Butoh, also kown as «dance of darkness», is a postmodern dance form that began in Japan as an effort to recover the primal body, or «the body that has not been robbed», as butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata put it. Butoh has become increasingly popular in the United States and throughout the world, diveContinue
Butoh, also kown as «dance of darkness», is a postmodern dance form that began in Japan as an effort to recover the primal body, or «the body that has not been robbed», as butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata put it. Butoh has become increasingly popular in the United States and throughout the world, diversifying its aesthetic, while at the same time asserting the power of its spiritual foudations.
Dancing into Darkness is Sondra Horton Fraleigh's chronological diary of her deepening uderstading of and appreciation for this art form, as she moves from a position of aesthetic response as an audience member to that of assimilation as a student.
As a student of Zen and Butoh, Fraleigh witnesses her own artistic and personal transformation through essays, poems, interviews, and reflections spanning twelve years of study, much of it in Japan. Numerous performance photographs and original calligraphy by Fraleigh's Zen teacher Shodo Akane illuminate her words.
The pieces of Dancing into Darkness cross boundaries, just as Butoh anticipates a growing global amalgamation. «Butoh is not an aesthetic movement grafted onto Western dance», Fraleigh concludes, «and Western dance may be more Eastern than we have been able to see».
