This is the simplified (not user friendly) biography chart view of the comprehensive international directory of butoh artists for the purpose of Google search engine visibility. For the main and more interactive view which shows more information (such as country and studied under), click here.
| Abel Jaguar Absalon | Studied Ballet, Jazz, Tap, contemporary and street dance…they found Butoh in 2021 before the pandemic with the guidance from Ferzam in Tepoztlán Cuernavaca. Since then, Butoh has been main core for their creation with dance, chromatography and production. In 2023, they started collaborating as Producer and technical assistant in the Butoh company: Ferzam art lab. Has trained with Katsura Kan both in Dance and stage lighting. And also With Ken Mai. |
| Adam Koan | Adam is an American Butoh artist who has been guiding Butoh in Europe, USA, Mexico and India since 2013. Adam is the author of Shadowbody Butoh Manual (https://butohmanual.com), creator of Butoh Directory, and founder of Christian-based Butoh method Theokinesis (https://theokinesis.com). Adam studied extensively under Rhizome Lee (Subbody method) and Julie Becton Gillum. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh Manual (Large series connected to butohmanual.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM8qDgpcN4I&list=PLlC-ClH7nQduIAK09XVPSrDxFi5O2tgGE * Learn Butoh (older series) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64sjo_jYuSE&list=PLlC-ClH7nQdtvNd8bZ0k-ZkjhAORS4nJP |
| Adrian Shephard | Adrian Shephard is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the body, digital art, film, sound, drawing, poetry, photography, and tarot. He formed Testcard in 1993, a performance project blending brain frequency experiments, plant machines, and electro-magnetic field technology. Testcard has performed worldwide, releasing over 25 albums available on popular streaming platforms. A former dancer and teacher of Butoh, Adrian also co-hosts Radio-on-Berlin as producer, interviewer and engineer. Currently, he teaches radio workshops in Berlin schools. |
| Agata Sokół | Master of art, graduate of the Faculty of Art of the University of Fine Arts in Krakow and Ecole Supérieure d’Art des Pyrénées in Pau; multidisciplinary artist, including a performer and an alternative photomodel calling herself a “poet of body”, exploring the art of butoh and shibari; academic hatha yoga instructor. In her activities, she deals with the topics of emptiness, presence, identity, Eros and Thanatos. She completed acting studies at the A Part Theater; participated in the Active Culture Laboratory project. (https://ctit.eu/2021/06/01/riu-ishihara-i-polscy-artysci-na-festiwalu-butohpolis-2021) |
| Agnieszka Kamińska | Dancer, singer, co-founder of Amareya Theatre (2003). Vocal instructor, culture promoter, student of oustanding vocal, body and movement teachers. She has long-standing experience in butoh dance, contemporary dance techniques, improvisation, contact improvisation, expressive dance, authentic movement, Body Mind Centering, many vocal techniques, vocal therapy and relaxation techniques. (https://taniecpolska.pl/en/ludzie-tanca/agnieszka-kaminska-en) |
| Águeda Matilde Ortega Moreno | Águeda Ortega Artist, performer, butoh dancer,designer and creative researcher of “Recuerda: El arte que hace visible lo invisible” agueda.ortegamoreno@gmail.com | +34 691 325 827 Instagram: @agueda_om www.aguedaortega.com English Translation Interdisciplinary artist and movement researcher. My creative process is nourished by an intuitive, exploratory, and poetic gaze, integrating body, attention, listening, and presence as a path toward Beauty. Since childhood, the body has been my access point to the symbolic and creative world, and ever since, I have maintained an ongoing inquiry into personal transformation, ritual, embodiment, and the invisible. My performance practice combines improvisation, Butoh dance, poetic writing, and everyday gestures as tools for composition and research. I conceive of choreography as an active listening to the rhythms each piece requires. Every body and every space have their own melody, and it is from that honesty that I move. Tempo is a key element in my works. My creations include: MUDA, Hambre de Padre (Father Hunger), Sangrando soles (Bleeding Suns), and Fuera de juego. Estas tetas son mías (Offside. These Breasts Are Mine). In 2019, I began teaching, driven by the desire to share processes of creation and transformation. I founded the group and individual research spaces SOMOS NATURA (exploration workshops through movement, listening, and play) and PREGÚNTALE A TU DANZA (regular training based on Butoh dance and body awareness). I have also co-organized trainings such as Skenáutika – Intensive training in the art of navigating the stage, together with Matilde J. Ciria. I have participated in residencies and research contexts such as Body/Landscape with Frank van de Ven (Body Weather), and for four editions of El cuerpo en su mundo (The Body in Its World), with Fernando Nicolás Pelliccioli, Jonathan Martineau, and Carlos Osatinsky. Most recently, I took part in the performance series Performáticas III at the Museo La Neomudéjar (Madrid), presenting Fuera de juego. Estas tetas son mías, and in the fifth season of the festival A Butoh Pelao (May 2025), with my piece Sangrando soles at Teatro Ex-Límite, Madrid. My visual and performance work intertwines in projects such as “RECUERDA: The Art of Making the Invisible Visible” (Castillo de la Duquesa, Manilva, Málaga, 2024), where I exhibited ceramic sculpture, painting, a Mnemosyne table, and performed an in-situ version of Hambre de Padre. Since 2021, I have participated in both solo and group exhibitions, expanding my inquiry into the visual and material realms. I am an active member of the Contemporary Ceramists Collective La Reunión, a member of MAV (Women in the Visual Arts), the UNEE (National Union of Writers of Spain), the A13 Cultural Association, and the Culture and Territory Program of Andalusia. Original Artista indisciplinar e investigadora del movimiento. Mi proceso creativo se nutre de una mirada intuitiva, exploradora y poética, que integra cuerpo, atención, escucha y presencia como vía hacia la Belleza. Desde niña, el cuerpo ha sido mi acceso al mundo simbólico y creativo, y desde entonces sostengo una investigación continua en torno a la transformación personal, lo ritual, lo encarnado y lo invisible. Mi práctica escénica combina improvisación, danza butoh, escritura poética y gesto cotidiano como herramientas de composición e investigación. Concibo la coreografía como una escucha activa a los ritmos que cada pieza necesita. Cada cuerpo y cada espacio poseen su propia melodía, y es desde esa honestidad desde donde me muevo. El tempo es una clave fundamental en mis obras. Entre mis creaciones destacan: MUDA, Hambre de Padre, Sangrando soles y Fuera de juego. Estas tetas son mías. En 2019 comienzo mi labor como docente, impulsada por el deseo de compartir procesos de creación y transformación. Fundo los espacios de investigación grupal e individual SOMOS NATURA (talleres de exploración desde el movimiento, la escucha y el juego) y PREGÚNTALE A TU DANZA (entrenamiento regular basado en danza butoh y conciencia corporal). También he coorganizado formaciones como Skenáutika – Formación intensiva en el arte de navegar la escena, junto a Matilde J. Ciria. He participado en residencias y contextos de investigación como Body/Landscape, con Frank van de Ven (Body Weather), y durante cuatro ediciones en El cuerpo en su mundo, con Fernando Nicolás Pelliccioli, Jonathan Martineau y Carlos Osatinsky. Recientemente he sido parte del ciclo de performance Performáticas III en el Museo La Neomudéjar (Madrid), presentando Fuera de juego. Estas tetas son mías, y de la quinta temporada del festival A Butoh Pelao (mayo 2025), con mi pieza Sangrando soles en el Teatro Ex-Límite, Madrid. Mi trabajo plástico y escénico se entrelaza en proyectos como “RECUERDA: El arte de hacer visible lo invisible” (Castillo de la Duquesa, Manilva, Málaga, 2024), donde expuse escultura cerámica, pintura, una mesa Mnemosine y realicé una versión in situ de Hambre de Padre. Desde 2021 participo en exposiciones individuales y colectivas, expandiendo mi investigación hacia lo visual y objetual. Soy miembro activo del Colectivo de Ceramistas Contemporáneos La Reunión, socia de MAV (Mujeres en las Artes Visuales), de la UNEE (Unión Nacional de Escritores de España), de la Asociación Cultural A13 y del programa Cultura y Territorio Andalucía. |
| Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki | Studied music and dance in Vienna.Stipendiary for dance in Chicago. Long-time assistance and teaching activity. Member of the Butoh dance-company ARIADONE by Carlotta Ikeda from 1991-98. Scores of performances on several festivals ( Festival of Modern Art / Bolzano,Italy , Transart Festival / Labin, Croatia, a.o.).Soloperformances, interdisciplinary works, space installations, video. Cooperations with directors (T. J. Jelinek, M. Gruber), theoreticians and visual artists and musicians( Lore Heuermann, Katherina Zakravsky,Yuko Gulda et al.)Works and teaches in the LABfactory/Vienna since 2002, since 2008 also teaching at di:´Angewandte Vienna (University for applied arts) (http://labfactory.at/242403.0) |
| Ainhoa Alberdi | I was bitten by the performing arts bug as a child, and ever since then, I’ve felt the need to nurture that passion. I graduated in psychology from the UPV (University of Valencia). I’ve been researching the relationship between bodies, energy, and space for years. I’ve been almost fully dedicated to the performing arts since 2000. Having taught for over 15 years and worked in several companies, creating, directing, performing… Butoh dance first entered my body in 2015. I found my home. I’ve created several Butoh pieces; SKELETON WOMAN, FLESH… I’ve been teaching Butoh since November. |
| Akaji Maro | Akaji Maro (b. 1943, Nara, Japan) is a pioneering first-generation Butoh dancer, actor, and the visionary founder of Dairakudakan in 1972, noted for his development of the Temputenshiki performance style. |
| Akane Watanabe | Part of butoh company Wozme Studied contemporary dance under Sonoko Yuhara and Yoji Hanawa from the age of three. Studied contemporary dance under Kuniko Kisanuki at Ohbirin University. Has performed in works by numerous directors, including Kim Ito, Yukio Suzuki and Takuro Suzuki. As a butoh dancer, she belongs to the group Izanami, which is led by Taiki Iwamoto (Sankai Juku). In 2022, ‘Concursio’ by Izanami won the First Prize Duo category at the SA DANCEFESTIVAL. |
| Akemi Miura | Member of Suzuranto Butoh—the all-female ensemble led by Yuki Yuko—and based within Hoppo Butoh‑ha |
| Akeno Ashikawa | Listed as part of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo company. Source: SU‑EN. “Light as Dust, Hard as Steel, Fluid as Snake Saliva: The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 203–213 |
| Aki Suzuki | Aki Suzuki, whose main base was in Finland, gave up her butoh name Akeno and shunned butoh classification by calling her own style hikari, “dance of light.” (https://disco.teak.fi/tanssin-historia/en/butohs-revolutionary-aesthetics-and-influence-on-contemporary-western-dance) |
| Aki Yo | AkiYo (Butoh dancer and Artist) Lives in Sapporo, Hokkaido Japan I am a butoh dancer based in Hokkaido, Japan. I originaly became deeply interested in Butoh while working as an artist, when I organized and hosted a group of drawings of a Butoh dancer’s dance in 2015. In 2016, I began regularly drawing a butoh dancer dancing, which was the beginning of my current artistic expression. As I drew butoh dancers, I eventualy I began to feel a desire to experiment with drawing in space using my own body. This process occurred to me, and two years later, in 2017, I began to study and dance butoh. My first taste of art came when I was five years old and my parents took me to study painting with a Japanese-style painter, Sayoko Hashiguchi. One day, Hashiguchi drew a daffodil flower in black ink on a sheet of Japanese paper in front of my eyes, and that was my first encounter with sumi ink painting. I was shocked by the beauty of this monochrome world ful of life force, where daffodils spread their leaves and flowers vividly on the white paper. As a child, I was moved by the beauty of life force and the magical act of making it appear out of thin air in a simple expression. I feel that this experience has influenced my current expression in Butoh and art. A brief history of my butoh is I studied butoh under the butoh dancer Hal Tanaka in Hokkaido, Japan for about 6 years starting in 2017 Since 2019, I have been a member of the butoh group Kyokuhokukai, and have performed in al of Kyokuhokukai’s butoh performances in Japan and abroad. I have participated in the Hokkaido Butoh Festival (organized by the Hokkaido Contemporary Dance Promotion Committee) since 2018 and performed in many Butoh performances. I have also appeared in numerous butoh performances to date, including the Taiwan Darkness Dance Festival in 2019, the butoh performance Bankakou”Late Summer Light” at the Otaru Municipal Museum of Art in 2021, and Otonokage”Shadow of Sound” at Iwamizawa Yui Hal in 2022. In addition, I have recently been performing as a solo dancer, planning, directing, stage designing, composing, and performing al of my own work. In 2023, I produced and presented “Utsurobune (a boat from the other world)” and in 2024, “umarenakatta Watashi (I Who Wasn’t Born)”. Art activities related to butoh continue to this day, and are concurrent with my activities as a butoh dancer. In 2021, about 50 butoh drawings were exhibited in a special exhibition at the Otaru Municipal Museum of Art. A butoh performance by the Kyokuhokukai was held in the exhibition room, and I performed a solo butoh dance in front of my drawings. On March 3, 2024, I gave a butoh and live drawing performance in front of an audience of 70 people at the Darkness Butoh Poster Exhibition held at the Otaru Municipal Museum of Art. I also created background paintings as stage art for independent and planned performances such as “I Came to Buy Back My Sister” in 2022, “Utsurobune” in 2023, and “I Who Wasn’t Born” in 2024. As a solo butoh activity from 2022. I have been performing butoh in daily spaces such as streets, shopping mals, and in show windows, wearing white paint on my face and butoh costumes. The idea is to get out of theaters and live music clubs and make every place into a theater, where passersby become the audience. I absorb with my senses the atmosphere of the place, the chance encounters with people and the hustle and bustle of the city, and the energy of the place. I then express the sensations I get from these encounters through the filter of my own inner self in my dancing. The other is to plan, choreograph, and organize solo butoh performances. By performing butoh dance both indoors in theaters and outdoors on the street, I continue to explore the relationship between the ordinary and the extraordinary, between myself as a performer and the audience or passersby. I feel that everything in this world changes and transforms, and that the absurdity contained in this world is the rhythm and beauty of nature. To this end, in my dances I become animals and insects, I become the whole forest, I feel the wind inside my body, I become a fetus, and I even become an old woman. Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of Butoh dance, was born and raised in Akita, northern Japan, and in the Butoh dance he created throughout his life, the harshness and richness of life and culture unique to northern Japan are reflected. I respect and sympathize with Tatsumi Hijikata. During the long winter in Hokkaido, the northern tip of Japan, the trees are preparing to sprout in spring while enduring the cold in the snow, and when spring comes, the insects and al living creatures radiate their vitality. This feeling resonates in my body. I cherish this feeling in my Butoh expression. |
| Akihito Ichihara | Akihito Ichihara is a Japanese Butoh performer who trained under Semimaru of Sankai Juku and has been performing with the company since 1997 in works worldwide. |
| Akiko Motofuji | From Wikipeda: Wife of Tatsumi Hijikata In 1955, in the International Dancing Contest held in Vienna, she won 4th prize in the individual performance section.[1] She met Tatsumi Hijikata in 1956, and they started to perform on stage together, searching for a new way of expression using ballet and Neue Tanz techniques. This was the basis of Butoh, an original expression which gazes at body and soul severely. Later they got married. She went back to the stage in 1992, performing the piece “Together with Tatsumi Hijikata”, and after that made great works, one after another. Her original world showed such colorful features as charm, overflowing humor, and severely shaved form, but always with the theme “repeated life and death” at the bottom. She also tackled collaboration with artists of other genres: direction with engravers, improvisation with musicians, joint production with Magdalena Abakanowicz, etc., and continued searching for the possibility of new expression. |
| Akiko Takakuwa | Akiko Takakuwa is a Japanese butoh dancer best known as a member of the celebrated company Dairakudakan–Temputenshiki, founded and led by Akaji Maro. She frequently performs in their large-scale, visually striking productions which fuse ritualistic movement and theatrical spectacle. https://www.kobe-bunka.jp/hall/50th/en/event-en/871/ |
| Akira Kasai | Akira Kasai studied directly under Kazuo Ohno, beginning in 1963, and worked closely with Tatsumi Hijikata from 1964 to 1971, performing pivotal works such as Bara‑iro dansu and Emotion in Metaphysics . |
| Alam Sarmiento | Alam Sarmiento is a Mexican psychologist, educator, actor, and performance artist with formal training in Butoh dance, contemporary performance, stage presence, voice, and theatrical pedagogy. He also serves as director of over 15 plays. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AHUEWX8WPk) |
| Alan Sutherland | Deceased in 2021 Sheri Brown called him Seattle’s Butoh poet gem and dear, dear friend, mentor, dance partner. (https://iexaminer.org/seattle-butoh-festival-returns-featuring-a-silent-march-against-nuclear-power) |
| Alana Rosa | I am an enthusiastic practitioner of Butoh dance and I use this language to create my performances. I also do performances reciting poetry. Art motivates me to life, and life motivates me to art. I can’t disassociate one thing from the other, that’s why my art is one of manifestation and not of interpretation. I don’t interpret, I make my manifest. As a butoh dance and performing artist I developed a simple theory, where, every being that breathes, dances! And through this theory I created my own dance workshop where I work with different audiences. Through the workshop I advise people to seek self-observation and develop conscious attention of breathing and body movement, where dance resides. I became an enthusiast of this concept that we can all dance and from there came my book Danca Propria. I develop with the public that I work in search of this dance that inhabits the secret garden of each one. I use these metaphors to encourage people’s self-development and a life more focused on dynamic and creative actions that enhance the Act of Living through the idea of dancing. All my work is focused on the possibility of self-knowledge through the practice of scenic arts. (https://www.alanarosa.com/sobre-about) |
| Ale Martín | Before Butoh gave my body back to me, I had failed in my dreams of becoming an archaeologist and playing in the NBA. I confess that my best friend during childhood was a stuffed animal I spoke to every night. I also didn’t manage to make the fantasy of changing the world through social action come true, but on my last day at university, a professor thanked me for managing to keep her from getting bored while reading a paper over fifty pages long. A well-timed hip injury pulled me away from the demands of sports, and in the middle of nowhere, I found dance in a basement in Madrid. A small smile would arise when I realized that those bodies I gathered with—people whose names I barely knew—knew me better than those I’d known my whole life. I danced non-stop for years, created some pieces, obsessively researched the mind–matter relationship, until the body spilled out into the world. I switched from the side of struggle to the side of creation. These days, I dance for pleasure, fear writing, enjoy coffee on the terrace of any bar, and my greatest wish is to become a professional gardener. In the meantime, I offer workshops, create my own company, take part in projects that smell of fresh blood, and feel an insatiable urge to stand beside all those fantasies that yearn to touch the earth. (https://elnidodeanatta.es/ale-martin) |
| Alejandro Ladino | Alejandro Ladino is a Colombian philosopher and Butoh dancer currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. He is known for his interdisciplinary approach, blending movement, philosophy, and performance art. |
| Aleksandar Isailović | Aleksandar is a movement artist based in London. He is the founder of Posthuman Theatre and London Butoh Dance Company. He is also a dance anthropologist (MA) and a yoga teacher. Aleksandar first came in touch with Butoh in Thailand and then studied with Rhizome Lee in India, Imre Thormann, Mushimaru and many others. He has been guiding Butoh for over five years now. He has performed internationally in Hungary, Finland, India, Serbia, Italy, Norway, Brazil, Turkey and has curated/directed for London Butoh Dance Company. He also holds regular Butoh classes in London. His main artistic focus in the past few years has been on post-human forms of life. (https://www.posthumantheatre.com) |
| Aleksandra Capiga-Łochowicz | Dancer of butō and researcher of this form of dance, Japanese, art therapist, dance and movement psychotherapist, scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the field of dance. Practised butō in Poland, with the American dancer Joan Laage −, a former member of the women’s group Hakutobo –, and then in Japan during individual studies under the supervision of dancer and psychology professor Toshiharu Kasai (Itto Morita). Kasai is a DMT psychotherapist and supervisor, professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at Gakuin University in Sapporo, board member of the Japan Dance Therapy Association, and director of the Sapparo Dancetherapy Institute. Currently, together with dancer Mika Takeuchi, he forms the duo „GOOSayTen”. In the years 2007-2010, Capiga co-created educational projects and promoted dance at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow, with which she currently maintains cooperation, including: organizing artist shows butō. She hosted workshops, lectures on butoh and performances/improvisations butō in various Polish cities. She conducts her own improvisation and dance workshops butō and creative dance workshops for children in Warsaw, as an instructor he takes part in many Polish dance festivals. (https://taniecpolska.pl/ludzie-tanca/aleksandra-capiga-lochowicz) |
| Aleksandra Śliwińska | She danced in a school ballroom dance group and in “Figiel” Youth Dance Group ran by Małgorzata Lorenc. Since 2003 she has worked with Amareya Theatre. She took part in numerous dance workshops (Gdańsk, Koszalin, Kalisz) in the fields of contemporary dance technique, improvisation, contact improvisation, expression dance, Body Mind Centering, butoh and others. (https://taniecpolska.pl/en/ludzie-tanca/aleksandra-sliwinska-en) |
| Alena Fedorchenko | Alena Fedorchenko is a transdisciplinary artist born in 1992. Her work spans theater, performance, butoh, and upcycling, with a focus on the body, physicality, contexts, spaces, artistic and documentary materials, and inclusive communities. (from alenafedorchenko.ru) |
| Alenka Loesch | Former names: Alenka Bravo & Alenka Mullin Koga. Alenka Loesch is a Butoh dancer, choreographer, and costume designer based in San Francisco, California. She is best known for her work with the Butoh company inkBoat, which she co-founded in 1998 with Shinichi Iova Koga. inkBoat is renowned for its innovative fusion of Butoh, contemporary dance, and physical theater. |
| Alessandra Cristiani | The motive of her research has always been the investigation and perception of the subtle entity “body”. From the first steps in making art she enriched herself with the principles of Street Theatre, Terzo Teatro, Experimental Theatre in the 90’s she moved more towards the dance and philosophy of White Butoh of Masaki Iwana. The cutting edge, rigour, the Nikutai of Ankoku Butoh, become a further tool of awareness and constant stimulus in order to sound and renew her creative authorship. She is a performer and dancer. The works from after 2000 refine a focus on a personal method of selecting themes and aspects of the body, which within the course of vital daily practice may emerge as a cues for dance performance – “works of being time, space, memory, energy, the unknown, are her exclusive domains of research, further incursions of the examination into the subject “body”. The welling up of an “internal landscape”, the tactility of the stage presence in dialogue with the nature of surrounding elements: space, the invocation of non action, the dimension of silence, as food for the bones, for the nerves between muscles organs, bowels.- possible sources, places where to halt in ritual expectation of the faint voice of the new. (from https://www.alessandracristiani.com) |
