Facts about Butoh Dance

1. 05

   Butoh gained international recognition in the 1980s when troupes like Sankai Juku began touring Europe and North America to widespread critical acclaim.

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2. 04

   Kazuo Ohno continued performing butoh into his nineties, becoming one of the oldest active performing artists in the world.

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3. 03

   The word butoh translates roughly to 'dance' or 'stepping dance' in Japanese, with the form sometimes called ankoku butoh, meaning dance of utter darkness.

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4. 02

   Performers in butoh dance typically move with extreme slowness, use white body paint, and contort their bodies to express themes of darkness, death, and transformation.

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5. 01

   Butoh dance originated in Japan in the late 1950s, co-founded by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno as a rebellion against Western dance forms.

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