Original subtitles

in this series so far on the history of

bhuto i've spent a lot of time talking

about the founders of bhuto tatsumi

hishikata and kazuo ono but i wanted to

take a little bit of time to talk about

some of the other buddha artists who

came after them

this

list is not meant to be exhaustive it

couldn't be in a short video but i did

want to give a little taste

of some of the important and wonderful

work that came after them this is a very

personal list i just want to talk about

some of the artists that were important

to me

butoh went in two different directions

one that followed hishikata's more

stylized more choreographed style of

pluto and the other that followed kazuo

ono's more personal more improvised

style of bhuto i don't want to make a

value judgment about either direction

both

created very powerful very compelling

very beautiful and wonderful works of

art the first performer to found his own

butoh company after working with tatsumi

ishikata was akagi moreau who founded

darakuticon in 1972.

that's a large company that does my

understanding is choreographed stylized

works with a lot of large-scale

spectacle i've only seen them perform

once and that was kind of late in the

career so i don't have a lot of insight

that i can give to them

my favorite group in this

choreographed stylized

style of bhuto is sankajuku i've seen

them perform a few times they start in

japan relocated to france

because i imagine there was more support

for the arts in europe and they do

large-scale

wonderful beautiful pieces with very

compelling artists very compelling

dancers very compelling imagery

um

absolutely astounding i've heard them

described as

that when you see them

it's like you're watching an ancient

ritual that you might not understand but

you are invited to participate in

they're beautiful pieces that evoke

a timeless almost cosmic

sense of wonder and emotion

and

personal depth

they're just truly truly amazing

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another important putter dancer is

koichi tomino and his wife hiroko tamino

they both worked with hijikata and

um koichi tamino was one of hichikata's

most important dancers in the

late 60s

and he moved to berkeley california and

he and his wife hiroko

founded her rupen ha they've been very

important in bringing bhuto to the west

in fact my understanding is they kind of

understood it as their mission

after hishikatu died to bring puto to

the west so they've been teaching

in the bay area in california for many

years they were my first bhuto teachers

and they have been very important in

spreading um

freddie bhutto into the west

another important duo were eiko and coma

who studied with kazuo ono and then also

went to germany and studied with a

disciple of mary vigmon the german

expressionist

dance that was so important to hijikata

and ono and their development

they do really wonderful beautiful work

they've

they seem to have disassociated

themselves from calling their work bhuto

as time went on

when i watch it it's striking is very

much as bhuto but i can understand why

an artist would want to not call

themselves bhuto because sometimes

putting labels on something

limits it and i totally understand not

wanting to put that label on your work

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on the improvised

side of bhuto one very important artist

was mintanaka i saw him perform a few

times at ps1 in new york he's a

wonderful dancer wonderful performer

just very very compelling pieces

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mintanaka is also very important in the

history of bhuto because of the students

that he trained for many many years he

had this body weather laboratory a farm

in japan where students would come to

live for weeks at a time and do the

bhuto training

many many bhuto artists went through

that training and continued to perform

to this day and of course akira kasai is

just an astounding buto pioneer who very

much

embodies the

improvised personal

side of bhuto i've seen him perform many

times and

every night

even if he's doing the same piece he

performs differently different energy

different movements um every performance

is different from him

again i could do a whole video just on

akira kasai

so

so

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the other thing i want to talk about in

terms of bhuto continuing beyond the

work and life of the two initial

pioneers

is

how to put the idea of the bhuto retreat

the bhuto workshop

because bhuto is about

i don't sound pretentious to talk about

spiritual development or spiritual work

but bhuto is a spiritual work it's a

spiritual performance there's

something almost buddhist in the

approach to bhuto the sense of freeing

yourself from yourself

of getting

transcending your personal psychology

of confining your connection

with nature and with everything

is is a sense of liberation a sense of

freedom and one of the things i think

that is most important to bhuto's

existence in the world this idea of this

of the bhuta retreat the bluto workshop

you know you you go someplace and for

one week for two weeks for three weeks

you're just focused on the work when i

lived in san francisco we had a butoh

festival every summer where we would you

know anywhere from two weeks to four

weeks we would all be focused on this

work on

disconnecting yourself

from the hecticness of daily life and

just focus on the work

mintanaka famously had his body weather

laboratory on a farm in japan where you

would go there retreat from the world

and do the work

to this day if you look at bhuto groups

on facebook there are always advertising

a retreat in italy a retreat here or two

there yumiko yoshioka does these

periodic you know two or three week

butoh retreats at her castle in germany

and i think this is a very important

contribution that bhuto has to the world

the spiritual work of it i've known many

pluto dancers who are very devoted to

taking these workshops without any

intention of being

serious performers it's it's the work

then the freedom and the growth that it

gives them

which is

which is so powerful and so meaningful

and so valuable

and i think even if butoh

never

grows or continues as a performance

these

i've been calling the bhuta retreats

can be very very important to society in

some ways they remind me of

you know what i've read about kotowski's

work that

you know i'll talk a little more about

grotowski in a later video but he

stopped doing performance as performance

or theater as performance because he

wanted to explore theater as

a spiritual work

and that to me can be one of the most

important legacies of this work not just

the performance aspect to it but pluto

as a spiritual work that you can take

with you even if you don't perform bhuto

even if you don't perform at all i

personally

like combining it with with performance

because for me combining it with

performance makes it

less self-indulgent

that's my approach it's not the right

approach it's not the only approach it's

the approach that works for me

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