| Alessandro Ettore Bortolozzi | Alessandro spends his time between South India and Europe with Lù, his clown-dog. Opposed to institutional study but always committed to research, he went looking for his teachers in the most colorful places on the planet. He had the gift of being able to work, starting in 2004, with the great butō dancers Tadashi Endo, Yoshito Ohno, and Atsushi Takenouchi, for whom he played the soundtracks of his workshops in nature. Raised as a professional musician, he composes for various instruments. He has explored the bordering terrains of theater and circus, studying clowning with Jean Meningault and Carlo Rivolta, and contemporary juggling with Jérôme Thomas, Jean-Daniel Fricker, and the Gandini Project—bringing together into a single perspective every stimulus that captures him: philosophy of religion, Argentine tango, juggling, and acrobatics, mixing all these ingredients with yoga. The result is a deep concept of presence, experienced both on stage and in everyday life. Since 2003, he has led research workshops, seeking to communicate an awareness of one’s own possibilities to his students, but without presenting any single path as the best one. (https://compagniaoxymoron.org/chi-siamo-2/) |
| Alessandro Pintus | Butoh dance in 1996, as an evolution of his deep theatrical research. He studied in Europe and Japan, training with the most emblematic teachers: Pierpaolo Koss , Ko Murobushi, Masaki Iwana, Min Tanaka, Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, Akiko Motofuji, Akira Kasai , and also studied and worked with Enzo Cosimi , Lindsay Kemp , and Dominique Dupuy . His desire to further his education led him to travel the world and delve into the history of the body and dance among different peoples: America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa. Since 2000 he has been carrying out intense artistic and teaching activities in Italy and abroad (England, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Hungary, United States). In 2001 he founded the research group NON COMPANY , which investigates the hidden meanings of Butoh dance, probing the roots of the history and culture of the body in Italy. Since 2001, he has led the annual “ Sentiero del Corpo ” course in Rome to train new generations of Butoh dancers. He has created several choreographic productions with his students. In 2005, a monographic documentary about his work as a performer was dedicated to him by the director Alberto D’onofrio , broadcast on the digital channel Cult Network of SKY . In 2006 she began an artistic training project intended as ” Best Practices “, a series of intensive and residential workshops, in which dance training and performance work are synergistically combined with culturally and socially useful activities for the environment and community that hosts the work. Since 2008 he has been practicing Shiatsu , graduating as a certified practitioner at the Shiatsu Do Academy in Rome, and continuing as a teaching assistant. In 2011 he was invited as choreographer and dancer to the 5th International Butoh Dance Festival eX…iT! at Schloss Broellin (Germany). Since 2013, she has collaborated with the German company “ asperformance ” in Munich to produce events and organize numerous training programs related to Butoh dance. In May 2013, they jointly organized “ Sea.Sons ,” the first Butoh dance festival in Munich. In September 2017, the second edition of the festival was held in Tyrol, Austria. In April 2015 he was invited as a dancer and choreographer for the “ SSII: PostButoh Festival ” at the Chicago Cultural Center in the United States . From 2014 to today he has been invited as a teacher for the Rampen Lichter dance festival in Munich (Germany). He taught as part of the “Master in Social Theatre and Drama Therapy” for the Department of Performing Arts and Sciences at La Sapienza University of Rome. He taught at the RFA (Roma Film Academy) in the Cinecittà studios in Rome, as a coach and choreographer for the Acting course. |
| Alessia Mallardo | Alessia Mallardo is an Italian Butoh dancer, dance therapist, and researcher, known for her interdisciplinary approach combining movement, psychology, and sensory exploration. She was born in Naples, Italy, and has studied and performed internationally. Her work emphasizes the dialogue between conscious and unconscious realms, exploring body memory and emotional expression through dance. She has developed kinesthetic and proprioceptive training, focusing on the contact space between the inner and outer world, where the foot touches the ground and generates resonance. Alessia has facilitated Butoh and Noguchi Taiso workshops and performances across Europe, including in Italy, Turkey, France, and Croatia. She is a member of the Nomadic Dance Collective. |
| Alex Ruhe | Co-director of the performance group Danse Perdue and the Teatro de la Psychomachia, a small private theater and gallery in SoDo, Seattle. He has performed (ritual theater, butoh dance, text) and shown artwork (metal sculpture, oils, photography) in many venues in the states and in Europe, sometimes in conjunction with his teacher, Atsushi Takenouchi. (https://bienenhausimnuagefou.blogspot.com/p/alex-ruhe.html) |
| Alexander Peschko | Alexander Peschko was born in Überlingen on Lake Constance in 1959. From 1981, he studied stage dance at the music academies in Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim-Heidelberg. He subsequently worked at the municipal theaters in Münster and Bielefeld, the Skoronel Dance Theater in Berlin, and the Theater der Stadt Heidelberg. His first intensive contact with BUTOH began in 1988 in Berlin with Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka, and later with Ko Morobushi in Vienna. Since 2001, he has worked on dance productions with the ensemble zwischenTANZ and taught in the Heidelberg area. In addition to his dance activities, he has also practiced yoga, the Alexander Technique, and Bharatha Natyam (classical Indian dance). |
| Alexander Wenzlik | Born in Nuremberg in 1975. Training as a dance teacher at the Institute for Movement Studies and Dance Therapy in Munich and at the Dance Vision Institute Freiburg. Intensive engagement with Butoh dance for eight years. An important teacher is Stefan Marria Marb. Participation in his performance projects Pictures at an Exhibition (2008), Meeting Rooms I (2009) and Meeting Rooms II (2010) in the Kunsthalle White Box. Various solo and group performances in Freiburg and Munich (2008 to 2010). Founder of the theatre/dance festival „Spotlights“ and the dance and theatre ensemble „Stagesturmer“ with children and young people. (Wayback archive of butoh-off.com: https://web.archive.org/web/20101015223354/http://www.butoh-off.com/index.php?/performance/alexanderwenzlik) |
| Alexandra Jane Wynne | Alexandra Wynne is a nomadic performance artist and movement facilitator from Australia, exploring the depths of human experience through Butoh. With a background in physical theatre and three years studying and facilitating at the Subbody Butoh School, India, her work draws from influences including Noguchi Taiso, natural movement, embodied awareness, and holistic practices bridaing body and mind. Since 2011, she has traveled extensively, immersing herself in embodied research, performing, teaching, and curating artistic gatherings. She has studied closely with Butoh masters in Japan and Europe while sharing her work with diverse communities worldwide. Her practice invites participants into deep presence and transformation, cultivating authentic expression and sensitivity to the body’s inner landscapes and subconscious terrain. As founder of Liminal Butoh Collective, Alexandra weaves her practice into an international network of artists exploring perception, transformation, and the subconscious through the raw poetry of Butoh. Rooted in deep listening and personal inquiry, the collective blurs boundaries between performance and ritual, inviting audience and participants into a space of collective metamorphosis. |
| Alfonsina Riosantos | Riosantos began her dance training in contemporary and ballet at the University of Guadalajara, Instituto Cultural Cabañas, and INBA-affiliated schools. She then studied in the Compañía de Danza Experimental led by Lola Lince (1997–2001) |
| Alfonso Rivera | Alfonso is a multifacetic artist: Actor, Performer, Writer, Speaker and Life Coach. Alfonso has awarded a European Mention PhD by Santiago de Compostela University. Alfonso is a graduate of Physical Theatre from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Madrid, Spain, (1999-2003) and Masters Degree in Movement Studies at Central School of Speech and Drama (2006-2007). He completed the program of European Theatre Arts during an Erasmus-Exchange at Rose Bruford College, London (2001-2002). He also holds a postgraduate diploma from the Scuola Internazionale di Commedia dell´Arte Venezia, Italy (2003). He was awarded a national grant of excellence to study at the Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique L´Ange Fou (2004-2005), London, where he trained in corporal mime (Decroux´s technique) with Etienne Decroux´s last assistants, Steve Watson and Corinne Soum. He got specialized in Lecoq pedagogy in the Advanced Devising Practice program at LISPA, Berlin (2017). |
| Alice Baldock | Alice Baldock is a sometimes-historian, sometimes-dancer based in Oxford, UK. Her dance and academic work are deeply interconnected, and focus around a study of women butoh dancers. She researches the body-of-knowledge that Japanese women dancers co-produced in the early post-war period, and how the dance that produced, butoh, circulated transnationally at the end of the 20th Century. In doing so, she uncovers how and why these ideas about the body – that involved a complete eradication of hierarchies of gender, ability, and class, became so popular in Japan and then across the world. Her work takes a queer feminist approach to such histories. Alice trained in ballet and contemporary dance from the age of three, and in 2021 started to practice butoh in Tokyo with that late Nakajima Natsu. Since then, her practice has shifted to incorporate butoh. In Japan, she appeared in Nakajima Natsu’s Yume no yume, oku no oku, nokori no hi (April 2022), and performed a solo piece, ‘Mizu/ Water’ in butoh company Mutekisha’s Kokkyounaki Karada (July 2022). She is part of the performance art collective BEIMA in Oxford, who perform durational and site-specific work, and a member of the London Butoh Dance Company, whose most recent performance was ‘Of Mirrors and Shadows’, a queer interpretation of Plato’s ‘Myth of Aristophanes’. (https://www.vangeline.com/calendar-of-upcoming-events/2025/6/25/queer-butoh-festival-2025-ctma6-k94sk) Key Publication Baldock, A. (2022). “Body (of) Knowledge: Women, the Body, and Dance in Postwar Japan.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Cambridge University Press. |
| Alice Masprone | Born in Turin on August 3, 1976, she lived for many years in Berlin and now moves between India, Italy, and other countries. She trained as a painter, later approaching theater and performance out of a need to find a dynamic third dimension. In her research, she mixes different media and disciplines, both individually and in collaboration with other artists. The body is often the starting point of her work, followed by the staging of situations designed to engage the audience directly. Space and environment always play an important role in her work, stimulating the creation of site-specific performances dedicated to the places that host them. It is often the places themselves—and the situations that arise within them—that create the conditions for working in this direction. Driven by deep curiosity, she explores Butō and contemporary dance with Atsushi Takenouchi, Yumiko Yoshioka, Minako Seki, and Jonathan Burrows. She earned a Master’s degree in philosophical studies of dance (Tanzwissenschaft) at the Freie Universität Berlin. (https://compagniaoxymoron.org/chi-siamo-2) |
| Alicia Bisier Martinez | Alicia Bisier is a performer associated with butoh, a form of Japanese dance that emphasizes slow, controlled movements and often explores themes of transformation and the human condition. She has performed a piece called “La novia butoh” (The Butoh Bride), which was presented in Eivissa and also at the Festival Internacional de Teatro EOZ in Mexico. The performance is described as an aesthetic proposal that stems from a female perspective and aims to denounce specific social situations. There is also a mention of Alicia Bisier in the context of a casting exercise for the Keep Walking Project, where she was involved in an exercise related to butoh. https://www.periodicodeibiza.es/noticias/cultura/2010/03/05/4480/el-alma-del-butoh.html |
| Aliki Germanou | Aliki Georgoulopoulou is a dancer, a dance teacher, a choreographer and a Hatha Yoga instructor. She studied dance successively at the Matey Dance School, the Greek National School of Dance and the Professional Dance School of Despina Grigoriadou. In 2013, Aliki received her diploma from the Yoga Academy NYSY Studios. She has attended dance seminars by distinguished teachers in Greece and abroad, such as Ulrike Hasbach, Masaki Iwana, Sumako Koseki, Yumiko Yoshioka, Moeno Wakamatsu et al. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Greek Center of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) and was a founding member of the cultural movement “Aition”. Aliki collaborates with visual artists on the creation of performance and video projects. She works in theatre as a performer, actress, dancer and choreographer. She is also attending acting lessons. From 1999 to the present, she has danced and taught Butoh, the Japanese art form of dance theatre. |
| Alina Dolzhenko | Alina is a Russian butoh artist who spent several years in Tbilisi, Georgia before moving to Serbia in August ’25. Alina has a past in contemporary dance and site-specific work. Alina has trained extensively under Adam Koan. |
| Alkistis Dimech | Dancer and choreographer, whose practice is grounded in butô, a discipline she has practiced since 2002. From early improvised performances she has evolved a personal choreographic method, drawing inspiration from the philosophies of thinkers such as Kitaro Nishida and Merleau-Ponty. Her work engages with the questions of ‘presence’ and ‘space-time’, with a desire to awaken in form and movement what is hidden or latent in the body and consciousness. She has performed in the UK, Europe and United States; and has collaborated with musicians and artists, most recently Gast Bouschet and Nadine Hilbert. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2018-en.html) |
| All Nascimento | All Nascimento is the creator of Butô Mestiço (Mestizo Butoh), an artistic research he has been developing and sharing for 25 years. Butô Mestiço is described as a boundary and expressionistic art form that questions the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual body as an instrument, highlighting it as a process—the condition of a body in crisis that struggles to dissolve accumulated sedimentations. Formal Education: Célia Helena School of Theater (1998-2001), São Paulo-SP, Brazil. Founder: Renascimento Artes, since March 2018. Professional Development with Artists (Courses and Workshops): All Nascimento has taken specific courses for actors and/or directors with renowned artists from Brazil and abroad: France: Allan Marratrat, Philip Boulay. Brazil: Lucia Segal, Gerald Thomaz, Renato Borg, Elias Andreato, Tizuka Yamazaki, Antunes Filho, Zé Celso. Japan: Yoshito Ohno, Kazuo Ohno, Min Tanaka, Hiroshi Koike, Tadashi Endo. Germany: Anna Kohler, Stefhan Stroux, Wolfgang Pannéc. Poland: Léslzek Madzik. Africa: Soutigui Kouyate. Italy: Eugenio Barba. Teaching / Art Educator Experience: He has taught courses, workshops, and lectures on “Butô Mestiço – The Body in the Transpersonal Body” for various groups and institutions: São Paulo-SP, Brazil: XPTO Theater Group, Taanteatro Company, Monica Alvarenga Company, Dance Reference Center (CRD). Sorocaba-SP, Brazil: SENAC Sorocaba, Manto Group, Grande Otelo Cultural Workshop, former FEBEM (coordinated artistic projects). Bahia (Ilhéus), Brazil: Casa dos Artistas, Tia Marita Theater Group, Itabuna Cultural Foundation (FICC). Petrobras (Cacimbas-Catu Gas Pipeline Project): Worked as an art educator, facilitating theater, video, and capoeira workshops in local communities, contracted by Petrobras. Areas of Expertise: Acting, directing, art education, cultural production, and Theatrical anthropology. |
| Allison Lang | Allison Lang is a contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and performer with Kokoro Dance in Vancouver, Canada. She recently joined Kokoro Dance after dancing with Ballet Edmonton. She is known for her work in Butoh, including performances with Kokoro Dance’s 28th annual Wreck Beach Butoh. Allison has a background in classical ballet, having graduated from Canada’s National Ballet School, and has performed with various companies like The National Ballet of Canada, Ballet Kelowna, and Ballet Edmonton. |
| Alvaro Pizzaro | Scenic creation and research, Body practices and studies, Contemporary theatre and performance. Actor, body performer, director, and teacher. He researches body language, creating his own approach to physical/body work in the performing arts. His work blends different disciplines: Butoh, Martial Arts, Physical Theatre, Contemporary Dance, Street Theatre, and Acrobatics. This research began 20 years ago in parallel and after his acting studies. He has completed a postgraduate degree in Body Theatre and various workshops both in Chile and abroad. He has participated in more than 35 works including theater, dance, Butoh, and performances, appearing in Chile, Latin America, the US, and Europe. As an actor/dancer, he works with four performing arts companies and collaborates permanently with musicians and visual artists. He teaches classes at various theater schools and in various performing arts projects, meetings, and festivals. https://escueladeteatro.uc.cl/docentes/alvaro-pizarro |
| Alycia Scott Zollinger | Alycia Scott Zollinger is a healing facilitator, somatic educator, and performance artist dedicated to the interconnection between mind, body, and spirit. She has performed around the globe in spaces ranging from theaters in Russia to balconies in Guatemala, a graveyard in Mexico, desert plateaus in Southern Utah, the streets of Seattle and art galleries throughout the United States. Rooted in intentional movement as a mode of poetic intervention and connection, she weaves her roots in dance, yoga, innate ritual, Bioenergetics and Butoh through all of her offerings. She is a long term student of Diego Pinon, was a member of the Allen Gardner Dance Theater, studying intensively with Sifu Jerry Gardner, as well as with many other masters including Natsu Nakajima, Semimaru and Joan Laage. She is a graduate of the Seattle School of Body-Psychotherapy, holds a Masters of Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is a registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist with the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. She has taught yoga, somatic healing, and movement integration since 1999, and continues to train and collaborate with mental health practitioners, somatic educators, and creative wizards. (Daipan main website) |
| Ama | Ama is a French-Cambodian dancer, poet, dance art therapist, and movement facilitator, devoted to exploring the transformative and healing power of movement. For her, dance is a ritual of life, an act of psychomagic, a language through which the body unveils its deepest truths. Rooted in the wisdom of Butoh, Jungian psychology, and Taoist philosophy, Ama navigates the delicate interplay between shadow and light, weaving movement as a path to self-discovery and liberation. Her artistic practice unfolds at the crossroads of the visible and invisible, the conscious and unconscious, the personal and the intercultural. She sees the body as an uncharted landscape, one where authenticity and empowerment emerge through movement. With a deep curiosity about the body’s expressive and restorative potential, she guides individuals toward wholeness, inviting them to embrace metamorphosis and reclaim their narratives. Through the creation of sacred spaces, she allows the body to become both a vessel for exploration and a poetic sanctuary, where emotions, memories, and the unconscious rise to the surface, finding shape and voice. Her experience spans psychiatric institutions, work with refugees, and support for disabled individuals. She is certified in Dance Art Therapy (EMVC®) and Neurodance, Trauma & Resilience (CENA Center for Studies in Applied Neurosciences & MOV Institute). Additionally, she is a certified Ecstatic & Conscious Dance facilitator (Heart of the Dance) and practitioner of aquatic bodywork (Aguahara and Janzu). (https://www.vangeline.com/calendar-of-upcoming-events/2025/6/25/queer-butoh-festival-2025-ctma6-k94sk) |
| Amalia Van Aken | She is a Butoh Dance dancer and has a degree in Arts from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UBA. (https://www.alternativateatral.com/persona84219-amalia-van-aken) |
| Amanda Floresta | Transdisciplinary performing artist, interested in somatic research, performance, and experimentation with diverse materials in the transformation and construction of spaces-universes through scenic design. With academic and professional training since 2011, her creations emerge through diverse languages such as animation and object theater, visual theater, physical theater, and Butoh dance. |
| Ambra Gatto Bergamasco | The dance of life. As a dancer, I am the shifting point, the witness, the nothing, the becoming all possibilities. I dance at the limen, the threshold between life and death, light and darkness, violence and affection. Passive and active rhythms move the world’s memories pushing me to create a dance. I am working with poet Paolo Fichera since 2018 and created Notazione/Notation. This process captures both, in written and dance form, the coming together of an intensive period of processual unfolding what for both of us and our individual art is the manifestation of a form that generates from our interest in internal and relational movement. The dancing mind. The thinking body. This work has both a written part that takes the name of Notazione/Notation and 8 performances. Currently, we are working on the publication of the book and our third performance. We have brought on stage Cerchio: Uno in Uno, developed thanks to the residency at Performing Landscapes and premiered at Mirabilia Festival and Moving Bodies Festival Butoh and Live Arts in 2019, and Rosa e Pietra Rose and Stone at the prestigious Dance Festival XXXVII Edition Acqui Terme in Palcoscenico BEinSide 2020. |
| Ami Ishi | Member of the butoh group Wozme. Ami Ishii started classical ballet as a child and is currently studying various genres, from contemporary to street dance, while seeking her own way of expression. She has performed as a backup dancer for artists such as MISIA’s ‘Higher Love’ and Best Artist’s ‘Black Biscuits’ and in many music videos. She is currently studying Butoh in a workshop at Wakaba Coffee. |
| Ana Barbour | Ana Barbour joined Café Reason in 1999 and became a core member of the group, sharing teaching, choreography, and direction. A creative innovator and extraordinary dancer, she specialised in improvisation, site-specific work, cross-art-form collaboration and dance film. Ana passed away on 6 November 2017, an irreplaceable loss to all who knew and loved her. She will always be our guiding light and lives on in the dance inside us all (JD-M). A page of this website will, in due course, be dedicated to her work and memory. (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) |
| Ana Di Tora | She began her training in butoh dance with Rhea Volij in 2001, which continues to this day. As a dancer she presented Palimpsesta, her first solo, in the Butoh Nights cycle at the Borges Cultures Center and at the Queer Art Festival #### at the National School of Buenos Aires and at the Meeting with the colors of the mountain, Butoh + Gran Chaco that was held at the El Crisol theater in 2010. Since 2003 he has regularly participated in group shows directed by Rhea Volij, such as Residua en Tecnoescena 08 (Centro Cultural Recoleta), La Resonancia (Centro Cultura Borges), Las Capas de Kronos (Espacio Cultural Pata de Ganso), among others. With the Hymenóptera company, directed by his teacher, he has performed with the work Breve Slip in 2010 and 2011 (Pata de Ganso Cultural Space). (https://www.alternativateatral.com/persona59607-ana-di-toro) |
