Addressing Hijikata’s use of language, film producer
and director, Kurihana Nanako, who studied with Hijikata’s muse, Yoko Ashikawa, stated in her
“…Hijikata’s words are not easy. Often his writings are strange, equivocal, and
incomprehensible…He frequently coined his own terms, such as ma-gusare (rotting space)
and nadare-ame (dribbling candy). His writings often are like surrealistic poems…Hijikata’s
writings are both evocative and challenging…(he) attempted to capture all kinds of emotions,
landscapes, ideas and son on, by using words that were physically real to him (14-15).
According to Nanako, Hijikata believed words and the cognitive process were rooted in the body, having
tactile sensations and movement (17). Hijikata attempted to metaphorically bind the body with words in
order to “cast-off” the skin of modern society to reveal the body’s “vanished history” (Nanako 17,
Nakajima 4). This process resulted in Butoh’s “un-dance” (A Note on Butoh Body 2). Nanako defined the
essence of Hijikata's Ankoku Butoh, as the moment when the “body only comes alive when it is chased in
to a corner by words and pain that is, consciousness” (17). Hijikata’s choreographic process filled the
dancer’s consciousness with an onslaught of imagery and suggestions, forcing the dancer to abandon
his/her civilized identity and familiar movement patterns (Nakajima 4).
This example of a Butoh-fu exercise recorded by Nanako from Ashikawa’s class demonstrated a
hand and then on to your lower arm and up to your upper arm.’ The teacher rubs a drumstick back and
forth across a drum, making a slithering sound. Then she touches those particular parts of the body to give
some physical sense to the student. ‘The number of insects increases one by one and finally, you have no
purpose. In the end, you are eaten by insects who enter through all the pores of your body, and your body
becomes hollow like a stuffed animal.’ Each insect has to be in its precise place. One should not confuse
or generalize the insects even when their numbers increase. The most difficult part of this exercise was
Of particular note from this Butoh-fu exercise is the insistence the exact location of every insect
be felt, and the assertion the dancer become the image, rather than “merely imagine”, or represent it.
These criteria required sustained focus and time, as confirmed by Nanako’s recount of Hijikata’s work
with Ashikawa. “Hijikata and the silent Ashikawa hid themselves away in a studio to create their dances.
In these intense sessions Hijikata fired off words and Ashikawa expressed them in movements and wrote
them down as Butoh notation. They worked alone for hours” (21).
In addition to the use of Butoh-fu scores, Hijikata utilized fasting as a training tool for his dancers
as confirmed by Kasai, “Hijikata ordered a disciple to survive by eating only one apple per day for six
months” (A Note on Butoh Body 7). Fasting as a training tool was also practiced by other Butoh
companies, including Sankaijuku who, “stopped eating several days before performance”, and according
to Kasais, “fasting or severe training loosens the reins of consciousness, and can invite the fusion of the
objectified and the objectifying self in an altered state of consciousness…it is well known that physically
extreme states can induce a hypnotic state, a trance or a dissociation of consciousness…” (A Note on
Butoh Body 7)
The American Psychology Association defined a trance as, “a state characterized by narrowed
attention and reduced response to stimuli” (Kirton). Many forms of trance consciousness occur on a
continuum of states ---light, full, and deep that can be induced by any number of means, including fasting,
hypnosis, meditation, and others (Wilson). The neuropsychology researcher team of Ulrike Halsband,
Susanne Mueller, Thilo Hinterberger, and Simon Strickner defined meditation as a focused attention on a
selected object or meta-attention for open monitoring with no explicit focus on objects (195). As
demonstrated by Nanako’s description of a Butoh-fu score, sustained focused attention was required to
pinpoint the exact location of a multitude of insects on one’s body. Likewise, meta-attention to the body
is needed to become the image of its shell after being devoured by the insects from the inside.
In the article, Plasticity Changes in the Brain in Hypnosis and Meditation, hypnosis was
described as “a state of focused attention, concentration and inner absorption” (Halsband, Mueller,
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Hinterberger, and Strickner 208). During a deep hypnotic trance, an individual may move his/her body
and perceive the action experienced as being externally motivated. This was due to the heightened activity
of the cerebellar-parietal network (Halsband, Mueller, Hinterberger, and Strickner 199). In Helen Smith's
Butoh, she clarified the goal in Butoh was to transform fully oneself into the phenomenon or object
the struggle between two identities. Smith wrote “perfect passivity” occurred when the body is moved and
not organized by the will or conscious control (33). Her statement, “the body is moved” reflected the
In his article, New Understandings of Butoh Creation, Kasai evaluated the Butoh dancer’s
“If the movements or the whole performance are well articulated verbally by the performer or the
audience, it cannot be butoh since there must have never been a dissociation of the self: Retrieval
state-specific memory or natural amnesia, and it is difficult to explain what the performance was
like and also to find pertinent wording to describe the performance, if it was performed and seen
by the audience in a dissociative state of mind. In the most ideal and essential butoh performance,
what the audience sees is not the performer's body but a non-materialized world as if the
performer's body becomes a prism and allows the audience to see something latent behind the
performer. What the performer experienced during the performance is like a dream during the
night, and he/she gradually notices afterwards that there is spiritual calmness in the depth of
his/her heart without clearly knowing why. It is an evidence of a return from pilgrimage through
the dissociated parts of the self, and a recovery or creation of his/her own wholeness, (A Note on
To conclude, evidence presented by Ankoku Butoh practitioners Nanako and Nakajima, who
studied with Hijikata and Ohno directly, revealed training methods used to produce dissociative states,
resulting in narrowed attention and a reduced response to stimuli, which qualified as a form of trance
practitioner and dance therapist, Kasai, analyzed this dissociative state through a scientific psychological
framework, suggesting these states have a multiplicity of consciousness. He offered the term Butoh-tai to
summarize the practitioner’s intent to alter consciousness and loosen conscious body control and to
express unconscious movement patterns (A Butoh Dance Method for Psychosomatic Exploration 5).
Smith identified this experience as a state of “perfect passivity” in her thesis, and she detailed the
sensation of the body being moved by the space or by forces from deep within (Smith 33). In addition, the
evidence for trance states found in Ankoku Butoh supported the reflections of Butoh performers Fraleigh
and Sakamoto, who used language evocative of trance dance, including possession, trance, and
Furthermore, Ankoku Butoh's roots and the development of the dissociative state of trance were
shaped by the historical context of Hijikata and Ohno’s lives during the tumultuous and violent changes
in Japan from the dropping of the Atomic Bomb in 1945 through the 1960s. They were inspired by
diverse western and eastern aesthetic influences and drew upon the performance practices of the
misenomo by the eta class from Japan’s Medieval period. They created a dance-theatre that freed the body
from its modern civilized identity. Hijikata's training practice for his dancers utilized Butoh-fu and fasting
and transformed the dancer’s consciousness and facilitated an altered state akin to those seen in hypnosis
and trance and used by the shaman mediums of Japan’s premodern past for the Butoh performance. In
short, the historical and scientific literature supported the inquiry of this investigation of the trance aspect
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