Dossier Butoh-fu. Dance and words

Butoh-fu. Dance and Words. Dossier edited by Samantha Mrenzi. Butoh-fu means Butoh Notation. It is the term used to indicate the materials for work and creation that, at the end of the sixties, accompany the elaboration of the dance to which Tatsumi Hijikata has given the name Ankoku Butoh. These consist of notebooks comprising pictures, poetic fragments, reproductions of paintings, photographs, notes: a figurative repertory in dialogue with his writings, which has become a source for dancers’ imagination. Used in teaching session and in the creation of choreographies, it constitutes a working idiom and transforms the nature of the movement. The material is kept at the Tatsumi Hijikata Archive, at Keio University Art Centre, Tokyo. The centre does not limit itself to storing documents, its projects also concern the diffusion and creation of new materials for production, research and artistic projects. The dossier looks back on the heritage of Hijikata; it is dedicated to the connections between dance and writing, between archives and the transmission of performative experiences, between body and word. It includes contributions of scholars such as Bruce Baird, Stephen Barber, Katja Centonze, Maria Pia D’Orazi, Takashi Morishita – the director of the Tatsumi Hijikata Archive, and the dancer Akira Kasai.