| Ana Laura Ossés | Ana Laura Ossés, born in the summer of 1985. I am a dancer and performing artist, trained in Butoh dance, and a bioenergetic body therapist. I am also a Hatha Yoga instructor and a Family Constellations facilitator. 🎴 I conceive of my training as a path shaped by the creative and transformative power of the body. For me, the body is a territory of knowledge, thought, ritual, and memory, which—through dialogue with movement as a journey of sensation, and with the questions that arise—opens itself to the possibility of feeling, thinking, metamorphosing: of transforming and seeing, with new eyes, possible ways and worlds that allow us to expand, in listening to what is one’s own and what is shared. My practice moves through therapeutic, artistic, ancestral, and community territories, fostering a sensitive poetics in encounter and in co-creation with others. My path is nourished by diverse somatic and movement techniques: contact improvisation, Humphrey modern dance, body expression, sensory perception, the Fedora Aberastury technique, and artistic practices centered on the poetics of the body through dance. Much of this journey has taken place through independent national and international trainings and workshops, as well as an extensive period at the National University of the Arts. Currently (2025), I direct the dance work Oscuro Brillante, and co-direct the artistic and pedagogical project “Desacorazar al artista” (“Unarmoring the Artist”). I am part of the team of workshop facilitators at Cepia, a mental health day center. I facilitate dance and family constellation workshops and accompany individual processes from an integrative approach. I continue to actively participate in artistic, ancestral, and therapeutic workshops and initiatives. In 2025, I began a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Buenos Aires. https://www.alternativateatral.com/persona47299-nadia-canto |
| Ana Medeiros | Ana Medeiros is a dancer with a background in modern dance from the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. She lived for 23 years in New York where she danced with Mila Parish and Dancers, Jean Erdman Theater of Dance, Aria Edry, Sandra Kauffman, and Mary Miller Dance Company. In 1992, she began choreographing and presenting her works in venues such as P.S.122, Merce Cunningham Studio, 92 Street Y, Judson Church, and in France, the Netherlands, and Brazil. At the end of 2012, she returned to Porto Alegre (Brazil). In July 2014, she participated in ImpulsTanz, a festival in Vienna where she studied Butoh with Ko Murobushi. In January 2015, she began her research and study project on Butoh with Yoshito Ohno at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio in Yokohama, Japan. Today, her work is focused on the practice of this style, having completed five residencies with Master Yoshito Ohno, son of Kazuo Ohno. She maintains an active program of classes, workshops, and intensives, as well as performances and artistic interventions. |
| Ana Rita Teodoro | Ana Rita holds a Master in “Dance, Creation and Performance” by CNDC Angers and University Paris 8 (2011/2013), where she developed as a research the creation of a “Delirious Anatomy”. The research resulted in the Collection Delirius Anatomy, composed of small dance pieces dedicated to one part of the body: Orifice Paradis (2012), Gut’s Dream (2013), Plateau and Pavilion (2017). |
| Ana Vicente Marino | *** English Translation *** I came into contact with Butoh dance in 2016 after a personal experience of near violent death, and since then, the practice and philosophy of Butoh have become part of my daily life. I explore the experience of being alive through movement and bodily sensations as gateways into the symbolic and creative universe, recognizing and integrating the repressed and silenced aspects where our human nature resides. A poetic gaze, imagination, and attentive listening to the body as a form of presence nourish my creative processes, guiding me toward spaces of beauty and emptiness. I combine stage creation work with my vocation in the social and educational field, working with groups such as women involved in sex work, people with drug dependencies, and juvenile offenders. I have created my own pedagogical project called Haciendo Surco to explore and connect Butoh with transformation and expanded consciousness. Since 2017, I have created and performed in numerous pieces, both group and solo: Blanco Roto, Una es al menos dos, El Pan de Cada Día, Entro a la tierra y busco un lugar nuevo, Desarzonadas, among others. I study the Japanese calligraphic art of Shodo, creating personal works and commissioned pieces. My passions are cooking, writing, and taking care of plants. I am a member of MAPVA (Association of Women Artists of Valladolid). I study Traditional Chinese Medicine with a focus on women’s health. I accompany emotional processes through the lens of Gestalt Therapy. *** Original *** Educadora social y artista transdisciplinar. Contacto con la danza Butoh en 2016 después de una experiencia propia cercana a una muerte violenta, y desde entonces la práctica y filosofía del butoh forma parte de mi cotidiano. Investigo la experiencia de estar viva a través del movimiento y sensaciones corporales como puertas de entrada al universo simbólico y creativo, reconociendo e integrando los aspectos reprimidos y silenciados en los que habita nuestra naturaleza humana. La mirada poética, la imaginación, y la atención y escucha al cuerpo como forma de presencia nutren mis procesos creativos que guían hacia espacios de belleza y vacío. Combino el trabajo de creación escénica con mi vocación en el ámbito social y educativo con colectivos como mujeres dedicadas al trabajo sexual, personas drogodependientes y menores infractores. He creado mi propio proyecto pedagógico que se llama Haciendo Surco para investigar y vincular el Butoh con la transformación y ampliación de conciencia. Desde 2017, creadora y performer en numerosas piezas tanto grupales como en solitario: Blanco Roto, Una es al menos dos, El Pan de Cada día, Entro a la tierra y busco un lugar nuevo, Desarzonadas, entre otras. Estudio el arte de la caligrafía japonesa Shodo con la creación de obras personales y encargos. Mi pasión es cocinar, escribir y cuidar plantas. Formo parte de MAPVA (Asociación de mujeres artistas de Valladolid). Estudio Medicina Tradicional China enfocada a la salud de la mujer. Acompaño procesos emocionales desde la mirada de la Terapia Gestalt. |
| Anaïs Bourquin | Born in West Berlin and growing up in France and Africa, she graduated in visual arts at the University of Paris. While exploring different modes of expression for her art she discovered Butoh and spent more than 15 years practicing with masters such as Akaji Maro San and Yoshito Ohno San, the first dancer of Tatsumi Ijikata San and the son of Kazuo Ohno San. Her journey took her from Europe to Japan, then from Mongolia to India, and eventually from the Himalayas to Kerala where she is now living as a visual artist and a monastic. Her dot ink drawings and her textile sacred dolls are sometimes exhibited in Switzerland or in France but more often people connect with her directly through her website and ask for special orders. After being trained by Great Butoh masters, she spent seven years in Asia, Indonesia and India improving her knowledge and practice about sacred dances. She was initiated and trained in specific dances from Shamanism, Buddhism and Hinduism which are connected to the spirit of Butoh and its roots, like temple dances from Bali, Manipuri dance or Baul Path. She has dedicated her life to making spiritually inclined creative tools supporting well-being, awareness and inner joy (like books, oracle game, creative retreats). Through sacred and holistic art imbibed with ancestral wisdoms and subtle techniques she supports people in their desire to open their heart and reach meeting points between I and One. https://www.faasai.com/news-article.php?id=85 |
| Anastazia Louise | Anastazia Louise (also known as Anastazia Louise Aranaga) is a multimedia performance artist, choreographer, costume designer, and teacher who leads the ensemble Bad Unkl Sista; she blends Butoh-based presence techniques with original music and couture costuming to create immersive, site-specific productions |
| Andrea Casallas | Andrea Casallas is an actress and Butoh dancer of Colombian origin who has been based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, since 2005. After arriving in Switzerland, she became part of the theater group Obini, led by Delia Coto, and from 2007 to 2015, she performed as an actress in all of the group’s productions. At the same time, she formed a duo with circus artist Eva Cermak, with whom she performed numerous fire dance shows. In 2013, she met dancer, teacher, and choreographer Susanne Daeppen, which allowed her to continue her Butoh training, which she had begun in 2003 in Quito, Ecuador, with Susana Reyes—one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Latin American dance and the creator of the “Andean Butoh” style. From that point on, Andrea Casallas focused her development and artistic work on Butoh, continuing her studies with leading teachers of this dance movement, including Yumiko Yoshioka, Tadashi Endo, Minako Seki, Atsushi Takenouchi, Seisaku, and Imre Thormann. In 2015, Andrea received the OFF-Stage grant from the Canton of Bern, which enabled her to engage with Butoh both theoretically and practically through studies with Susanne Daeppen in Switzerland, Tadashi Endo in Germany, and Susana Reyes in Ecuador. The grant also allowed her to integrate her completed studies in ethno-pedagogy by approaching the ritual dances of Colombia’s Arhuaco and Wayuu ethnic groups. https://yakwadance.wixsite.com/yakwadance/andrea-casallas |
| Andrés Corchero | Andrés Corchero (b. 1957, Puertollano) is a Barcelona-based dancer, choreographer, and educator—founder of Raravis company, recipient of the 2003 Catalonia National Dance Award and 2021 Critics’ Award, and a longtime teacher at Barcelona’s Institut del Teatre. |
| Andrés Gutiérrez | Andrés Gutiérrez began working in the performing arts 26 years ago. Theater and dance have been interwoven throughout his career, strengthening his work as an actor, dancer, director, and educator. He began his career as an actor and dancer with the Compañía Teatro de Feria de Santiago, directed by Andrés Pavéz, and with El Gran Circo Teatro, led by Andrés Pérez. In 2004, he premiered the piece “Bay, the Emperor of a Thousand Winds”, and began directing the Bayku company. In 2007, he won the DIRAC cultural project competition. In 2018, he was selected to present his work at the Choreographic Encounter in Sala Arrau at the Municipal Theater of Santiago. In 2019, he participated as choreographer for Jorge Alís’s performance at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival. From 2020 to 2025, he was the academic and production coordinator at Eco Butoh. In 2022, he began directing the production company Primavera Danza. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Introducción al Butoh (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y77tMd6-6AA * Introducción al Butoh 2 (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aZQDIgtcX8 |
| Aneesha Michael | Noted for performing several butoh-reminiscent performances. In message, Aneesha stated colleagues of the audience have noted her works have butoh elements, but has never studied under a butoh artist. Aneesha trained in ballet and contemporary dance, but then stepped away from both practice and performance for two years, feeling that dance had become little more than display. Its meaning resurfaced unexpectedly in the tombs of an archaeological museum, where she was invited to improvise. A spiritual person, she believes this moment played a decisive role in her return. Critical Review about the work ‘Quest’ by Nicholas Minns: “Take a marble torso of a young maiden from the archaeological museum and bring her alive with a piercing gaze, expressive limbs and a red bonnet and you have an idea of Aneesha Michael’s hauntingly serene presence. Her Quest is performed in a metaphorical landscape of a whitewashed block of four miniature steps and a small pile of talcum powder. The negotiation of these steps represent the obstacles Michael challenges with perilous equilibrium (she is not dissembling but presenting herself with problems of balance that she then resolves) and the powder that releases its particles and fragrance into the air as she passes with swirling patterns and fluid arm gestures is the transfiguration of her experience into mystical delight. Quest is a work whose qualities are invested in the performer; Michael is, as a colleague suggested, as much a medium as a dancer, channeling values that seem to come from somewhere beyond our mundane experience. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all on this quest; Michael, in her unornamented simplicity, is showing us the way.” https://writingaboutdance.com/tag/aneesha-michael |
| Angela Newsham | Angela Newsham is a San Francisco–based queer/New West Butoh artist whose training and performance background blends embodiment practices, ethnic dance, and rigorous mentorship. |
| Angot Laetitia | Lætitia Angot is a French choreographer, dancer, and pedagogue based in Paris, where she has directed La Permanence Chorégraphique since 2001 — a structure recognized for its work at the intersection of art, society, and research. Originally trained in classical dance and film studies (University of Paris 8), she early explored the relations between image, gesture, and montage. Her path was later shaped by the traditions of Eugenio Barba, Jacques Lecoq, and Étienne Decroux, which she deepened through her training in physical theatre and movement arts at the École du Samovar. Her performative practice is rooted in a lineage where gesture acts upon the real — from Fluxus to Dada, from Robert Filliou to Joseph Beuys — and encounters Butō, which she studied with Yumi Fujitani and Ko Murobushi. This encounter proved decisive: she developed a dance of wavering, attention, and presence, working the thresholds between ritual, burlesque, and experimental forms. Since 2015, she has been developing a situated choreographic practice at the crossroads of artistic, social, and ecological research, presented in contexts such as the CND–Pantin, Museum of the Home (London), EHESS, and ZHdK Zurich. Her works have been featured at the Festival d’Avignon, Mimos, Being Human, Pôle Sud Strasbourg, and the Les Tanneries Art Center. Through her work, Lætitia Angot connects Butō to a poetics of the real and an ecology of gestures — a dance of transformation linking politics, memory, and attentiveness to the living. |
| Anikó Kiss | Anikó began exploring Butoh during her university studies in Hungary, where Rita Bata introduced her to the form. She quickly became fascinated by the style and was later encouraged by Bata to pursue training in Berlin. Bata mentioned that Yumiko Yoshioka, a Butoh master living in Berlin, might accept students. Anikó applied for an Erasmus scholarship, was accepted, and ultimately became Yoshioka’s student, even performing in one of her productions. That engagement marked her first professional work in the Butoh community |
| Anita Burton | Dancer with a strong background in ballet. Since 2005, she has developed her own methodology called LifExpression Butoh movement (or Ki dance), blending energetic, scenic work with somatic principles. She has been teaching dance, yoga, and active meditation for over 15 year. |
| Anita Konarska | Anita Konarska 1978 – 2021 Anita trained as an independent movement artist working in collaboration with other dancers, choreographers, visual artists, theatre-, film- and live art-makers, and sound artists. Often creating site specific works, using elements of improvisation for composition, from short dance pieces to full-length theatre productions and durational performances, solo work and work with/for others has been presented in conventional theatres, galleries and a variety of non-conventional settings in the UK, Germany, Hungary, France, Italy, Sweden and Poland. Training as a dancer at an early age, then moving focus to theatre, studying acting at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Wroclaw, Poland. Anita learnt Butoh with dancer/choreographer Yumiko Yoshioka and was also a resident at Shloss Broellin-International Art Research Location, working both as an artist in Company TEN PEN CHII Art Labor (founded by Yumiko Yoshioka and Joachim Manger) and as a facilitator of various events, workshops and festivals there. Anita’s work explores the transformative potential of the body, the idea of kinaesthetic empathy and our relation to the body/mind phenomenon. Using different methods to enter questions of interconnection, memory, intimacy, personal and social, cultural and political, strength and vulnerability, performer and spectator, and our relation to nature. Antia is interested in the intersection of science and art, and the notion of community and sustainability as a solution to contemporary issues. For some years Anitas work has been informed by the practice and art of meditation, walking, Body Weather, improvisation and instant composition. Most recent collaborations: Yuko Kaseki (SUBLIMINAL AFFAIR – a visual installation performance created by Sarane Lecompte, Justin Palermo, Arata Mori and Yuko Kaseki at POST-Ausdruckstanz Festival in Berlin); Neil Callaghan and Simone Kenyon (‘Permutations in the City’ at Fierce Festival in Birmingham); and Karolina Raczynski (for a performance of ‘Body Scan’ ). Recent projects: solo performance ‘Raw Pieces’. |
| Anita Saij | Anita Saij is a Danish choreographer, butoh dancer, and somatic practitioner based in Copenhagen, where she leads the Theater Dance Lab and founded the Nordic School of Butoh. (Nordicbutoh.dk) |
| Anita Zdrojewska | Anita Zdrojewska is an independent artist – butoh dancer, performer, icon painter. Since 2008 she has been studying butoh with Yoshito Ohno, Atsushi Takenouchi, Yukio Waguri, Ko Murobushi, Tetsuro Fukuhara, Ken Maia, Maya Dunsky, Sylvia Hanff. . She danced with Tetsuro Fukuhara during XI Japan Days in Warsaw or with Joan Laage in Earth Tomes project in Fort Mokotow. She has organized many events related to butoh – workshops, exhibitions (including a mobile gallery-archive), concerts and film screenings. She runs her own butoh workshops in “Butohsfer”. Since last year, together with Joanna Sarnecka, she has been dancing in Weselekekonshiki project. (https://goout.net/de/zdrojewskalibner/pzeesgg) |
| Anna Barth | Anna Barth is a freelance dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the DanceArt Laboratory Berlin. She studied Modern Dance, Improvisation and Composition at the Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Lab in New York City and Butoh Dance for several years with renowned co-founder and master of Butoh Dance, Kazuo Ohno and his son Yoshito Ohno in Japan. Since the early 90s she dedicates herself to research and development of a body- and dance language that is concerned with the existential human experience and its thriving forces. At the intersection of Improvisation and Butoh her creations evolve around the body and its memory, its poetic realities and possibilities. In her improvisations outside the theater Barth exposes the body to urban places as well as rural environments to refer and relate to affinity of body – nature – landscape and architecture. Her solo-works, duo-and ensemble constellations as well as her experimental collaborations with artists from different art-fields like improvised music, literature, photography, film and visual arts have been realized through various venues in Germany, New York, Japan, Switzerland, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France and Italy. 1994 she received the “Pro-Art-Foundation Prize” in New York City. Barth conducts open classes and workshops at the DanceArt Laboratory Berlin, which she founded in 2004 and teaches internationally. She has been teaching amongst others at Tanz-und Theaterwerkstatt Ludwigsburg, Exploratorium Berlin, Humboldt-University Berlin, University of Applied Science and Arts Hildesheim and the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio in Japan. In the last decade engagement in group- and collective works, site-specific performance pieces with her company at various inside and outside spaces, some of which she considers “Interventions” in public space. |
| Anna Brałkowska (TO-EN) | TO-EN is a butoh dancer. Between 2005-2009 she was a disciple of SU-EN, butoh artist, choreographer and artistic director of the SU-EN Butoh Company in Sweden (www.suenbutohcompany.net). At that time TO-EN has participated in many performances, projects and festivals, presented on the main Swedish stages. 2009 TO-EN has completed her examination solo project from SU-EN Butoh Company with the work White – bialy in Stockholm. This solo was a starting point for TO-EN Butoh Company. Currently in Poland, TO-EN works in the field of stage performances, multidisciplinary and site-specific projects, improvisations, lectures. TO-EN develops butoh dance based on the SU-EN Method. SU-EN Butoh Method embodies the teachings of Yoko Ashikawa and the Hijikata Method in Japan 1988-1994, which later developed into the Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo Method. https://www.toenbutoh.com |
| Anna Garafeeva | She is a Dance Movement Psychotherapist and Jungian Analyst, trained at the Institute of Practical Psychology and Psychoanalysis (Moscow), with over 15 years of psychotherapeutic practice. She is a member of the Professional Society of Analytical Psychologists. From 2005-2015, she taught a postgraduate Expressive Arts Psychotherapy program at Moscow State Psychology-Pedagogical University. In addition, she is a dancer and choreographer, working at the edge of Butoh dance and theatre. (https://disciplineofauthenticmovement.com/graduates/anna-garafeeva). Has more than one recorded butoh performances (YouTube & VK). |
| Anna Juniewicz | Anna Juniewicz (she/her) – a dancer, performance artist and artivist, Anna’s journey in butoh began in 2008, quickly evolving into her predominant practice. She’s drawing from its playful and provocative techniques, exploring shadows and forbidden colours. She performed in venues including Nowy Teatr, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Poland and KANAL – Centre Pompidou in Brussels. Collaboration with diverse artists enriches her work, fusing dance with photography, video art, sculpture, and painting. Her teachers include Atsushi Takenouchi, Yoshito Ohno, Yukio Waguri, Yuko Kaseki, Juju Alishina, Joan Laage, and Tetsuro Fukuhara, with whom she also performed and who invited her to Tokyo’s New Butoh Space Dance residency. Since 2021, she has been creating intimate screendance forms, seeing video as a means to extend dance and choreographic means. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Psychology with specializations in Visual Communication and Human-Computer Interaction. (https://annajuniewicz.com/bio/) |
| Anna Kushnerova | Anna Kushnerova is a UK-based performance and visual artist rooted in Devon, working across performance, installation, sculptural video, movement, and somatic education. She employs Butoh-inspired methods focused on somatic transformation—“becoming animal, plant, spirit”—and explores ritual, kinaesthetic intelligence, and ecological connections through her work. |
| Anna Orkolainen | She is a dance and theater educator, dancer, performer, choreographer (FIN), clown, and Butoh dancer. She holds a Master’s degree in Dance and Theater Education from the Theater Academy in Helsinki, Finland. As part of various independent dance and theater projects, she is responsible for choreography, dance, and performance. She also draws on a wealth of experience gained from workshops, trainings, and many years of collaboration and studentship with experienced and influential teachers such as Nina Dipla (Pina Bausch’s Ensemble), Slava Polunin (Clowning), Atsushi Takenuchi (Jinen Butoh), and Shusaku Takeuchi (Shusaku Bodytorium, Netherlands Dance Theatre, Antagon TheaterAKTion). As a dance educator, it is her concern to continually understand herself as both a teacher and a student of dance and, with it, her own worldview, and to constantly question it. Her passion for this never-ending learning process is expressed in the creative dialogue with dance, her own body, and the collective. Anna is a sensitive and attentive teacher on this journey into deep experience and creative expression. Her (dance) language is primarily influenced by Jinen Butoh dance and her ongoing learning from her master. “To become a dance pedagogue is a long and exciting journey which evolves through time and experience.” |
| Anna Pshenichnikova | Visual and performance artist from Estonia, now located in England. In 2004-2005 she was working with DEREVO. In 2005 she met and had an intensive work with “INBETWEEN BUTOH COMPANY”, what changed her understanding of body by the discovering of Butoh. In 2005-2006 she created “SPIT” her own dance and physical theatre company in Estonia, and performed in Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Poland and Portugal. Since 2006 as she has been working intensively with several butoh dancers: Masaki Iwana, Moeno Wakamatsu and Daisuke Yoshimoto, she has performed in Normandy, Paris and Rome, both independently and within the frame of the workshops. Her main interest is Butoh as a unique and magical tradition to live and act in present, allowing spontaneous in our life, and to watch from the perspective of an animal, an insect, even inanimate objects…value everything. (https://gez21-club.livejournal.com/158478.html) |
