Butoh’s “legs” stand on postwar Japanese soil a little over fifty years ago. This time of utter historical humanitarian devastation importuned many questions as to the essence of existence that reverberate the world even now. This questioning calls for timeless wisdom and the spaceless infinitude of future possibility. I hear that call.
I, too, am searching for the eternal presence of the purer force beyond the present civilizations of capitalism, socialism, westernization, and modernization. I seek butoh not only through my eyes, but through the lenses of research, instruction, performance, and collaboration. My choreographing and creation of new works of dance bridge all worlds, including the dark ones of the night, through the larger “Eye.”
Butoh found me. In 1999 I came to Seattle to nourish my innermost seed as an artist. Soon after my arrival, I began to work as a mime, and quickly transitioned to butoh after a kind man on the bus seeing me in white makeup told me about the imminent International Butoh Festiva in 2000. Once introduced, I have never looked back. For the past twelve years I have danced and co-produced over 100 butoh shows. Starting in Seattle’s Pioneer Square in the mixed grime and majesty of humanity, I have expanded my performance venues from North and South America, and from Asia to Europe. Locally and internationally, I have worked collaboratively with over 100 artists in varied genres: musicians, visual artists, actors, dancers, activists, environmentalists, educators included. Butoh opens the world up, out and in –for me and for the observer participants.
The artistic animus of butoh bridges professional activities and social responsibilities, respect for the people that compose the global community we all share and the necessity for individual expression. I have come to realize this work has value everywhere where hearts, minds, and souls have doorways ready to be opened with the fresh, courageous light of art which traverses deep yet-unknown places. There seeds of awareness grow from the collectively realized wisdom awakened by an authentic butoh artistic experience.
My work in butoh impels a desire to raise the level of critical and historical knowledge of this art in its relationship to current cultures through establishing stronger connections with universities, secondary schools, and the public at large. With a special eye for those who feel outcast and/or oppressed in some way, the butoh aesthetic and philosophical approach needs to purposely be an active part of my artistic path and the experience for both performers and observers with whom I dance.
I am a U.S.-born-and-based butoh dancer with both personal and universal ancestry. I dance to probe both my individual and the universal path.