| Anna Ventura Natsuki | Her artistic approach has always been connected to raising awareness among dancers at all levels. Anna Ventura Natsuki leads educational campaigns, courses, and workshops while creating her shows or while touring. She also works at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris, the University of Caen, and the National Conservatory of the Caen Region, and directs internships in France and abroad. Anna Ventura Natsuki believes that everyone can embrace “their own dance.” She draws on a cross-genre and multidisciplinary approach. The artist was scheduled to present her performance as part of the 2nd International Butoh Art Festival BUTOPOLIS in Warsaw, but unfortunately, the pandemic prevented her from coming to Poland. An online performance of the performance “Kesseki,” specially prepared for this event, was presented. The artist received an invitation from festival director Sylwia Hanff for 2021. Anna Ventura Natsuki was associated with Compagnie Ariadone for many years. The group was founded by Carlotta Ikeda . She is an undisputed master, the first woman to promote Butoh dance outside of Japan. Ikeda’s artistic vision earned her work recognition, primarily in France, but also in other European countries. Carlotta Ikeda studied dance under the tutelage of the founder of Butoh himself, Tatsumi Hijikata. Together with Kō Murobushi, she founded the Ariadone ensemble . The National Museum of Stage Costume in Moulins, in collaboration with Anna Ventura Natsuki, is preparing an exhibition of the Japanese master’s costumes. The exhibition will be presented in several countries worldwide. It is intended as a tribute to this outstanding dancer, who passed away in 2014. |
| Annalisa Maggiani | Performer, dancer, specializing in Butoh and improvisation, dance movement therapist (member of A.P.I.D. – Italian Association for Dance Therapy, Art Therapy Italiana), MA in Art Psychotherapy, graduate in philosophy, psychologist, Master in Authentic Movement (A.T.I.), lecturer. She has collaborated on several Butoh performance projects with Butoh master Yumiko Yoshioka in castles in Liguria, Tuscany, and Berlin. From 2003 to 2013, she organized and participated in the solo Butoh festival “La Danza di Confine” in Lerici and Sarzana (La Spezia). She has studied Butoh with Yumiko Yoshioka, Kazuo Ono, Yoshito Ono, Carlotta Ikeda, Anzu Furukawa, Minako Seki, and Atsushi Takenouchi, among others. In Berlin, concept and performance, in the three-part performance series at the Nollendorfplatz subway station (2003-2005). Trilogy about migration, longing, and war, concept and performer for the project “Metamorphosen” (Palermo-Ballaro-Berlin, Nollendorfplatz subway station). She has performed her solo pieces together with musicians and visual artists at many festivals in Europe. With her group Gest/Azione (www.gest-azione.com), she mostly stages works in public spaces, village squares, subway stations, castles, and quarries, always relating history to the space. In Italy, she worked for many years in a day clinic for mental health rehabilitation and in inclusive school projects in Pisa. She has also given seminars at the University of Pisa, Faculty of Medicine and Psychiatry. With a research grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the field of dance and therapy, she researched trance dances in Essaouira, Morocco. In Berlin, she works at the Intercultural Women’s Center (S.U.S.I.) in psychological counseling in her native Italian and in dance therapy (intercultural group). She leads dance and movement therapy groups at the Fat and Thin Center for Eating Disorders. She has also led dance therapy groups for refugee women in residential homes in Berlin. She has been a lecturer at the Campus Naturalis Academy for over 10 years. In 2013, she co-founded Salutare e.V., the Association for Italian Mental Health in Germany. My method is based on Butoh dance, Organic Movement, Body Resonance according to Yumiko Yoshioka, Authentic Movement, dance therapy, body work, and dance with nature and consciousness. |
| Annibale Covini Gerolamo | Annibale Covini Gerolamo is an Italian actor-performer and Butoh dancer who, after years of theatre training with masters like Carlos Alsina and Andrea Novicov, dove into Butoh through intensive workshops with Atsushi Takenouchi (8+15 day courses) and Yumiko Yoshioka, developing a deeply expressive movement style. His 2013 butoh piece Metamorfosi uses imagery of insect metamorphosis, cocoon, and thread to explore corporeal fragility and the powerful paradox of protection and transformation. Outside of Butoh, he works in theatre-dance for children and adults, integrating voice, mime, and poetic movement to craft performances that reach from delicate childhood imagination to visionary, visceral ritual. (https://www.annibalecovinigerolamo.it/acg_annibale_formazione_01.html) (https://lavocedelcorpo.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/CAT_VOCE-2013.pdf) |
| Annie Lam | visual artist, performer, and Butoh dancer, active internationally and notably based in France and Germany. She performs at events like the Body and Freedom Festival in Europe. |
| Annie McCoy | Annie McCoy is an actress from Orlando who started with a focus on Musical Theatre. However, she developed a passion for physical theatre while attending Circle in the Square. Post graduation she continued to train with Danyon Davis, specifically in Creative Physicality. For the last 7 years, she has been training under and collaborating with Yokko through the Ume group and then through Ren Gyo Soh. Past productions include Splitfoot (Piper Theatre) and By Wing, Fin, Hoof or Foot (The Ume Group). As well as Ren Gyo Soh’s Butoh-centric Shinka (IT awards winner) and En. During the pandemic, she continued to create in the virtual productions EN:2021 and Saki Kawamura’s IKIGAI (Hollywood Fringe). Annie’s belief is that Butoh is a craft that allows for the opportunity to take accountability and notice of all things past, present, and future in our universe. With this awareness, it is her goal to use the body as a vessel to produce art that is truthful, transcendent, and engaging, while also being environmentally conscious. SHINKA at Planet Connections Theatre Festivity (2018) En (2019) Oblivion (2020) *film En:2021 *zoom Ikigai (2021) *zoom Mukuro (2022) *film Iceberg (2023) (https://www.rengyosoh.com/company-members.html) |
| Antje Lea Schmidt | In 2007, after graduating from the Otto-Falkenberg- Acting School in Munich, Antje Lea Schmidt became a student of Minako Seki in Berlin and, in 2010, started to assist in her workshops all over the world. As an actress and performer, she integrates The Seki Method in her own practice and creation processes, and benefits from the sense of freedom it offers her body, as well as its freeing way of working with body and mind. (https://minakoseki.com/the-seki-method-school) |
| Antonio Leto | Butoh Artist Kinesiologist, Posturologist CID-UNESCO member Psychology BS Engineering MSc,PhD |
| Anzu Furukawa | Active Dates 1970s – 2000s Was born in Tokyo in 1952 in 1972-75 studied under professor Yoshiro Irino in the Toho-gakuen College of Music since 1973 worked as a choreographer, performer and scenarist in various groups in Japan and Europe on many international festivals, i.a. in 1979 worked as a solo dancer in the Dairaku-kan buto group in 1979-86 was founding and leading, together with Tetsuro Tamuro, the Dance Love Machine group in 1987 founded the Dance Anzu dance school in Tokyo and began solo performances in Japan and Europe in 1987 created many successful works, eg. Anzu´s Animal Atlas, Cells of Apple, Faust II, Rent-a-body, The Detective from China, and A Diamond as big as the Ritz since 1991 as a professor of performing arts in Germany died Oct 23, 2007. Relationship to other butoh artists • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/kim-itoh |
| Ari Rudenko | The initial concept for PBT was conceived by Ari Dharminalan Rudenko, our executive and artistic director. Ari launched the project in 2017 at the Indonesian Institute for the Arts Surakarta with our first cohort of dancers. As our creative family expands, Ari continues to develop PBT while pursuing a Ph.D. in Dance Creation Studies at the Art Institute, writing a bilingual dissertation on our interdisciplinary methodology and first flagship project Ghosts of Hell Creek. |
| Ariel Procajlo | Dancer. Choreographer. Actor. Researcher of the body, its movement and expression. He teaches Contemporary Dance classes, is a Masseur, and a practitioner of Taoist Bioenergetics. Currently, he facilitates regular classes in Butoh Dance, Contact Improvisation, Dynamic Relaxation/Energy Recycling, and Organic Dance and Movement. He is the organizer of the Biennial “Experimenta Butoh Menorca: Days of Dance, Thought, and Body Research” (2011, 2013, 2015) |
| Arlo Sage King | Arlo Sage Caron King (they/them) is a choreographer, theatre maker, sculptor, and designer. They grew up in New England and received a degree from Bennington College in performance, VA, and costume. Their work exists within intersections of movement, sculpture, and theatre. Arlo is exploring disembodiment, digestion, and re embodiment of memory, gender, autism, and chronic illness through the lenses of Butoh, wearable art, drag, and installation. They celebrate the pedestrian and diagonal processing. They are investigating the space within pause. Arlo is currently based in the Pacific Northwest pursuing the study and practice of Butoh and running their leather shop/brand, SPILL. |
| Arthur de Oliveira | Fibers and threads from wrangles are born into cloth. Once cut the threads dangle off its edges and live life in between the bounds and reaches of a tear and the unpredictability of swaying in the wind. Arthur de Oliveira is a Brazilian artist, poet, theater practitioner, and filmmaker from Limeira, São Paulo, Brazil who uses a loom to piece together his life, thoughts, experiences and curiosities into his practice and scissors to discover the world and its possibilities. His works are woven threads, every strand being a new perspective and inspiration uprooted from the multicultural environment he grew up in from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates to Japan where he is based. Between the cuts, warps, and wefts, he studied film and theater at New York University Abu Dhabi (2019) and obtained a master’s degree in fine arts at Tokyo University of the Arts (2024). |
| Arwen Ek | Arwen Ek is a triple-threat performance artist, embodied meditation teacher, and shamanic practitioner with over 20 years experience in choreography, production, and performance. As The Savage Shaman she creates new works from the intersection of physical, cultural, and psycho/spiritual environments. From meditative and sublime to energetic and passionate, the Savage Shaman penetrates deep into the subliminal layers of consciousness opening the door to our fears, suffering, joy, desire, & absurdity. The Savage Shaman’s work is surreal & image driven. Meditation techniques combined with raw physicality unleash the deeply suppressed impulses arising from the depths of one’s body. The Savage Shaman’s performance art is a unique expression of the human being unencumbered by language, tradition, and social constraint. By tapping the source of the creative impulse we embody the arising expression which is intrinsic/authentic to the mind/body. |
| Asuka Shimada | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Atsuko Imai | Member of Dairakudakan and Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) |
| Atsuko Ogawa | Part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://za-koenji.jp/detail/index.php?id=1477 |
| Atsushi Matsuda | Atsushi Matsuda is a former drag queen and now professional butoh dancer in dance company Dairakudakan, a group that holds performances both on theater stages and on metropolitan streets of Tokyo. Matsuda was featured in Queer Japan (2019), a documentary film directed by Graham Kolbeins and globally screened at LGBTQ+ film festivals. https://nijiiro-zine.online/atsushi-matsuda |
| Atsushi Ogata | Member of Sankai Juku |
| Atsushi Takenouchi | Active Dates 1980s – Present Founder of Jinen Butoh ### ▶️ Video Class * Jinen Butoh – Let’s Overcome This Pandemic (long) https://youtu.be/r6W7gGoc-Pk |
| Aude Fondard | Initially trained for stage acting in France and in London (2005-2009) and reconnected with dance in Sydney thanks to Mira Mansell, Entity Dance Company. From 2011 she delved into the contemporary dance world with Stella Zannou, Britta Pudelko and Rakesh Sukesh at Tanzfabrik, Berlin. She eventually joined Atsushi Takenouchi’s Jinen Butoh School in Tuscany (2016-17). She regularly attends Contact Improvisation festivals and intensives (Katie Duck, Jules Beckmann, Daniel Werner and Anjelika Doniy influenced her attitude to dance) and frequent butoh workshops (with Minako Seki, Yumiko Yoshioka, Lorna Lawrie, Sachiko Ichikawa.) (https://www.servivo.earth/teachers-facilitators) |
| Augustin Elizondo | Mentioned in Butoh America as danced under Diego Piñón. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Aura Arreola | Aura Arreola (Mexico, 1986). Interdisciplinary artist, performer and choreographer. Aura specializes in collaborative experimentation, butoh and site-specific performances in dialogue with sound art, live art, visual arts, music and experimental film; as well as with cognitive sciences (4E), creative philosophy, environmental humanities, and activism of the erotic. These crossovers aim to create territories-refuge to imagine other possibilities of relationship, production of desire, redistribution of affects, and politics of the senses. Since 2019 she is interested in a transdisciplinary choreographic practice nourished by workshops, lecture-performances and research labs. Her current work experiments with sound gestures (violin & vocal extended techniques), dance, movement and sound choreographies, such as E-Motions (AU/MX) with Samer Alkurdi (Syria); Turning Points with Iván Naranjo, and Fernando Vigueras; and Abyssal, at Multimedia Center, CENART. She is co-founder of the Society of Flesh and Bone, The Feast (2016), Inner Space (2019), and Bodies in Revolt: Butoh Dance Festival in Latin America (2016). Aura has performed in Japan, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. She studied Visual Communication and Stage Design before turning into a deep research and practice of Butoh, western and non-western dance, in Mexico and Japan. (https://www.litluz.org/participants/aura-arreola-2022) |
| Aya Irizuki | Japanese Physical Theatre Artist and Butoh Dancer performing globally. Starring in German Films “Kirschblüten HANAMI” (2008), “Grüße aus Fukushima” (2016), “Kirschblüten & Dämonen” (2019). Solo Dancer 2017-18 World Tour with Grammy and Golden Globe award-winning Japanese musician and composer Kitaro. (https://www.ayairizuki.com) |
| Aya Tamura | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Ayala Kingsley | I have been a Butoh dancer since 1997 and am one of the founder members of the Oxford-based experimental dance group Café Reason Butoh Dance Theatre. I came to Butoh through the avant-garde Japanese martial art Shintaido (‘new body way’) which I practised for many years. Both Shintaido and Butoh arose in post-Hiroshima Japan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as writers, artists and dancers sought a new mode of expression – indeed, a new way of being. Both forms emphasise the essential connection of the body with the inner self and with the outer environment, and strive for the authentic expression of that connection. Both, at core, are saying ‘here I am, here in my body, here in this place, here in this moment‘. Different, perhaps, is that while Shintaido is seeking the light, Butoh is also prepared to enter the shadows; to engage with the darker aspects of what it is to be human. (https://www.ayalakingsley.com) |
| Ayelet Ullman | She began studying Butoh with Maya Dunsky in 1998. She is a graduate of the Movement and Movement Notation Department at the Jerusalem Academy and the School of Visual Theater. She studied movement with Ruth Ziv Eyal, and trained in Butoh under Kazuo Ohno (father of Butoh) and his son Yoshito Ohno in Japan in 2000. In 2003, she continued her training with additional Butoh teachers in Austria, France, and Italy. She also studied in Israel with Maya Dunsky. She initiated and was the artistic director of the first Butoh Festival in Israel in 2003. She has facilitated Butoh groups since 2000 and has been teaching at the Synapsa School since its founding in 2004. She also taught at the “Maga” School in Jerusalem as part of the “Wisdom of the Body” program, and at the “Artness” School at Kibbutz Ein Shemer. In addition, she facilitates workshops and private Butoh sessions. She primarily performs solo works, including at Tmu-na Theater in Tel Aviv, the Jerusalem Khan Theater, and Gerard Behar Center in Jerusalem. She has also performed in Kyoto, Japan in a joint performance with Yoshito Ohno, and in Tokyo with Kazuo Ohno and his students. Visit Eilat Ullman’s website: www.danceyourself.co.il |
| Azu Minami | Drawing from her passion for illustration which began in childhood, Minami Azu began her art career as a designer after completing her studies at Musashino Art University. She transitioned into creating work for contemporary dance, butoh, and performance art by incorporating imagery created with text and drawing, and the dances that exist in mundane everyday life. The year after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake (and tsunami), Minami received The 44th Dance Critics Society of Japan New Face Award for her work Scar Tissue I and Scar Tissue Ⅱ which she created from the image of her own surgical scars and the scars of the Tohoku earthquake.And developed the ideas further in Scar Tissue III (2013) and Scar Tissue IV (2016). This project series has been performed at venues in Japan, in France by invitation to the Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis in 2017, and at Case Western Reserve University, USA. In collaboration with Cleveland, Ohio-based photographer Abe Frajndlich, Minami co-created the first iteration of Sekaijyuu ga Gekijyou de aru (The world is our theater) project in 2008. This work has taken a variety of forms, including butoh workshops and international site-specific dance photography among the skyscrapers and on the subways of New York City, in the ancient temples of Kyoto, and by the Venitian seaside in Italy. Since 2012,once a year,she has announced what she has gained that year in her own solo performances.In 2022, she won the NDA Award, which is equivalent to runner-up, at the NDA (New Dance for Asia) International Festival in South Korea. The following year, in 2023, she did participate in the NDA International Festival winners’ performance. Her recent activities include being invited to Fukuoka Fringe Festival to perform her solo finger of flower in 2019, and participating in the Akita Butoh Village Winter residency in 2020. From 2012 to the present she has been putting on annual solo performances, to share what she has gained that year. She is a founding member of Big Family Tokyo, a community organization offering movement classes to participants of all ages and skill levels, including children. Minami teaches butoh-based workshops to bring her back to her artistic roots, and help make the traditional art form more accessible. (https://minamiazu-dance.jimdofree.com/azu-minami-profile) |
| Azumaru | Azumaru is a Japanese Butoh dancer based in Oslo, Norway. From 1999 to 2005, he was a member of the renowned Japanese Butoh company Dairakudakan, where he studied under its leader and founder, Akaji Maro. After leaving Dairakudakan, Azumaru has been performing independently as a solo dancer. |
| Azumi O E | The raw value of live performance is what fuels Butoh dancer azumi O E. Mesmerizing, shocking and playful movement is choreographed with meticulous timing, conspiring a visual relationship between the inner and outer human dimensions. Azumi wields her physical form as an expression and exploration of full individuality routed by the notion of collective oneness.Following eight years with New York-based company Vangeline Theatre and as Assistant Choreographer/Principal Dancer for Butoh Master Katsura Kan, azumi O E makes a continuous effort to exceed artistic constructs. She regularly develops experimental projects through solo pieces and collaborations with artists of various mediums. Notable co-operative works span video art and live performance with contemporary visual artist MARCK; composer Takuya Nakamura, “Impulsive Instrument” with Bassist Sean Ali, and upcoming duo with bassist Tim Dahl. She had an artist residency at the John Hopkins PEABODY Institute in 2023 and was a 2024 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography.(https://azumioe.com/wh-o-a-m-i) |
| Azusa Fujimoto | While detailed personal background (e.g., training, early life) doesn’t appear in public records, her association with Dairakudakan—one of the most influential Butoh troupes—speaks to her status as a respected ensemble dancer in large-scale, visually intense Butoh performances. |
| Bambi Okumura | I have traveled to 60 countries, including Asia, Oceania, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Central America, and have danced outdoors with the nature of each country. Even within the country, they dance in the mountains, rivers, and oceans. My butoh exists between space and the earth, and I express my spirit by relying on my body from moment to moment without preparing in advance, with the awareness of standing there at that moment. Nature doesn’t look the same. My dance doesn’t show the same appearance. I don’t even know how I will change. (https://okumurabambi.com) |
| Barabbas Okuyama | Barabbas Okuyama is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer, born in Japan and active internationally. He joined the legendary Butoh company Dairakudakan in 2001 and remained a core member until 2016 ### ▶️ Video Class * Butoh Choreography Lab https://vimeo.com/771573952 |
| Barae | 90s butoh dancer as listed in Tsubushi Butoh Journal (https://syoshi-tokeisou.com/?pid=163699203) Another gig from 2016 (https://www.tokyogigguide.com/en/gigs/event/14147) |
| Barbara Bourget | Barbara Bourget is a Canadian dancer, choreographer, and the artistic director of Kokoro Dance Theatre Society in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is recognized for her contributions to modern and postmodern dance in Vancouver and for introducing and practicing butoh in Canada. |
| Barbara Hanel | Artist Statement – Butoh & Beyond I have been dancing since childhood and have explored a wide range of styles – from the sensuality of belly dance and the pulse of African rhythms to the passion of salsa. Later, I turned to expressive dance and contact improvisation, also organizing jams and movement gatherings. For the past 20 years, I have been deeply engaged in Movement Concept – a fusion of dance, performance, and martial arts founded by Ingo Taleb Rashid, who also collaborated with Kazuo Ōno. Rooted in Capoeira, NinPo, and Sufism, this approach developed a distinctive movement language and offered me a profound path of inner and outer transformation. Whirling and other meditative forms of prayer have become part of both my personal and artistic vocabulary. Another core of my work is collaborative creation – especially with lay people or individuals with psychological challenges, who often benefit deeply from this kind of resource-oriented bodywork. Butoh called to me long before I truly understood it – its magic resonated in my body like a forgotten memory. My path has been nourished by inspiring encounters with teachers such as Coco Villareal, Joan Laage, Will Lopes, Atsushi Takenouchi,Yumiko Yoshioka, Aya Irizuki, Marco Nektan, Adam Koan…. Their guidance deepened my expressiveness and revealed the many facets of my being. Movement is a gateway to healing. Butoh fascinates me with its emotional depth, its healing qualities, its poetic silence, and its shamanic echoes. In the interplay of shadow and light, I use Butoh as both ritual and insight. As part of the El Haddawi Dance Company, I perform internationally – from Eastern Europe to Central and East Asia. Alongside this, I am increasingly dedicated to Butoh, presenting solo and collaborative works at various international festivals.. Currently, my focus is shifting more towards solo work and co-productions. I was part of the Endlessly Performing Artists – a globally networked group with a radical mission to show a video performance every day for a whole year. Many of these daily performances had their roots in Butoh and transformed our response to the Corona crisis into an act of artistic resilience and poetic survival. In addition to my artistic path, I work as a Feldenkrais practitioner and dance therapist – and navigate the rhythms of family life, which continuously enriches my dance. Butoh is an infinite art. It feels as if my journey has only just begun – and continues to deepen. |
| Batarita | Batarita, a choreographer, dancer, costume designer, actress, director, festival director, and butoh’s ambassador to Hungary came into contact with the genre in 2002. She won first place at the Solo-Duet Festival’s choreography competition, held at Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, with her performance Tiéd (“Yours”). The piece was also seen by Carlotta Ikeda, who, in addition to her congratulations added: “You are a butoh dancer.” That was the beginning of their student-teacher relationship. However, it soon became clear that what she could learn from Ikeda, she has already been doing instinctively for years. (https://japanalapitvany.hu/en/batarita-and-butoh-%E2%80%93-hungarian-artist%E2%80%99s-relationship-japanese-culture) |
| Behzad Gholami | Iranian butoh artist and theatre director living in Toronto, Canada. From IMDB: A creative Dancer, Choreographer, and an Independent Director. He has been studying human being and understanding their sufferings for many years to be able to perform them on stage or in front of the camera. By watching his work, people approach the dark sections of their minds to get to know their unspoken fears and complexes, and this may cause their blocked energies to be released. By focusing on the body as an executive tool to show human suffering and its effects on the body, Behzad tries to share his concerns with his audience. His understanding of human sufferings and being honest in both physical and emotional presentations has resulted in creating performances during which the body recklessly and unpretentiously presents what it is supposed to. Behzad has been able to choreograph and perform various performances in theatre halls, museums, galleries, outdoors, and historical places. He has also created film dances. As an instructor, he has held many dance and physical theatre workshops to introduce this kind of performance to people in his community. Behzad immigrated to Canada in February 2022 because of the restrictions he was facing to pursue his artistic career in Iran due to dancing being illegal in Iran. He is now living with his wife in Toronto and continues to create and share his artworks with people in his new community. |
| Belle Shafir | “In my performances, I use my body as the actual material… I am my own material” |
| Benika Mochizuki | International Japanese Choreographer | Butoh Artist | Artistic Director & Founder of the Benika Mochizuki Dance Company, Benika is a third-generation Butoh artist blending Japanese traditions, including Butoh, Noh, calligraphy, and ikebana, with contemporary dance. Her work has been presented in Japan, the UK, the US, and South America, earning recognition as a young choreographer in the UK and serving as Guest Professor at the University of Amazonia in Colombia. In 2024, her company received the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation grant for the “East Meets West Japan-UK Project.”Her performances transcend age, gender, race, and ability, creating a radical fusion of tradition and innovation on a global stage. (https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MTcS3HGgR) |
| Biétrix Schenk | Born in 1957 in Paris – Lives in Lyon Since 1988, Biétrix Schenk has been developing a practice focused on visual plasticity, voice, movement, and sound. Her technique is based on breath and gestural evocations that arise from the sensory, aiming to expand the field of perception of reality. Strongly influenced by the spirit of Butoh, B. Schenk evokes in her dance the perpetual transition from life to the Void and from the Void to life, that second of eternity that precedes death. |
| Billy Maxwell Taylor | Dance artist and theatremaker, founder of Eira Dance Theatre. Draws upon butoh, contact and daily activities (particularly coffee and gardening) to create a dance between tranquility and vitality. Practice and philosophy is called ‘Ambient Dance’. Studied European Theatre Arts (Rose Bruford College) and Expanded Dance Practice (London Contemporary Dance School). In 2025, visited Japan to encounter archives of Hijikata Tatsumi, Ohno Kazuo and Ohno Yoshito as well as study in Kyoto with Meguro Daiji. |
| Bishop Yamada | Relationship to other butoh artists • Leader of https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/hoppo-butoh-ha • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/akaji-maro • Member of https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/dairakudakan • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/itto-morita-goo-say-ten |
| Biyo Kikuchi | Biyo Kikuchi is a dancer/choreographer who studied Butoh with Yoshito and Kazuo Ohno. Additionally, she learned many forms of expression with the body, exploring gesture, action, movement and body expression in varying spaces, contexts and situations. Solo works include: “Pan-barabara”,”New Moon”, “End of the Day”, “Form for the future.” She has organized her own group and produces her work, as well as collaborating with Kim Itoh, Natsu Nakajima, Kazuo and Yoshito Ohono. At Min Tanaka’s Dance Hakushu Festival she performed solo dance showcase for three years. She also collaborates with artists and musicians on improvisational performance, working with communities and holding workshops of body work and improvisation. (https://dap-lab.brunel.ac.uk/workshopwords.html) |
| Blackhaine | Tom Heyes, professionally known as Blackhaine, is an English experimental musician, rapper and choreographer. He is known for his choreographed dances that incorporate elements of butoh and for working with Atlanta-based rapper Playboi Carti and the Opium record label. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhaine) |
| Boa | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Boaz Barkan | Boaz Barkan is a performer and creator in the field of dance and performance, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. His interest is in movement and embodied states, as transformative mediums for audience and performers. Initiating and facilitating dance and performance events in diverse situations. Originally from Israel, he has trained as a contemporary dancer both in Tel-Aviv and at the California Institute for the Arts, LA. Trained with Body Weather Laboratory since 1992 in LA and shortly in Japan (Min Tanaka and Oguri). Barkan was a founding member of the LA based, Renzoku Dance Company. And has been a member of the Anna Halprin collective since 2004. |
| Bob DeNatale | Bob DeNatale (also credited as Robert DeNatale) is an American multimedia artist—filmmaker, musician, former Marvel Comics editor/writer, and professional Butoh dancer and teacher. He founded the Flesh & Blood Mystery Theater in 1992 to share Butoh in the U.S. He later served as Associate Producer at the San Francisco Butoh Festival and performed across the U.S., as well as Germany and Poland. (Wikipedia) ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh Series https://bobdenatale.com/butoh |
| Bob Lyness | I am a Washington DC area butoh dancer who travels a lot to pursue butoh. My primary teachers have been Yoshito Ohno and Diego Pinon. I lived in Japan for three years. We are trying to get a regular butoh class going in Washington DC. |
| Bob Webb | Bob Webb is a Butoh artist and the founder of Bare Bones Butoh, a performance art and dance community-building project. He has been instrumental in organizing events such as the Thailand Butoh Festival and co-producing workshops and performances with artists like Hiroko Tamano. Additionally, Webb has been involved in the Bay Area Butoh community, organizing showcases for Butoh artists. His work continues to contribute to the evolution and dissemination of Butoh as a contemporary art form. |
| Bodhi Ma | Performed at Sesalak Butoh Festival in Serbia 2019 |
| Bonoko | Part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00619/ |
| Boris Borisov | Works with Katsura Kan |
| Brandon Perdomo | Brandon Perdomo is an interdisciplinary artist fascinated with self-reflection and alterity, which serves as the engines for his work in photography, videography, performance, sculpture, installation, and socially engaged intervention. Perdomo’s work in public & oral history interviewing as a social practice provokes a reclamation of narrative power, featuring narratives concerned with the experience of being in a body, and often a negotiation as other, with focus towards questions of race, place & history, and sexuality & gender. Studio Birdhaus is the creative studio of Brandon Perdomo circa 2012. According to Columbia University’s Academic Commons, he authored a Master’s thesis titled:Perdomo, B. (2021). sheddingsomethingshedding. Columbia University. |
| Brenda Polo | Brenda Polo is a butoh dancer as well as the director and choreographer at Manusdea Antropología Escénica in Bogotá, Colombia. (https://stanceondance.com/2020/02/17/of-butoh-bogota-and-the-brain) |
| Brida Horváth | Brida Horváth is a dancer, performer, and choreographer living in France. Following her studies in contemporary dance and physical theater, she has created in groups, trios, duos, and solos in Hungary, Spain, and France. She currently works mainly on her own projects, collaborating with other artists (instrumental and electronic musicians, graphic artists, video artists, writers, dancers). Since 2012, butoh has been the main influence on her dance and creative process. She is particularly inspired by the life, dance, and work of Masaki Iwana. Her interests center on the relationship between humans and nature, states of abandonment and transition, and ritual. In addition to her stage work, she often creates in nature, outdoors, and in galleries. She regularly holds dance and movement workshops for seniors, adults, youth, and children. (https://www.brigittahorvath.com/_files/ugd/5596de_619648f82e5e44f689349adbe429c040.pdf) |
| Bridget Scott | Over time, butoh has become a natural expression of my life. Most of my adulthood has been spent in Kyoto. All of my training in the performing arts has been in Japan. However, I am a Western woman, with a Western mind and a non-Japanese body. So, I have had to find my own way. The gift of butoh is that it allows me to move into undefined space. When I step onto the stage, I feel on the edge of my existence. Everything drops away. I open to the audience and trust my body. (https://bridgetscott.com/dance) |
| Brigitta Ernst | Dance performer for Anzu Furukawa (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00588) |
| Brigitta Horváth | Brigitta Horváth (born in Hungary and lately living in France) is a performer who considers dance a physical and spiritual work. She has practiced yoga since 2001, she has studied contemporary dance and physical theatre, she has participated in the work of various movement-theatre companies’ and choreographers’, she has worked in a trio, duo and solo in Hungary, in Spain and in France. Butoh, especially the dance and work of Masaki Iwana, inspires my dance and creation for the last 6 years. While attending workshops (Masaki Iwana, Moeno Wakamatsu, Ko Murobushi, Rhizome Lee, Atsushi Takenouchi, Bata Rita, Kea Tonetti, Imre Thormann) and getting to know other dancers’ ideas about dance and butoh itself, she is searching her way of expression and creation. She lets the body search the dance by extracting the self out of it. In this process she shares states and places – where her body leads her – by performances and workshops. The inspiration of this workshop also comes from her meditation practice, all the travels and encounters in her life and the natural environment she is living in right now. (https://www.brigittahorvath.com) |
| Byakko-sha-chu arawakashu | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00537/ (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Caitlin Coker | American who was part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. Caitlin Coker is also a Butoh scholar and researcher known for her ethnographic and historical work on the early apprentices of Hijikata Tatsumi. Her best-known publication is the chapter:“The Daily Practice of Hijikata Tatsumi’s Apprentices from 1969 to 1978” in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (2018, ed. Bruce Baird & Rosemary Candelario). |
| Calé Miranda | Calé Miranda is a performer and theater director who has been dedicated to Japanese butoh dance for over 10 years. In his artistic research, he combines this art form—born in Japan in the 1960s—with Afro-Brazilian mythology. This unique work has been drawing increasing interest from various international festivals and curators. With his creations, Calé is building a continuous bridge of exchange between Brazil and several countries. He has performed in France, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Peru, Thailand, among others. He was the first Brazilian to hold a residency at the Centre Bertin Poirée in Paris, the theater headquarters of the Butoh movement in France and a gateway for Butoh into the West. In 2013, the Brazilian artist presented his show Ori at the annual Butoh festival of Centre Bertin Poirée. (https://www.agendadedanca.com.br/depois-de-estrear-na-tailandia-cale-miranda-apresenta-o-espetaculo-de-danca-butoh-oju-oba-no-rio-de-janeiro) |
| Camilla Giani | Dancer, choreographer and teacher with a degree in architecture, she creates her individual projects with the collaboration and support of Compagnia degli Istanti formerly Compagnia Simona Bucci and pursues her choreographic research on the vision of performance as a ritual act. searching for a collective temporal dimension for the ‘group’ that performs this ritual, including performers and witnesses within the process and investigating the borderline between Butoh and contemporary dance. In parallel she also collaborate as a freelance performer and gives workshops and regular classes. Since 2024 he has been co-artistic director, together with Matilde J. Ciria, of the BIG Butoh International Gathering, the main event for the dissemination of Butoh dance in Europe. From 2006 to 2012 she trained in between Florence and Berlin in contemporary dance (Nikolais Technique with Simona Bucci and Paolo Mereu, contact improvisation with Alessandro Certini and Charlotte Zoerbey) and Butoh dance with Yumiko Yoshioka and other masters. From 2008 to 2011 he was a stable member of Ten Pen Chii Art labor, the Berlin-based experimental Butoh dance company of Yumiko Yoshioka and JoaXim Manger, with whom he danced in several productions and i site-specific contexts and festivals. Her interest for understanding body structure and functionalities leads her to create her own postural method –Movimento Sensibile – in wich her background studies merges with her personal approach to the body comprehension trough movement. (bio of https://www.camillagiani.com) |
| Camille Mutel | Camille Mutel is a dancer and choreographer. Performer of Hervé Diasnas, Jean Claude Gallotta or more recently Matthieu Hocquemiller, she owes her choreographic language mainly to her significant encounter with the radicality of butoh. She was a student of Masaki Iwana for 5 years and continued to deepen her knowledge of Japanese culture by dancing for several choreographers such as Akira Kasai or Yukio Waguri in Japan and Europe between 2000 and 2010. |
| Carey Charlie Jeffries | Carey first studied Fine Arts in London and Canterbury in England under the sculptor Sir Antony Caro. Following a series of costume sculpture and a meeting with dancer Lindsey Kemp and her theater dance company in Barcelona. Carey focused on dance and body work, mainly through Butoh dance and Body Weather. |
| Carl Annala | Carl Annala (b. 1964) is a painter, musician and butoh dancer living in Portland, Oregon, USA. He began is Butoh journey by seeing the film “Butoh – Dance of Darkness” in 1987 but didn’t find teachers until 1995. He began performing on stage at an early age, 5yrs, as the child of classical music teachers. He attended Pacific Northwest College of Art earning a BFA in drawing but also formed a band and started doing performance art in the early 1980’s. He earned an MFA in Painting in 2002 and has taught fine arts classes for over 20 years. Annala has performed Butoh solo and with Ash Pillar since 1999 at local venues and festivals as well as in NYC, Helsinki and at eXit 19 in Germany. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Ash Pillar Butoh and the Portland Butoh Festival. He is an exhibiting and teaching artist/painter, a band leader (Hell Cows, Hail, Old Town Diamonds to name a few) and has a history in arts administration, graphic design, photography and jewelry mfg. |
| Carla Lobos | Carla Lobos it a Chilena performer who live en Berlín in The 80°. First she know The Butoh Technique by The contact whit The performers of Tatoeba( Seki -Yushioka). Carla take seminars, workshop a 1 month seminars in special locations in germani. The she take contact whit Charlota Ikeda.In early 90° return to Chile( 1995,) and begin to reach The Technique, in Santiago and other citys of Chile. At The same time she start is Company AUCABUTOH and realize more than 7 proyects ( plays- of 45 or 60 minutes) traveling, and teaching for all The country til today. Espectácules of AUCABUTOH: La flor del Agua-Aucabutoh- Piedra de Fuego- Torre de Viento- Animitas-519 A El Umbral – La crueldad del corazon. |
| Carlos Cruz | Graduate of the Bachelor’s Degree in Dramatic Arts from the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo (UAEH). He is a director, actor, dancer, and researcher of cultural groups. He has been recognized by international arts programs such as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative (Switzerland). He was a semifinalist for the award granted by the International Youth Foundation, Laureate Education Inc., and the Universidad del Valle de México for young leaders in social development in 2009. He received an honorable mention for the stage piece Árbol de maíz at the Seventh International Performance Meeting, Performagia 2009, organized by the National Autonomous University of Mexico through the Chopo University Museum. In 2008, he was awarded a grant from the State Fund for Culture and the Arts of Hidalgo (FOECAH) for the project Teatro Cuerpo Social, through which he worked in collaboration with the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, engaging children and youth from the three indigenous regions of the state (Otomi, Nahua, and Tepehua). Since then, Teatro Cuerpo Social has been a company through which he promotes the theatrical body. He seeks to share the stage language of the body with others, raising public awareness through workshops and performances using Butoh and ritual dance techniques. (https://www.fronda.mx/simbiosis2012/artistas/carlos-cruz/) |
| Carlotta Ikeda | Carlotta Ikeda was a Japanese Butoh dancer and co-founder of the all-female Butoh company Ariadone in 1974. She trained with Akaji Maro’s Dairakudakan company and collaborated closely with choreographer Ko Murobushi. Relationship to other butoh artists • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/ko-murobushi • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/sabine-seume |
| Carmen Lafran | Carmen Lafran is an interdisciplinary butoh dancer, performance artist, choreographer, and movement researcher. (https://sloganstheater.com/carmen-lafran) |
| Carol Trindade | Carol Trindade is a Brazilian-born performance artist whose work blends Butoh, clowning, and physical theater into evocative and somatic driven work. Emerging from Curitiba, Carol’s journey began performing as a clown from a young age living in a favela. Carol studied technical theater at Estadual do Paraná college and contemporary dance at Casa Hoffman. She later, co-founded ArcologyZero, an experimental arts organization in Brazil that combines housing, studio space, and artist residencies for emerging creatives. Drawing from Butoh, Contemporary Dance, and her lived experiences, Carol creates pieces that are both poetic and spiritual—often improvisational, always deeply embodied. Her work has been seen across the U.S., Europe and South America. Whether performing in public spaces or digital formats, Carol continues to explore themes of identity, control, memory, and resilience through the language of the body. |
| Carole McCurdy | Carole McCurdy is a Chicago-based artist whose work addresses grief and anxiety, duty and resistance, and the absurd mysteries of embodiment. She received a 2016 Lab Artist award from the Chicago Dancemakers Forum and was a Fall 2016 Sponsored Artist at High Concept Laboratories. She created and directed an ensemble piece, Waver, with support from CDF, HCL, and 3Arts Chicago. She’s been privileged to study with many masters of butoh dance, including Natsu Nakajima and Yoshito Ohno, and also with great teachers of Argentine tango. She has performed at spaces including the Chicago Cultural Center, Epiphany Dance, Links Hall, Hamlin Park, High Concept Laboratories, Defibrillator Gallery, and Movement Research (NY). In 2014 she danced under viaducts in downtown Chicago and then toured Indonesia with Nicole LeGette’s blushing poppy Dance Club. In 2008–09 she was awarded a six-month artistic residency at Links Hall, where she created and showed her ensemble piece Alas. For Redmoon Theater’s 2006 Twilight Orchard event in Columbus Park, she created A Cure for Scurvy, a performance installation one reviewer described as “an example of the way dread can be created virtually out of thin air.” |
| Caroline Haydon | Caroline Haydon is an Emmy-nominated producer, curator, and multimedia artist based in Los Angeles and working with movement, sound, video, and emergent technology. With an extensive background in Butoh dance and digitally-driven performance, she explores the multidimensionality and intersection of dance and interactive technologies by focusing on both the individual human experience and our collective existence on a universal, infinite scale. (https://www.carolinemhaydon.com/about) |
| Cassie Terman | Cassie Terman is a performer, writer, and teacher. Raised in California she arrived to theater in her early twenties by way of dance. Originally trained in ballet and modern technique she began an intensive practice in Action Theater™ with Ruth Zaporah in 1991 and since then has been improvising and creating original physical theater work on stages from San Francisco to Berlin. Fascination with language led to an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University, a small Buddhist college, which then influenced her theater work on many levels. In 1999 she became a member of Shinichi Iova-Koga’s inkBoat company and was introduced to Butoh dance and a starkly imagistic theater-making that resonated with an ongoing delight in the surreal and darker world of fairytale, myth, and the profoundly mysterious nature of being. Since moving to New York in 2004 she has continued solo performances as well as collaborating with such talented artists as Tanya Calamoneri & Company SoGoNo, composer Keren Rosenbaum’s Reflex Ensemble, Heather Harpham, Shinichi Iova-Koga, and the Action Theater Ensemble. Current and past collaborators also include Owen Walker, Sten Rudstrom, Sabine von der Tann, Leigh Evans, Katie Yates, Max Regan, and Etiquette (Mary Lois Hare and Linda Carr). (https://www.inkboat.com/inkbio/biocassie) |
| Cath Blackfeather | Cath Blackfeather joined Café Reason in 2014. She has no formal training but over 25 years’ experience working in movement and expressive arts in social and therapeutic contexts. She has always been interested in the more abstract and avant-garde aspects of contemporary dance and physical theatre. “I see butoh as both a delving deep within myself to find the roots of movement and allowing myself to be permeable to outside, intangible forces that can manifest through me. I was once asked, during a class, to feel myself moving into an infinite space with all past human history behind me and moving through me. To me, that is the perfect expression of what butoh is all about.” (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) |
| Cécile Raymond | Trained in contemporary dance, then butoh for over 20 years with many Japanese teachers also to different somatic techniques and martial arts. She has performed in different companies contemporary and butoh. She also has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in dance from Paris 8 University. In 2001 she created Cie Transit exploring around butoh and instant composition with performances in situ and in public space. She runs workshops for adults as well as for specific audiences. She collaborates on different dance videos. |
| Cecilia Sur | Cecilia Sur is a nomad and multidisciplinary artist. Borned in Buenos Aires, she studied butoh dance since 2012 with Rhea Volij. At the same time, she studied literature, that’s why in her classes she emphasizes in the poetic landscape of eaach other and the value of writing im dance. Travelling around Latinoamérica she had the opportunity of taking classes with Kumorato Mukai, Yukio Suzuki, Natalia Cuéllar and Espartaco Martinez in the First International Butoh Festival in México D.F. In Buenos Aires she also took workshops with Yumiko Yoshioka. She moved to Patagonia where she has been giving intensive workshops and presenting her dance pieces Aeón and La trilogía del tiempo (which received the Prodanza awards two times and was sellected for Vivamos cultura and Puentes culturales). Following her nomad spirit she continued travelling, this time to Berlín, where she studied Seki Method. She also travelled around the balcans giving butoh dance workshops in Sarajevo, Novi Sad, Istambul and recently in Viena. She co-created the dance magazine Sisma where dance and territory meet to develop new ways of creating possible futures. Nowadays she is prepairing herself to travel to Japan in order to continue her formation with Minako Seki and she is developing her new piece Abyssal. |
| Celeste Hastings | Celeste Hastings is a New York City based choreographer, dancer, improvisational performer, costume and soundscape designer, also experimenting with the video medium. Her work both theatrical and site specific, fuses elements of butoh dance, dance and theater with an emphasis on creating evolving surreal visual and sound environments, with an eye for the microcosmic/macrocosmic. She was a lead dancer for over 10 years with the post modern butoh group Poppo and Gogo Boys under the direction of Poppo Shiraishi in the mid 80’s through 90’s (Poppo had a background with Akira Kasai) and worked as well as a modern dancer and in physical theater. The experience of helping create group choreography for Poppo as well her improvisational experience, left Celeste with an interest in the power of group unity in movement and feeling which she tends to come back to in working with others. |
| Celia Béjar | Born in Pedernales, Michoacán, a town in the province of Mexico on February 17, 1988. She grew up in the city of Morelia, Michoacán. Her encounters with dance was until she was 16 years old, while she was studying in high school, majoring in plastic arts. She had training with the Graham technique, Nancy Topf’s somatic technique, and jazz dance. She became a mother at the age of 20, and while mothering she continued her development and dance training, and in 2011 she joined the scenic project “Girasoles”, and it is in this project where she began her exploration in the techniques of active meditation and had her first approach to Butoh dance; at the same time she participated in several contemporary dance projects, between 2012 and 2017. In 2018, she decided to start her own dance/scenic project focusing on Butoh dance, becoming interested in the various possibilities of research and exploration of the body and emotions and in the ability that this dance expression has to break with the canons of Western contemporary dance. Currently, she continues her dance, creating and performing her own choreographies. “My first experience with butoh was somewhat diffused because I was not aware that it had been an experience on butoh. I had training through active meditation, this being part of the essence of the project of which I was part of at that time. But when I consciously decided that I wanted to do butoh, I began to investigate it, and it was then that I realized that I had been doing butoh for a long time. I realized that all the previous training that I had guided me towards the path of Butoh. This was a very pleasant and beautiful surprise, because since I was a teenager I had an interest in Butoh. I was very struck by how monstrously beautiful the interpretations of the butoh dancers were. And precisely my infatuation with Butoh has to do with that darkest part, with the part that allows you to see into the darkest part of your own being, that lets you look into your own abyss, that connects you with the deepest and most shadowy and at the same time with the highest part of yourself, of your experience of existing.” (https://www.instagram.com/p/CudM4qzPBFe/?img_index=1) |
| Charles Smith | Charles Joseph Smith started his Butoh dance journey in the year 1998, where he was a part of a student Butoh dance troupe in a project called “A Night To Be Born”, under a student-leader named Allan Nunez, at the Armory Free Theater, which premiered in Champaign, IL.) At that point, he was a graduate music student of the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign, and during this Butoh performance, he also showed an opportunity to dance his own Butoh-inspired choreography to his own avant-garde music, “Smooth Suspense.”) In addition, he already fell in love with traditional dances, like ballroom, Latin, swing, and even line dances, and decided to expand his dancing adventures to the nontraditional types of dances, like creative improvisation, and later on, contact improvisation (with the help of student-friends and dance instructors like Kathryn (Qilo) Matzen, Karina Lepeley, Kristen Chun, and more especially, Shelley Masar) which led him to participate in the aformentioned Butoh dance presentation in 1998. He started to gradually fall in love with Butoh dance afterward. After he got back into Chicago after graduating with both MM and DMA degrees in Piano Performance, he decided to delve even more into the Butoh dance community of Chicago, mainly in DIY spaces, and at numerous DIY shows and events, starting around 2003 or so, and inspired by his participations in avant-garde dance in the 2005 and 2007 versions of the John Cage Musicircus. Charles’ Chicago journey in Butoh started by going to Chicago DIY shows where Butoh dancing were encouraged—more particularly, at the apartment of Carole McCurdy on Chicago’s North Side, where he befriended other Butoh dance-friends, like Lily Emerson, and Aurora Tabar. (This is where Carole used to curate open mic jams where Butoh dancing was encouraged.) He also befriended Butoh dancers Aza Greenlee and William Amaya Torres at the No Nation DIY venue in Wicker Park, where he did more dance encounters with them, and still are friends with them. Then, after attending a few workshops led by Mexican Butoh dancer, Diego Pinon, who was part of Butoh Mexico Ritual, in the late 2000s period, he decided to push his Butoh adventures further by going to Silverspace and go to several Butoh bootcamps by the infamous Butoh phenom, Vangeline, and survive the camps. He then befriended Butoh dance practitioner and enthusiast, Sara Zalek, and got additional lessons/workshops from her, at a nondescript DIY venue on the edge of Humboldt Park, which was formerly run by Charlie Univerz. He also got additional lessons from Asimina Chermos at the Silverspace space at Wicker Park, and finally, Holly Chernobyl, at the Japanese Cultural Center in Chicago. He also attended additional Butoh classes with Nicole Legette (formerly of the Blushing Poppy Butoh Dance troupe) at Chicago’s Cultural Center. Sara Zalek also collaborated with Charles in numerous Chicago DIY music shows, occasionally–or more often–incorporating Butoh dance in their routines, from indoor places (like Elastic Arts Chicago) to outdoor places, which included house DIY shows. Later on, he met up with Ed Rivera in the mid-2010s, and danced some semi-Butoh partnerships with him–some of them happening at the Decorators Tattoo parlor at Humboldt Park, where he is a co-owner. Moreover, Charles self-mastered the Hijikata Bugs Walk by watching a YouTube video presented by Adam Koan. Overall, Charles focuses more on a hybrid of the Kazuo and Tatsumi Butoh dance styles–although not all the time—often mixing these Butoh styles in most of his performances. Sometimes, Charles adds additional non-Butoh dances in addition to the aforementioned whenever the time is right to do so, like jazz, ballet, or creative movement. |
| Charlie Jimenez | Charlie Jimenez is a London-based creative director, visual/performance artist, and filmmaker. They graduated with First Class Honours from Central Saint Martins (BA in Performance: Design & Practice). Through moving-image and performance art, Charlie’s work investigates the intersections of body, memory, myth and identity — often creating visionary, liminal worlds that blur the line between the real and the imagined. Their short film Keratin (2021) achieved international attention, winning “Best Short Film” at ASVOFF 2024. (https://filmfreeway.com/CharlesJimenez) Charlie also engages with live performance work that sometimes draws on movement languages including butoh — for example, one of their performances listed on their website is described as combining “8mm projection, butoh, and prosthetics” to explore a subconscious journey of healing. (https://www.instagram.com/p/DH_fWGjIi_7) |
| Chenoeh Miller | Chenoeh is deeply invested in the rich cultural ecology of the city she grew up in, as well as her new home on Gadigal Country. She is committed to supporting emerging artists everywhere to bring their creative visions to life. Formerly a Live Programs Officer at Belco Arts, Chenoeh is currently Senior Producer at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists. Little Dove Theatre Art is a physical theatre and performance art company, working between Ngunnawal country, ACT, and Gadigal country, NSW. Founded in 2006 by Artistic Director, Chenoeh Miller, the company is dedicated to creating works that explore how love and connection exist as the root system of our being. Fusing Butoh dance, live art and contemporary performance practices, Little Dove’s inimitable style and approach to performance has drawn acclaim from around the world. Chenoeh have only recently started running public workshops. (https://performancespace.com.au/programs/artists/chenoeh-miller) |
| Chiara Clara Burgio | Chiara Clara Burgio choreographer and performer born in Palermo. She began her research on the theme of the perception of the body and presence starting from painting and the history of art and from an early age with classical dance, seeking a language as an image in action, a gesture that arises from a feeling, in 1999 she met the butoh dance theater with Julia Materia, and since 1999 she has never stopped, subsequently with Valentina Samonà, and trained with Masaki Iwana, Ko Murobushi, Yoshito Ono, Atsushi Takenouki , Yumiko Yoshiota, and many other great Butoh Masters until graduating from the International Butoh Academy with Sayoko Onishi’s school, combining the Academic recognition between Palermo and Japan with master Yoshito Ono. |
| Chie Mukai | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Chie Sasaki | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Chieko Kanahara | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00200/) |
| Chiharu Yamaguchi | I am a butoh dancer based in Fukuoka. I have also performed butoh in Tokyo, Taiwan and New York. I collaborate in live-action performances with musicians, painters, photographers, visual media, and other types of artists. (https://api.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/opac_download_md/4782094/025_p025.pdf) |
| Chika Omoishi | Mentioned in text The Butoh in Mexico 2006-2009 as having traveled often to Latin America for giving performance and workshops. Source: Ramírez, Tania Galindo, and Dr. Miguel Ángel Esquivel. “El Butoh en México 2006 – 2009 Y dos Referentes en América Latina, Una Aproximación Estética y crítica. 2010. |
| Chikako Bando | Born n 1967, Chikako Bando studied linguistics at University while becoming active in Theater. She discovered Bali dance which led to her interest in Butoh dance, and she continued intensive studies with Masumi Yurabe and Akira Kasai. 1998-2011, she founded a butoh dance company called Hanaarashi with Yumiko Nii and On Furukara. The company created a body of work heavily influenced by a butoh-informed body sense, addressing fundamental issues surrounding the subject of women-hood with a rigorous and humorous approach. Hanaarashi has performed in Japan, Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Madagascar and France. From 2011, as a solo dancer, she collaborates with another dancers, musicians, performers. (https://chikakobando.jimdofree.com/profile-1/english) |
| Chinden Hosono | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Chisato Katata | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00198/) |
| Chizuko Kotani | Chizuko Kotani (小谷ちず子) is a Japanese dancer and choreographer from Osaka who is butoh-inspired, and is founder and artistic director of Dance Core Possible (P Company). Has worked with butoh artist Nobuo Harada and Azumi Oe. Trained first under the late Miyoko Fujiwara, whose studio she inherited in her early twenties, she later deepened her formation with Mariko Sanjō, studied Martha Graham technique with Akiko Kanda, and received classical ballet instruction from Eriko Taguchi and Noriko Kozuki. Often described in program notes as a second-generation atomic-bomb survivor, Kotani has developed a body of work that leans toward themes of life, death, rebirth, and peace, presenting her choreography throughout Kansai and in international events, including U.S. festivals and peace-focused performance programs. (https://www.cprnyc.org/events/planting-seeds-of-peace-in-america) |
| Chokuichi Nakayama | Danced with Yumiko Yoshioka and Minako Seki |
| Christian Stübner | Christian Stübner, born in 1934 in Löbau/Oberlausitz. For twenty years, Christian Stübner has been involved with Butoh. He was invited to collaborate on stage productions by Atsushi Takenouchi in Avignon, by the group TEN PEN Chii in Berlin and Graz, repeatedly by Stefan Marria Marb, and in 2012 by Nikolaus Brass in Munich. |
| Christina Braun | Dance artist Christina Anna Braun’s choreography is influenced by her deep appreciation of Isadora Duncan technique and repertory and Butoh dance. She is inspired by classical and experimental music. Her work, always in collaboration with a musician, has been presented regularly since her 2002 evening length debut of “PeaceDreams”. Her long term collaboration with instrument inventor Tom Nunn produces intriguing structured improvisations. Christina has performed with Mary Sano and her Duncan Dancers, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano’s Harupin Ha, and Katsura Kan for over a decade. Christina Braun was a founding member of Mary Sano and her Duncan Dancers, and was a soloist in the 2000 Japan and 2002 Hungary tours. Through Mary Sano’s studio, Christina was privileged to be coached by Mignon Garland, and workshop with Sylvia Gold, Patricia Adams and Catherine Gallant. She performed with Ann Cogley’s Isadora Duncan Repertory Dancers of Berkeley. Christina took the intensive in New York with Lori Beliove and Cherlyn Smith, and received coaching from Julia Levien. Christina was invited to be a guest dancer for Lori Belilove and Company in a 2006 California residency. Christina has taken master classes with Jeanne Bresciani and Barbara Kane. Her project SF Butoh LAB organized Butoh Dance Symposia in 2005 and 2009 and also the Asian Art Museum’s 2008 Butoh dance concert. Christina co-founded BUTOH San Francisco, producing two festivals. In the creativity and performance classes Christina curates, she gratefully acknowledges the direct sourcing of specific exercises and concepts. Christina’s influential master teachers in the Butoh form include Akiko Motofuji, Yoshito and Kazue Ohno, Akira Kasai, and Yumiko Yoshioka. Christina has a BA in Dance, and teaches dance to children. She does Isadora Duncan movement research and practice with Christina Fessenden and Christy Cornell-Pape. She lives in San Francisco with her daughter. |
| Christine Coleman | Butoh dancer mentioned at Butoh America. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Christine Greiner | Christine Greiner is a Brazilian scholar and choreographer specialized in Butoh and body-oriented performance studies. She serves as a Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Art at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC‑SP) in Brazil (https://realtokyo.co.jp/en/authors/greiner-christine) |
| Christine Quoiraud | Christine Quoiraud originally trained in modern dance, philosophy and visual arts, worked and lived in Tokyo from 1985 to 1990, dancing member of Min Tanaka’s company MAI JUKU. Christine Quoiraud met the Body Weather Laboratory practice with Min Tanaka, in 1980 in Europe. (https://lecube-art.com/artiste/christine-quoiraud/?lang=en) Christine Quoiraud is the founder of the Body/Landscape project (1995) workshops and performances in situ, artistic residencies all over the world (Los Angeles, Barcelona..). She conducted Body/Landscape projects with Frank van de Ven in various landscapes in France from 1996 to 1999. |
| Christo Arias | Mexican artist, whose work spans Butoh dance, performance, painting, and writing. Christo Arias embraces the concept of “TOLTECAYOTL” (the artist who dialogues with his heart), fusing in his practice ancestral philosophies such as Toltec, Mexica, Buddhist, and Japanese wisdom. Through his multidisciplinary approach, he manifests an immersion into the deep and swampy waters of being, exploring chaos, catharsis, and the id—the beast–the child—always under the premise of inhabiting and embodying these dissident spaces, giving them light, warmth, and embrace: a voice. In certain interstices of his journey, he seeks illumination–healing, liberation from the outside inward, both individually and collectively. He graduated in Design and Communication from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and specialized in Arts and Education at UNAM. He has pursued various postgraduate studies and specializations in different artistic fields, merging painting, dance, and theater at multiple institutions nationally (UNAM, UAM, Casa del Teatro, FAD, Casa del Lago) and internationally in countries such as Canada, England, and the USA (The Anglo Mexican Foundation, British Council, Embassy of Canada in Mexico). (https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck94TRWM7JS/?img_index=1) |
| Christoph Mandl | Born 1955, Journalist, started Dancing Contemp and Butoh at the age of 50. |
| Christopher Mankowski | Mentioned as studied under Piñón and was his assistant. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Chrystian Tamayo | Chrystian T. H. is a Colombian-born (Bogotá) multidisciplinary performing artist and academic (M.A. in Dramatic Arts, Universidad Central), with 25+ years of experience as an actor, dancer, choreographer, director, producer, and cultural manager. His work blends classical training, Butoh, and research-led practices in theater and performance. |
| Cinthia Patiño | Butoh dancer and director of CRISOL Arte del Cuerpo Escénico. |
| Claudio Vidal | Multidisciplinary artist. His work has been developed in artistic search, creation and training in the field of Butoh dance since 2011. The matrix of his work is the result of a tension between coexisting forces: decadence, death, birth; beauty, miracle and horror. His research proposes immersing oneself in the unknown, an attentive listening to the madness of the body present either to excite it, squeeze it or let it squeeze itself. He is co-director of the artistic collective DEMO (Multidisciplinary and Organic Experimental Device) and performer/musician in the musical project “Lucifer’s Ensemble” https://www.coimbraexplore.com/eventoscoimbra/9wll4rjnjk9a7n9npyy32464c4kt5c?utm_ |
| Clementine Balair | My interest in butoh is to explore a richness and density of this dance of the dark body which nevertheless goes towards the light. My Butô is called butô land. My butô agrees in form and strength to translate my creativity, my singularity and my poetry. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2022.html) |
| Coco Villarreal | Coco Villarreal is a distinguished butoh dancer and educator whose work embodies the raw, transformative spirit of this avant-garde Japanese dance form. Known for his ritualistic and deeply personal approach, Villarreal explores themes of darkness, archetypes, and human connection through slow, visceral movements and a striking aesthetic often featuring a shaved head and white body paint. His performances and workshops have made him a prominent figure in the global butoh community, particularly in Europe.[](https://achtungmag.com/la-danza-butoh-es-una-herencia-cultural-para-la-humanidad/)[](https://shadowbody.com/butoh-education/) **Background and Artistic Journey** Born in Mexico, Coco Villarreal’s early artistic path was eclectic, spanning multiple disciplines before he gravitated toward butoh. In a 2020 interview with *Achtung!*, he shared that he never initially committed to a single art form, exploring theater, visual arts, and music. His shift to butoh was driven by personal experiences that led him to confront darker aspects of himself, finding in butoh a medium to explore the body’s expressive potential. This transition reflects butoh’s appeal as a dance of self-discovery, unbound by commercial or conventional constraints.[](https://achtungmag.com/la-danza-butoh-es-una-herencia-cultural-para-la-humanidad/) Villarreal’s move to Spain, likely in the early 2000s, marked a significant phase in his career. Seville became a hub for his performances and teaching, though he maintains an international presence through workshops in countries like Italy, Turkey, Greece, and India. His Mexican heritage informs his work, blending universal butoh themes with personal archetypes, such as ancestral figures like his grandfather, which he channels into his dance.[](https://achtungmag.com/la-danza-butoh-es-una-herencia-cultural-para-la-humanidad/)[](https://shadowbody.com/butoh-education/) **Education and Training** Specific details about Villarreal’s formal education are scarce, as butoh training often occurs outside traditional academic institutions, emphasizing mentorship and intensive workshops. Based on available sources, Coco’s butoh training likely involved studying with European and Japanese butoh masters, a common path for contemporary practitioners. The *shadowbody.com* His interdisciplinary background suggests exposure to theater, music, and visual arts, which he integrates into his butoh practice. For instance, his performances often incorporate live music collaborations, as seen in *Bodhi* (2021) with musician Gul. Villarreal’s teaching method, described as open and improvisational, draws on Hijikata’s *Butoh Fu* notation system, which uses poetic imagery to guide movement, indicating familiarity with foundational butoh texts and methodologies.[](https://achtungmag.com/la-danza-butoh-es-una-herencia-cultural-para-la-humanidad/) **Key Performances and Contributions** – **Bodhi (2021)**: An improvisational butoh performance with musician Gul at Sala ZM, Seville, blending dreamlike movement with live soundscapes. – **Precarious (2024)**: A solo or collaborative work at Sala ZM, showcasing Villarreal’s ability to evoke precarious human states through butoh’s slow, controlled aesthetic. – **International Workshops**: Villarreal has taught intensives worldwide, including: – **Spain**: A 2-week “Beyond Limits Butoh Intensive” in El Calabacino (July 2022).[](https://shadowbody.com/butoh-education/)[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP71KlYMhaE) – **Italy**: “Dance of Spores Butoh Residency” in Vigolo Vattaro (September 2022), alongside artists like Santeri Vikstrom and Alessia Mallardo.[](https://shadowbody.com/butoh-education/) – **Turkey**: 36-hour workshops at Tiyatro Medresesi in Sirince and STOA (2022).[](https://shadowbody.com/butoh-education/) His workshops emphasize self-exploration, improvisation, and the cultivation of *qi* (energy), aligning with butoh’s philosophy of the body as a vessel for universal truths. **Philosophy and Approach** Villarreal views butoh as a ritualistic, non-commercial practice that transcends mere performance. In his words, it’s “a journey of personal exploration” where dancers uncover archetypes and transform inner darkness into movement. He favors open structures akin to jazz, allowing spontaneity to shape the dance, and prioritizes process over product. This philosophy resonates with butoh’s origins as a countercultural response to post-WWII Japan, adapted to his own cultural and personal context.[](https://achtungmag.com/la-danza-butoh-es-una-herencia-cultural-para-la-humanidad/)[](https://study.com/learn/lesson/japanese-butoh-dance-characteristics.html) **Conclusion** Coco Villarreal is a vital force in contemporary butoh, bridging Mexican roots with a global practice centered in Spain. His journey from multidisciplinary artist to butoh master reflects a commitment to exploring the body’s depths through ritual, improvisation, and cross-cultural exchange. As a performer and teacher, he fosters authentic, transformative experiences, leaving a lasting impact on the international butoh community. |
| Conan Amok | Choreographer / Dancer / Director of Sanzen CAMP A graduate of Musashino Art University’s Department of Sculpture (2010), he was a core member of Dairakudakan under Akaji Maro from 2008 to 2019. Served as Artistic Director of A5yl / Sanzen Kōbō from 2022 to 2024. His artistic concept centers on “The Drama of Materiality – Depicting the textures of consciousness and force, and generating time-space through transformation and contrast.” His work is defined by a solid yet intricately detailed physicality, creating dance pieces that are both conceptually meta and intensely passionate. He brings both technical precision and philosophical depth to his practice, and is engaged in the research and development of a Butoh-based method called “Multi-Layered Body,” rooted in phenomenology and a sculptural perspective. He has performed and taught workshops extensively in Japan and abroad, and has appeared in numerous stage productions, TV dramas, films, music videos, and commercials. Awards include: Winner in the Dance category at a BAFTA-qualifying film festival (2019) Second Prize at the International Gombrowicz Festival (2022) He currently teaches at institutions including the Butoh Lab Camp and Musashino Art University. ### ▶️ Video Class * Various Conditioning https://youtu.be/EaGqZYQm3x8?si=V2OcRy4X2GVmhBmc |
| Constance Humphries | As an artist, educator, and collaborator, Constance explores what it means to be human by engaging with the messy, ordinary, and extraordinary aspects of life through movement, media, and exchange. Rooted in training in modern dance, butoh, Noguchi Taiso, and embodied improvisation—alongside a background in art, philosophy and information science—her work blends analogue and digital forms into performances, installations, videos, soundscapes, drawings and code. These projects unfold in site-specific, stage, gallery, and virtual settings, inviting participants into visceral experiences that foster connection, transformation, and shared humanity. Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, National Trust England, Asheville Area Arts Council, and others, and presented internationally. Intersecting with her creative practice, Constance facilitates butoh-based improvisation workshops (since 2015). |
| Constanza Herrera | Since 1999, she has participated in workshops and dance offerings trough Butoh with Diego Piñon at Butoh Ritual Mexicano. (https://danzanomade.blogspot.com/2009/03/constanza-herrera-sanchez.html) |
| Corina Pia | In search of more precise and powerful physical work, she traveled to Asia to study Chinese martial arts with Master P’ng Chye Khim. It was in Butoh dance that she found her inspiration to explore the dark sides of life and a way to bring back fleeting spirits. In Berlin, she met Japanese choreographer Anzu Furukawa and studied with her company, “Verwandlungsamt.” Today, Corina Pia lives in Geneva, where she founded her own company, Liquide Crystal Dance, and creates her own projects. She also participates in interdisciplinary projects in various roles (creative assistant, performer, etc.). (https://www.danse-habile.ch/association/documents-phoca/4-festival-dansehabile/5-2013?download=5%3Afestival-dansehabile-2013-stage-atelier-du-9-juin) |
| Corinna Brown | Corinna is a licensed creative arts therapist in NYS, a dance/movement therapist, arts-based researcher, substance abuse counselor, published author, educator, choreographer, and performer. She has been choreographing and dancing in NYC since 1996 in such venues as PS 122, Here, The Knitting Factory, MTV Oddville, and art galleries throughout NYC. Her solo company Dean Street FOO Dance has performed at the San Francisco Butoh Festival, Cool NY Dance Festival,The International Dance Festival, Sweat Outdoors, and DTW’s Bessie Schonberg theatre. She performed and choreographerd for 13 years at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden annual Sakura Matsuri. Recent solo wark has been presented upstate NY in Conklin Hall and Rosekill Performance Art Farm. In addition to her own work she has danced with Christine Coleman’s Sticky Mango Movement, Chris Ferris & Dancers, Fred Hatt, Martha Williams, Celeste Hasting’s Butoh Rockettes & Noemie Lafrance, Mary Lee Hardenburg, Passed Dance, and Andrea Issac’s Moving Images. She also had the privilege of touring Japan with Harupin Ha and Kitaro in 1996. (https://www.corinnabrownphd.com/about) |
| Corinna Torregiani | Actress and translator, she encountered Butô dance as part of her personal research on language and body expression through the master Alessandro Pintus.Fascinated by this almost primitive form of dance which allows intimate expression without intermediation, she began practicing it in 2011.She lives and works in Paris, where she designs her own choreographies and collaborates with other choreographers such as Juju Alishina and Sakurako. In her dance, which she wants to be hypnotic, she combines and connects the authenticity of an essential expression, with an aesthetic borrowed from the statuary plasticity of figurative art developed through her painting practice and her work as a living model.She is engaged in a journey ofstudy of Dance therapy at Paris Descartes University. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2015-en.html) |
| Corrina Hiller | Listed at butoh.net (Wayback archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210417165408/https://www.butoh.net/butoh/Butoh_Artists.html) Part of the The Dean Street FOO Butoh Performance Group (https://omeka.rowandsc.org/files/original/57718dec96187e0a3b446a18ab9042989df4b8e0.pdf) |
| Cris Vilariño | She has a diploma in contemporary dance and a degree in Journalism, with a postgraduate degree in Photojournalism. Butoh dance, Body Weather, and various improvisation techniques have been the pillars of her personal research and work, as well as self-taught learning and continuous experimentation. She is a performer and creator. Director of the Lugo university dance classroom in 2017/18 and the MASA project (Mover as aulas) in 2019. As a teacher, she has given regular and intensive workshops for children and adults in butoh/movement and improvisation laboratories, body awareness and sensitivity. Promoter of dance in Galicia; Kojoteki, Cartografía en Movemento, international masters, etc. |
| Cristal Sabbagh | Cristal Sabbagh’s performance practice, rooted in improvisation and Butoh, walks a line between the everyday, the divine, the personal, and the political. In embodying in her art transformational memories while simultaneously celebrating pop culture and the experimental, she challenges power structures and awakens viewer’s senses. Working both in a solo capacity and with collaborators, Sabbagh is equally attuned to individual perspectives and collective structures. In various configurations, these collaborators have regularly engaged in improvised performances, opening new avenues for Sabbagh’s material and conceptual exploration. Her practice also looks outward to portraits of the world around her, taking the forms of traditionally drawn portraits, figurative ceramic sculptures, and nontraditional portraits on ceramic mugs. Sabbagh labors over each piece, which act as homages, memorials, and resistants to white supremacy. Not only do these works infuse the user’s everyday coffee and tea rituals, but their ceramic forms will stand the test of time, potentially outliving the user by thousands of years and leaving traces of how we lived, as recorded by Sabbagh’s hand. (https://www.3arts.org/artist/cristal-sabbagh) |
| Crystal Sasaki | Crystal Sasaki is a Butoh dancer and multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. She creates improvisational scores to enliven hyper-mediated reality. Her works combine movement, language, and audiovisual recording in an ongoing investigation of healing, dream states, and animism. Sasaki’s work has been presented at Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Performance Works NW, 2220 Arts + Archives, Lyles & King Gallery, and beyond. She has been studying Butoh and somatic movement practices since 2014. “As a butoh dancer I use my awareness to move through states of flux. In this process a fuller spectrum of being human integrates into my nervous system and imagination. With my dance I try to open space through sensorial communication, to provide a kinesthetic experience of a diversity of embodiment, to loosen the edges of our socialized associations, and to inspire the viewers own freedom of expression and awareness of their bodies subtle instincts.” |
| Cynthia González | Cynthia González is a Bolivian-born, Miami-raised dancer and choreographer, now based in Bern, where she develops her own ensemble-based dance-theater and teaches training programs. Her Butoh performance background includes performing with TEN PEN Chii Art Labor in Berlin, working directly under Yumiko Yoshioka. Her extensive training and choreographic work position her as both a practitioner and educator in contemporary movement and Butoh-influenced performance. |
| Dai Matsuoka | Dai Matsuoka is a prominent Butoh dancer and choreographer based in Tokyo. He has been a member of the renowned Butoh troupe Sankai Juku since 2005, performing in several of their major works, including Kinkan Shonen, Unetsu, Tobari, and ARC . Additionally, he has been the director of LAND FES since 2011, a performance event that invites audiences to experience live dance and music performances while walking around the city • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/ushio-amagatsu • Member of https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/sankai-juku • Member of https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/kokutoin |
| Daiichiro Yuyama | Daiichiro Yuyama (b. c. 1970s, Kyoto) is a dance artist and performer with the renowned Japanese Butō troupe Dairakudakan, which he joined in 2003 after training in traditional Japanese movement forms. |
| Daiji Meguro | Daiji Meguro has studied Butoh under Akiko Motofuji at Tatsumi Hijikata Asbestos Studio. From 2003 to 2010, he was a member of the company Ko & Edge Co., led by Ko Murobushi. Aside from Butoh, Meguro started a one man touring troupe, Yebisu Daikokuza in 2016 and has been touring. The works use almost lost traditional (sometimes regional) theater forms, mixed with modern, contemporary and popular performance influenced by the West. He received support for “Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists” from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2010. |
| Daisuke Sakaki | Daisuke Sakaki, born 1979 in Japan, has been dancing butoh since the age of 15. In the 10 years of his dance career he performed in Japan and Europe not only with Torifune Butohsha (Kayo Mikami, Yukio Mikami and Daisuke Sakaki), but also with other great names of Japanese butoh scene; Yoshito Ōno, Kōichi Tamano (one of the first students of Tatsumi Hijikata), Taketeru Kudō (orig. Sankaijuku), Jun Wakabayashi (Dairakudakan) and others. Since the performance “Watashi ga umareta hi” in 2002 he has been acknowledged as an independent butoh dancer. (http://www.kibla.org/en/sections/kibela-space-for-art/archive/kibela-arhiv/2007/wang-huiqin-eng) |
| Daisuke Yoshimoto | Studied under Kazuo Ohno |
| Dakei Noutan | Dakei Noutan is a Deaf butoh dancer and choreographer based in Japan. He began his butoh journey in 1997 at the invitation of the late Kinya “ZULU” Tsuruyama, the founder of the Fisherman’s Art Factory YAN-SHU. From 1996 to 2001, Dakei was a member of the Japanese Deaf Theatre Company. In 2000, he established his own performance group, “SHIZUKU,” and has since performed and conducted workshops both within Japan and internationally. Recently, he initiated the movement group “NOUTAN” to further explore and develop his artistic expression. |
| Damiano Fina | Damiano Fina investigates the original meaning of eternity through philosophy and butoh dance. His academic and artistic research is influenced by the philosophy of Emanuele Severino, the philosophers of ancient Greece and butoh dance. His publications include: Spring of a Dancer (2025), Letters to My Mom: Grieving with Philosophy and Dance (2024) and The Dance of Eros and Thanatos: Butoh and Queer Pedagogy (2018). Podcasts on Spotify WADING and Lettere a mia mamma. Damiano Fina has performed in Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, New York, Japan, at various Italian festivals and regularly conducts dance workshops, during which he applies his philosophical research and artistic practice to the creation of workshops to cross the ridge that separates the world of “before” and the world of “after” with respect to mourning and trauma. Adopting an approach that can unite theoretical reflection with research through the body and movement, Damiano Fina involves in the experience of dance even people who have never danced, without limits of age or mobility. Damiano Fina has created the FÜYA method, an innovative approach that combines butoh dance with deep philosophical reflections that have arisen in the West. This method guides participants in exploring the body as a physical, emotional, spiritual and remote space, revealing its connection to the ancestral and sacred essence of dance. The FÜYA method is not only an artistic practice and method of teaching dance, but a path to self-knowledge and research inside, outside and beyond dance. In 2024 he teaches at the Master in Creative Arts Therapies at the University of Padua and participates in international conferences with his research on butoh dance and death education. He studied butoh dance with Atsushi Takenouchi and Yoshito Ohno. In 2023 he received his Master’s degree in Death Studies & The End of Life from the University of Padua; in 2017 his Master’s degree in Pedagogy of Expression from the University of Roma Tre; and in 2014 he completed his Master’s degree in Economics and Management of the Arts from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Damiano Fina’s research re-evaluates the importance of philosophy and dance in human existence as exercises of contemplation capable of creating meaningful moments of contact with our inner world, with the outside world and with all that goes beyond. Her dance therapy workshops are accessible to all, without age or mobility limits, and are based on mimesis with the aim of activating profound processes of symbolic elaboration. In particular, butoh dance weaves a very interesting dialogue with the boundary space between life and death, creating the opportunity to take the time and space to dedicate to our dance and to give a reason for being to our being here and now, restructuring that air that looks like a Braque painting, so that it becomes breathable again. Therefore, Damiano Fina applies his research in the context of Death Education and Death Pedagogy. |
| Dan’Ys | A Butoh dancer who explores a party of authenticity rooted in occidental culture. |
| Dana Iova‑Koga | Dana Iova‑Koga is a dancer, choreographer, somatic researcher, and educator, deeply rooted in the Body Weather lineage established by Min Tanaka. |
| Daniela Danimayu | DaniMayu stands for an original ButohDance, as passed on to her by first and second generation masters while she lived and learned with them in Japan (2000-2005). Above all, her more than 5-year collaboration with Dairakudakan is formative. Nevertheless, workshops, courses and projects with ButohMasters such as Motofuji Akiko, Kinya ‘Zulu’ Tsuruyama or Tamano Koichi in Asbestoskan, Ohno Yoshito at Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and Hiruko Hino and Kasai Akira as well as Semimaru and Toru Iwashita from Sankai Juku contributed to her deep understanding of Butoh. Even after moving back to Vienna DaniMayu didn’t stop to continue taking ButohClasses with dancers such as Ko Murobushi, Yuko Yuki, Yamamoto Moe, Harada Hiromi, Batarita, Sonja Heller, Yumiko Yoshioka, Yuko Kaseki, Motimaru or Joan Laage I Kohut Butoh. She took Noguchi Taisou Classes with Arai Hideo in Tokyo and AshtangaYoga Classes in Vienna. DaniMayu made her debut in 2000 with the solo piece Jiyū [jap. Freedom] in Kochuten, the studio of Dairakudakan in Kichijōji I Tokyo. Since then DaniMayu had numerous appearances in Japan, Austria, South Tyrol. Since 2005 DaniMayu gives regular ButohCourses and -Workshops in Vienna. 2008 she started to invite guest instructors from abroad to give ButohWorkshops in Vienna. |
| Daniela Schmidtke | The most important experience in dancing butoh for me is feeling the diffusion between body and space, being in one place and being anywhere, anyone, anything. It is the metamorphosis theme in butoh dance which gives the dancer the intensity, the strength and the lightness in presence. Other influences in dance: Physical Theater and Body Weather, Modern Contemporary, Release. (https://butohweb.wordpress.com/teachers) |
| Danièle Wilmouth | Born 1968 – Pennsylvania Danièle Wilmouth is an artist working primarily in experimental and documentary filmmaking. She creates hybrids of performance art, dance, installation and cinema, which exploit the shifting hierarchies between live and screen space. In 1990 she began a six-year residency in the Kansai region of Japan, where she co-founded “Hairless Films,” an independent filmmaking collective comprised of artists from New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, and the USA. During this time, she also studied the Japanese contemporary dance form Butoh under Katsura Kan, and performed with his troupe “The Saltimbanques” for more than three years. (https://www.vdb.org/artists/daniele-wilmouth) |
| Dara Siligato | Dara Siligato is a Sicilian-born dancer, performer known for leading community dance labs such as “Intrecci” in Capo d’Orlando and presenting her ritual‑inspired MU – Danza Teatro Rituale across Italian cultural spaces. |
| Deborah Butler | I have been a student, practitioner, performer and teacher of Butoh for over two decades. In 1994, I began studies while an undergraduate with the late Doranne Crable, performance studies faculty at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and student of the late progenitor of Butoh, Kazuo Ohno. I was one of the first members and apprentices of her company, Kagami Butoh and studied and performed with the company until 1999. My very first performance with Kagami was a nearly two hour outdoor public performance and it was an experience of a lifetime – life-altering! I vowed to follow in her lineage in my own work and public outdoor collaborative performances have been a signature since. (https://kitsunebutoh.blogspot.com/) |
| Delana Motter | Delana Motter (She/Her) is a movement artist, professional creative, and student of the Dharma and wisdom traditions. Her art is irreverently reverent 😉 informed by Japanese Butoh, sacred theater, somatic embodiment, and ecstatic play on global underground dance floors. In her work she explores the multidimensionality of the human experience~ Distilling the ineffable, the taboo, into raw, authentic offerings. Through surrender, altered states, the subtle energy body, emotional somatic sequencing, deconditioning, ego dissolution, archetypes/identities, and exploring our exiled eroticism, humor and primal nature. She creates solo works, improvisational, durational pieces, video/photo art, nature and site specific work, performs in ensembles ~From black box theaters to Burning Man. She’s had the great fortune of studying with many wisdom lineages, Butoh masters, artists and sages around the planet ~ Her lifelong career of fashion modeling/acting and art direction, also informs her embodied presence and theatrical aesthetics. (https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/delana-motter) |
| delta RA’i | Co-founder of tatoeba-THÉÂTRE DANSE GROTESQUE, the first Japanese-German Butoh dance company in Europe, together with Minako Seki in Berlin (beginning 1988) (http://www.tatoeba.de/html/e-delta.html) |
| Denis Sanglard | Denis Sanglard, born in 1964, is an actor and butoh dancer. It is through theater that he comes to dance. In 1998 for “L’Apprentissage” by Jean-Luc Lagarce directed by Michel Alban, he asked Léone Cats-Baril, butoh dancer and choreographer, to join the project. He joined her workshop and has since worked regularly with her. He joins “les Evadés”, a collective of butoh dancers whose performances question spaces not dedicated to dance. He met Yoshito Ohno, danced with Pé Vermescht, and followed various courses followed by performances with other dancers not related to butoh, Boris Charmatz, DV8, Toméo Verges. |
| Denis Speranza | Part of SPY&DNY, Denis & Speranza, an active multidisciplinary artists duo with primary interests in butoh-inspired visual performative works, and sound creation, often integrating objects and puppetry. Their works are at the intersections of memory and nostalgia and re-engineered mythologies. |
| Denise Fujiwara | Denise Fujiwara is an American Butoh dancer, choreographer, and educator who has developed a unique style blending traditional Butoh with contemporary performance and somatic practices. (denisefujiwara.com) |
| Diana Garcia Snyder | Diana Garcia‑Snyder is a Mexican-origin movement specialist, performer, and co‑founder of DAIPANbutoh Collective in Seattle. She integrates Butoh as a contemplative, healing practice in her work through teaching, performance, and interdisciplinary arts. |
| Diane Granitz | Was part of Yumiko Yoshioka’s Ten Pen CHii Art Labor |
| Diego Piñón | Relationship to other butoh artists • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/kazuo-ohno • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/yoshito-ohno • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/vangeline • Trained Coco Villarreal • Trained Cinthia Patiño • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/nicole-legette-blushing-poppy • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/min-tanaka • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/mizu-desierto • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/nathan-montgomery-syzygy-butoh • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/julie-becton-gillum-legacy-butoh • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/djalma-primordial-science • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/diana-garcia-snyder • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/gerry-gardner |
| Dilshan Srt | Dilshan Srt is a Gastronomist who is questioning ingredients of perception & movement from Butoh in Contact Improvisation. His practice flows around identifying movement recipes from spaces inbetween, shadow spaces and subconscious states. His dedication to this process over the years has inspired him to create many stories and recipes in movement, which eventually leads to a meal of possibilities. As a form of deeper immersion and expansion of self practice, He has been facilitating workshops, classes and intensives based on the somatics of Butoh interacting with the principles of Contact Improvisation. Where the direction is an embodied question towards finding clarity of vocabulary in uncharted spaces. This interdisciplinary process of finding a path through Gastronomy & Butoh in Contact Improvisation, has helped him cook exqusite meals all accross Europe & India in many different settings. As a direction, his dream is to keep searching for flavour in uncharted spaces. |
| DK Pan | DK Pan is an artist investigating the intersection of place and memory – exploring the interstices and histories of site; the personal and collective body – through visual art, video, performance, public art, installation, interventions, and arts programming/organizing. d.k. was born in Seoul, immigrated to US at age 4 and grew up in Seattle and L.A.. They studied Butoh dance/theater in Seattle and San Francisco; and performed in venues/festivals throughout US, Japan, and South Korea. They founded performance troupe, P.A.N., collaborated with many groups including Degenerate Art Ensemble, Infernal Noise Brigade, and New Mystics. (https://artisttrust.org/artists/d-k-pan) |
| Dominique Starck | Dominique Starck is a painter, Butoh dancer, and yoga teacher. He lives in Seebach, in the north of Alsace. Born in 1963 in Wissembourg. After studying at the École des Arts Décoratifs of Strasbourg and spending time at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Dominique Starck trained in Butoh dance, contemporary dance, and yoga. |
| Domonique Savitri Bonarjee | Dominique’s approach in her art practice both in solo and collaborative work, takes her performances outside of theatres and into installations, site-specific pieces, community-based arts events and durational actions. She creates powerful images that disturb accepted structures of society and identity and explore the gaps in between, seeking to address the oscillations of the contemporary psyche. The primacy of the body and its’ connection to the space and environment recurs within her work and draws inspiration from Japanese Butoh’s ideology of ‘body material’. Recent nomadic journeys have been a conscious attempt to become aware of the social and cultural influences of place in particular the space of the urban environment and have led into live art actions, and the ‘Black Series’ of performance art walks in cities. (https://www.walkingartistsnetwork.org/details-of-member) Selected Academic Works 1. Book: ◦ Butoh, as Heard by a Dancer (Routledge, 2023; Taylor & Francis Online). ▪ This monograph explores Butoh through a sensory and sonic lens, combining autoethnography and embodied research. 2. Chapters & Collaborations: ◦ Contributions in Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies (2023), and interdisciplinary collaborations with scholars such as Eleanor Chadwick, S. Huq, and S. Mukherjee on performance and decolonial aesthetics. ◦ Work cited in academic projects on “performance, conservation, and care” (Hölling et al., 2023, OAPEN). 3. Repository & Open Access: ◦ Research output archived at Goldsmiths Research Online: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/34815 |
| Don McLeod | Don McLeod was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He grew up as an only child on a small rural farm near Mendocino, in Northern California. McLeod studied movement and theatre at Pasadena Playhouse, School of Performing Arts San Diego, and the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada. His dynamic style of physical theatre and dance was developed by his training with a number of the world’s leading artists including Marcel Marceau, Etienne Decroux, Jerzy Grotowski and Sankai Juku. Don’s interest in butoh began during his many trips to Japan, starting the late ’70s. His butoh style has developed after many years studying the techniques of Japan’s leading butoh artists including Kazuo Ohno, Yoko Ashikawa, Akaji Maro and most recently with Yukio Waguri, who passed on the “secret” teachings of Tatsumi Hijikata and his Butoh Fu techniques. His physical theatre career began when he studied with Marcel Marceau in the early ’70s. McLeod went on to form his own professional company and also began appearing in films, television and solo concerts throughout the U.S. In 1974 he was selected as a resident performing artist at the World’s Fair in Washington, and then was chosen to be a featured part of singer Diana Ross’s World Tour. He has performed for President Jimmy Carter, appeared with Ms. Ross on Broadway, and toured his solo show in Japan since 1983. He has lived and performed extensively in Argentina, South Africa, Japan and Canada, and toured his solo show to numerous colleges, theatres and high schools in the U.S., Canada and abroad. Don is also a widely published haiku poet, whose work has appeared in nearly all of the major haiku journals both in North America and in Japan. His first haiku collection Small Town Big City, won 2nd place in the Haiku Society of America’s 1987 Book Awards. www.livingstatue.com momentary dolphins woven in the curl of a summer wave – Donald McLeod http://www.haikunorthamerica.com/keynote-speaker-don-mcleod.html |
| Doranne Crable | Doranne Crable served as Director of Performance Studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She founded and led the Kagami Butoh Company in the early 1990s, making Olympia a center of U.S.-based Butoh performance and training. She founded Kagami Butoh in Olympia in 1993, following three years with the Seattle-based Dappin’ Butoh ensemble. Deceased: 2007 |
| Draven Ballard | Draven lives his creativity. Rooted in stewardship of the earth Draven grew up on a cattle ranch in south central Oregon. His curiosity and view on life as a never ending world of discovery lead him from creative medium to creative medium before discovering Butoh by way of Mizu Desierto. At the time Draven was practicing Drag from a ritualistic stance. Mizu happened to be at a performance of Draven’s in Portland Oregon where she invited him to her theatre “the headwaters” to watch a performance by Yuko Kaseki. It was this performance that struck Draven in a profound way. He felt as though he had found something his life was meant to dedicate itself to. A highway of sorts toward his insatiable hunger for discovery of the current human condition. From here Draven was introduced to both Diego Pinyon where he goes to study during the winters in Mexico. Draven had also taken multiple classes with Anastazia Louise Aranaga. He considers all 3 individuals to be his teachers. Butoh has lead Draven to find property in western Arizona where he builds with adobe and is currently building a food forest. He also is now an animal caretaker for a sanctuary. Draven does not see Butoh as a craft but rather a way of life. He does not believe its roots are performative but are meant to continually excavate what the current moment requires of us. |
| Du Yufang | Du Yufang graduated from the Department of Art Communication of Beijing Dance Academy. She was introduced to Butoh in 2010, becoming a student of Katsura Kan. In the same year, she started studying Chinese Medicine with Bai Liansheng. Since 2011, Du has been independently curating Butoh-related projects both in China and abroad. Du has also hosted individual dance performances in Europe. Since 2013, she has acted as Katsura’s teaching and performing partner, engaging in collaborative creations with Butoh artists from various countries. She founded performance group White Fox Butoh in 2014 and is its artistic director. (https://ucca.org.cn/en/program/katsura-kan-du-yufang-butoh-workshop) |
| Dustin Maxwell | Dustin maxwell is an American dance, performance and visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1982, where he studied ballet, Graham, Limon and the somatic technique of Barbara Clark with his teacher Joanne Emmons. He then began studying dance at the university level on full scholarships based on his technique and performance abilities. In 2008, dustin completed his bachelor’s in dance from the University of Minnesota. While living in Minnesota, after many years of looking for a butoh teacher he began studying butoh with Gadu, a student of Rhizome Lee. (https://www.dustinmaxwell.org) |
| Dwayne Lawler | Dwayne Lawler is an actor, martial artist, Butoh specialist and the founder of Shinbutoh. A pioneer in the use of Butoh training to develop presence in actors, he trained in Butoh in Japan under Yoshito Ohno, Yukio Waguri, Saga Kobayashi, Kayo Mikami, Natsu Nakajima, Seisaku & Yuri Nagaoka [Dance Medium],Yuko Kawamoto and Akaji Maro’s Dairakudakan. He has a PhD specialising in the use of Butoh to develop presence in actors and has taught Butoh training techniques to actors and other performers at various institutions, including Sydney Acting Studio, Griffith University, and as a guest lecturer at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art). |
| Ebisu Torii | (1951～2013) Admitted to Dairakudakan in 1974 and participated in all its programs until 1979. Established his own butoh group, Tenkei (Heavenly Chicken) with Mutsuko Tanaka in 1981. Tenkei is famous for its humor and a touch of pathos embodied in the productions of The Idiots, Humoresque, Outcasts, Nocturne, KNATA and more and these production have been well received overseas as well as in Japan. Lewis Segal in The Los Angeles Times once said that Nocturne “draw butoh audiences deep into irrational states of consciousness.” Choreographing a series of disciplined solo parts by Tanaka, he is a dancer with a distinctively free and whimsical style that lures audience into butoh. |
| Edegar Starke | Edegar Starke is a Brazilian born artist, currently based in Berlin and interested in the research of the body in movement. Graduated actor with a strong physical background, he has developed a series of dance/theatre projects with kids and teens at public schools in Brazil. He kept on with his studies getting in touch with DV8, Les Ballets C de la B, Trisha Brown Dance Company, La Ultima Vez, Russel Maliphant, amongst others and has been training Butoh since 2013. (https://sonic-visions.de/festival/k%C3%BCnstlerinnen/edegar-starke.html) |
| Eiko Otake | Eiko (born in 1952) and Koma (born in 1948) were law and political science students in Tokyo when, in 1971, they each joined Tatsumi Hijikata’s company. Their collaboration began as an experiment and then developed into an exclusive partnership. They started to work as independent artists in Tokyo in 1972 and at the same time began to study with Kazuo Ohno, who, along with Hijikata, was a central figure in the Japanese avant-garde theatrical movement of the 1960s. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiko_%26_Koma) |
| Eji Ikuyo | Listed as butoh artists forgotten during butoh’s rise in France. Source: Pagès, Sylviane. “A History of French Fascination with Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. approx. 519–528. |
| Elden Zachery | Elden Zachery is a queer Southeast Asian butoh performer and costume crafter. A patchwork of love and pain through generations and sensations – (they) were born to perform the electricity of life. A sharpened sickle, Elden is anthropologically and ancestrally driven, currently working on expanding equatorial embodiment in their practice, with queerness, spirituality and ecology as their morningstar. The spectrum of work is wide – from campy to haunting – existing in film, solo and collaborative live performance, photography and more. |
| Elena Hizaar | Elena Hizaar — artist, performer, poet I was born and raised in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, and am currently based in Berlin. My artistic journey began as a teenager through dance classes in my hometown, where I discovered a profound connection to the body as a medium of expression. Over the years, this connection evolved, leading me to engage in diverse artistic projects that expanded my understanding of movement. My artistic development took place in Moscow, where I actively participated in various theatrical and performance projects as a dancer, performer, and choreographer. My work integrates principles of performance, butoh, contemporary dance, and physical theatre. The central theme in my solo performances revolves around the body as it transcends crises, transforming into a new quality of consciousness, image, form, feeling, or emotion. I view my body as a mystery—a wild, powerful force that guides me on stage, and my art is an attempt to understand and channel this force. I create paintings that blend papier-mâché with acrylics, giving texture and depth to my work. No matter the medium, I explore the hidden layers of my consciousness, surfacing strange and mysterious images and characters that seem to dwell between worlds, in the depths of memory and imagination. Through my work, I aim to convey that the universe is a great wonder, and that human consciousness and the body far more strength and potential than we might realize. I also write prose and poetry in Russian. (https://elenahizaar.com) |
| Elena Mastracci | Born in L’Aquila (Italy), she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (painting). She is a visual artist, performer and butoh dancer. She is one of the founders of Rogo Teatro, an independent Italian theater troupe. She has participated in various exhibitions and projects national and international artistic. His artistic research focuses on the contamination between the visual and performing arts by collaborating with other artists to create connection and enrichment through different arts. Since 2008, she has been interested in butoh dance and began her training with Japanese masters: Masaki Iwana, Yumiko Yoshioka and Atsushi Takenouchi. |
| Elena Masyuk | Butoh artist based in India. Associated with the Jungle Dance venue. |
| Eliana Gómez (Eli Elán) | Eli Elan (4/5/1982) is a dance therapist, artist, and movement researcher who finds in Butoh dance a territory where the body becomes a channel and existence can be inhabited in its depth. Her practice arises from the conviction that dance does not “express,” but rather allows one to traverse: forces, memories, imaginaries, and currents of life that unfold as sensitive matter within gesture. In that passage, Butoh operates as a medium through which embodied sensitivity can dialogue with the subtle, allowing the imperceptible to resonate in the flesh and take form as presence. Her path is intertwined with Dance Therapy, Gestalt Psychotherapy, and Creative Therapies, from which she accompanies processes that seek to return to the body’s original potency and its capacity for transformation. Eli Elán is currently deepening a neurophenomenological perspective on movement, researching how Butoh practice opens pathways toward broader modes of consciousness, relationship, and poetic existence. Also found in the book: Buto Perforarte (2021) by Alda Ardemani and Valeria Leon. |
| Elisa Tagliati | In 2015, she began research on movement and meditation. She studied Butoh dance under the guidance of Atsushi Takenouchi, Kea Tonetti and Maruska Ronchi. Since 2016 he has participated in various national and international Butoh dance festivals and created numerous performances. (https://www.elisatagliati.it/elisa-tagliati) |
| Ellie Herman | Listed as early member of Tamanos’ Harupin-Ha |
| Elyzabeth Damour | Her practice and inspiration investigate various narratives about humanity issues, myths, poetry. which can be seen in her soli Closer to my undisclosed desire – inspired by the world of Samuel Beckett, Medea Fiam from Eschyle’s drama and Then fell the word of stone, as a tribute to the poetess A. Akhmatova. She has developped creative collaboration with the choreographer Denis Snaglard and the Dutch composer René B. Huysmans. Alongside her own works for International Butoh Festivals, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Elyzabeth collaborates with European productions, where her commitment and the intensity of her creations are noticeable. Violeta Jociené @Art critic Lithuania “She does not dance, she is living.” To name a few international events: Reunited nowhere with Lithuanian choreographer Sakurako, Rosana Barra in Barcelona, Madoka Mayuzumi, the japanese poet for her solo creation Tobu yume o in Tokyo. Her solo Presence performed at the 15th Sufi International Festival in Fes, patronized by her Majesty Mohammed VI, in 2022. The European Culture Capital 2022 project The wreckage of my Flesh with the Afro-butoh choreographer Tebby Ramasike. Elyzabeth is part of the team of the International Festival En Chair et En Son in Paris, and therefore regularly performing since its inception 10 years ago. The skin of the world. Through her Collective BIG! – Butoh Investigation Group – she initiates gatherings in Art Galleries or outdoor with butoh dancers or people coming from different practice. Elyzabeth’s engagement with dance education is important through residencies. The body: this almost human: Since 2008 in Atelier Incurve in Osaka gathering disabled artists – Paris Strate Design, Osaka Design University, São Paulo – Casa Jaya. Plazm Platform, with Adam Koan’s group in Tbilisi in 25 and next September in Budapest. Elyzabeth was trained in Contemporary Dance in London and joined companies in Brazil and in UK. After 2000, She joined Adam Benjamin’s work with Candoco Cie, Thomas Richard’s Workcenter and trained in M. Alexander technic with Suzon Holzer. She creates an intimate bridge with her activity as a Certified Therapist and Art-Dance Therapist (including the Australian Guided Drawing Approach) being a member of the BAAT and Squiggle in London. |
| Emi Kurihara | Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Emiko Agatsuma | 我妻 恵美子 Emiko Agatsuma Emiko Agatsuma is a versatile artist recognized for her role as a Butoh* dancer, choreographer, and Art Director at AGAXART, a platform dedicated to nurturing Butoh talent in Japan. She received the Best Young Artist award from the Japan Dance Critics Association in 2015 and was selected to represent Japan at the 39th annual Battery Dance Festival in New York City in 2020. Since 2022, she has organized the HOKUSAI MANGA BUTOH project, and was invited to perform “So Zo Ro” to represent Japan in Japan Focus at the Wan theatre in Taipei in 2024. Her international acclaim stems from her innovative approach to Butoh, blending her unique method and aesthetics to create groundbreaking performances. Emiko’s dance journey began after graduating from Tokyo’s Waseda University in 1999, when she joined Dairakudakan, one of Japan’s largest Butoh companies, founded by Akaji Maro. For two decades, she played a central role in every Dairakudakan production. In 2014, she showcased her versatility as a performer and director in Tokyo’s Kochuten Theatre and was invited to perform at the Japan Culture Center in Paris in 2015. Emiko’s commitment extends to teaching Butoh. In 2018, |
| Emiko Hasegawa | Butoh artist who danced with Tomomi Tanabe (https://derori.tataramatsuri.com/index_e.php) |
| Emilia Bouriti | Known to guide butoh alongside Atsushi since from 2000 to 2009. (https://www.emiliabouriti.com/en.html) |
| Emilia Liimatainen | Emilia Liimatainen is interested in the moving body in the places where the processes of art, mystery and healing overlap. Her way of investigating movement is inspired by butoh and other practices that explore the subconscious in the body, such as Authentic Movement. Emilia was part of Helsinki Butoh Festival 2024 (https://www.helsinkibutohfestival.fi/stickfigure) |
| Emilie Sugui | Emilie Sugai is a Brazilian-Japanese butoh dancer, choreographer, and educator. She is renowned for her contributions to the butoh scene in Brazil and her commitment to preserving and evolving the art form. |
| Emily Hipert | Emily Hippert is a multidisciplinary performance artist whose work draws from dream material, embodied memory, and the liminal space between worlds. Informed by her work with adults experiencing dementia, her practice explores themes of impermanence and connection across visible and invisible realms. Butoh performer of Ofrenda: A Butoh Performance (with Sandra Soto and Juan Antonio Suinaga at the San Francisco Zen Center in October 2025). https://www.sfzc.org/calendar/events/city-center/ofrenda-butoh-performance-cc-1025 https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/emily-hippert |
| Emmanuel Borgo | Emmanuel Borgo begins contemporary dance at 7 years. At 18 he is attracted by the circus (acrobatics juggling, acrobatics, fire). He meets Bietrix Schenk in 1996 and joined his company in 1998 (under the bark ago the sea, Way, Blue Beard, Feet In The Night). His meeting with Bietrix is determining, Emmanuel decides to move towards more Buto dance, he studies with Sumako Koseki, Masaki Iwana, Yoko Higashi, Carlota Ikeda and Yuko Kobayashi. Then he dances solo (The pig is hiding under the white dress; Primitive Eucharist ; To show ; gasping for breath). Emmanuel Borgo also is contemporary dancer and street theater artist. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2016-en.html) |
| Ephia Gburek | Ephia Gburek holds a BFA in dance from Columbia University, New York City. She immersed herself in improvisation and somatic practices with Nancy Stark Smith, Daniel Lepkoff and Simone Forti. These experiences introduced her to the transmission of dance through touch, and revealed the profound link between bodily perceptions, imagination and the quality of movement. She studied butoh with Min Tanaka and Kazuo Ohno in Japan and was a member of the Berlin-based company of Anzu Furukawa. Following her interest in trance and ritual, she studied in Ghana, then in Indonesia. In 1998, she co-founded Djalma Primordial Science, a performative and pedagogical collaboration with experimental musician Jeff Gburek. From within this partnership of listening, she focused her dance on the instability of the body and its relationship to the environment. Their performances toured widely in the United States and Europe. Since 2007 Ephia Gburek is based in France, where she concentrates her work on the relation between body and object, a delicious confusion between animate and inanimate worlds. She is a guest teacher in the Contemporary Physical Performance Making masters program in Tallinn, Estonia. Her workshops are hosted by Theater Training Initiative of London, Exploratorium Berlin, Antagon theaterAKTion, RAMDAM un centre d’art, and Lavauzelle, site de pratiques théâtrales. Since 2015, she has organized “L’Anatomie du Sensible,” a laboratory for medical professionals and artists to experiment together, sharing their experiences of the body and healing. Ephia Gburek was an artist in residence in the neurology service of Centre Medical de L’Argentière. Through her dance, she encountered patients emerging from long periods of coma. These interactions, infinitesimal and profound, nourish her current practice. Her latest dance-théâtre creation entitled Cytotec premiered in February 2025. |
| Eri Chian | Eri Chian is a Japanese dancer from Osaka, Japan. In 2011, she started performing in a Butoh dance company based in Kyoto, while developing her solo work. Now Eri performs around the world: in 2016, she was an artist in residence (AIR) in Amsterdam, has danced at the opening ceremony of Nuit Blanche in Kyoto, and has taught and performed at the 2018 Taiwan International Butoh festival. Eri Chian tries to follow the spirit of butoh created by Hijikata Tatsumi, while allowing for a process of experimentation in her life. https://www.vangeline.com/calendar/2019/10/19/butoh-fest-19-butoh-masterclass-with-eri-chian-sm9tr |
| Eri Kamidate | Eri Kamidate Born in 1988 Met Tatsumi Hijikata when she was a student and decided to pursue a career in butoh. In 2010, she joined “Torifune Butosha”. She has appeared on numerous stages with Yoshito Ohno, Koichi Tamano, and others. In 2014, she studied under Haru Tanaka. (https://conte-sapporo.com/ev5_comewith.php) |
| Eric Larsen | Eric Larsen Dance and Studio la Mer are devoted to investigating the nature of “mind”, where mind is not limited to the human brain; nor is mind limited to animate or even to inanimate beings. Mind is the stars, the clouds, as well as beer cans and nuclear waste. Eric Larsen Dance and Studio la Mer explore, investigate, and realize this ‘mind’ though dance. (https://ericlarsendance.com) We ‘dance’ where dance, religion, prayer, storytelling, and daily life are not separate. Believing that artist storytellers have a critical role to play in response to the decline of civilization and the environment, we join with others in the playful, yet serious, making of stories, breathing life into the narratives that we live by. (https://ericlarsendance.com/about) |
| Eric Losoya | Collaborator with performances from Oguri (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-18-et-flower18-story.html) and Katsura Kan (Candelario, Rosemary. “’Now We Have a Passport’: Global and Local Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 245–253.) |
| Erica Akiko Howard | Past or current member of DAIPANbutoh Collective (https://poweredbyshunpike.org/c/PBS/a/daipanbutoh/?tp=2) |
| Erica Pamson | I am a performance artist and expressive arts therapist interested in somatics, psychoeducation, and energetic healing |
| Erika Hassan | In 1992 I left university and moved to New York to pursue dance. I was training intensively in Ballet Modern and the Gyrotonic Method. I was a dance artist performing with several small contemporary companies in NY when, in 2001, I tagged along with a friend to 3 week Body Weather Farm intensive led by Min Tanaka in Japan. My whole vision of dance and myself as a dancer began to open. I stayed after the workshop to perform at PlanB and later continued my experiences and training in Butoh with teachers including Min Tanaka, Akira Kasai, Maureen Fleming,and Yokko. (https://unfixfestival.com/blooms-to-dust-erika-hassan) |
| Eseohe Arhebamen (Edoheart) | Eseohe Arhebamen is the first indigenous and native-born African butoh performer. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edoheart) Taught Butō workshops—famously at New York’s Living Theatre—and performed Fire Butō works, engaging with the semiotic nature of movement and language. (https://www.edoheart.org/tag/butoh) |
| Espartaco Martínez | Espartaco Martinez is an actor and dancer with an extensive artistic and pedagogical career. He has taught classes in places such as Yoshibi Bijitsu Daigaku (University of Art and Design in Tokyo, Japan) or creative residencies at Ceprodac; It has been presented at the FIC, Esperanza Iris City Theater, Dance Theater, Sala Cobarrubias with its own work, he has also been invited to festivals and collaborations in Japan, Korea, Switzerland, France, Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and the USA. He has collaborated with artists such as Kumotaro Mukai, Dairakudakan and Bread and Puppet Co. |
| Eugenia Vargas | EUGENIA VARGAS is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, curator, and artistic researcher based in Mexico City. She is the founder and director of Laboratorio Escénico Danza Teatro Ritual (LEDTR), a performance troupe and artistic venue that has served not only as an incubator for dance and interdisciplinary projects but also as an artistic residence and formative training space for Butoh in Mexico, from which several generations of artists have emerged or have been influenced. Vargas is co-founder and director of Cuerpos en Revuelta: Festival Internacional de Danza Butoh, one of the premier Butoh festivals of Latin America. In 2022, Vargas organized “Encrucijada: mujeres en el butoh”, an initiative that brought together artists from Japan, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Eugenia Vargas has trained and studied with some of the most renowned Japanese Butoh teachers in the world including the late Natsu Nakajima and Yukio Waguri. Vargas co-produced and performed numerous choreographic productions with Nakajima and Waguri and with the late Tadashi Endo. For nearly three decades, Vargas has performed in Japan, Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Canada, and she has also performed original works at important international butoh festivals such as the Women Defining Butoh Festival in New York City, the Dance Dance Dance Festival in Yokohama, Japan, and the Festival Internacional de Butoh Chile (FiButoh) in Santiago de Chile. Her work has been recognized in several published books, including Butoh: Cradling Empty Space by Vangeline and BUTOH AMERICA: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s by Tanya Calamoneri. |
| Evelyn Viatmonte Borges | She has been working in the performing arts since 1988, having been part of the Cuban company Teatro del Espacio Interior for 16 years. In 2003, she was invited to Odin Week and moved to Madrid. In 2017, she received her doctorate with a thesis that combines Butoh dance and post-dramatic theater. She has always combined stage creation with teaching and research. She currently has her own company in Madrid, “a Ras,” although she also frequently collaborates with “Alcubierto Physical Theatre.” As a performer, her most recent premiere is “Cenizas y diamantes.” |
| Ezee Gallo | Butoh-inspired artist working heavily with body paint. Was a butoh performer at Cancun’s butoh festival: Disturbios en Tlaxcala. |
| Ezequiel D’León Masís | Nicaraguan multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges writing, performance and embodied inquiry. His approach to Butoh arises from a social-poetic exploration of vulnerability, war, grief, memory and liminal states, treating the body as a site of resistance and quiet transformation. Rooted in Central American sensibilities yet dialoguing with global experimental practices, his research centers on presence and attentive movement of inner landscapes. |
| Ezio Tangini | Ezio Tangini is an Italian dancer and choreographer based in Rome and Torre del Lago-Viareggio. He holds a degree in Foreign Literatures from the University La Sapienza of Rome and has studied contemporary dance extensively. Tangini co-founded the dance company In Between Butoh in 2003, alongside Flavia Ghisalberti and Yann van Steenbrugghe. The company explores themes related to the socialization of madness and the memories of places that accompany or treat it. Tangini has performed internationally with In Between Butoh in countries including Russia, the U.S., Canada, France, Switzerland, Germany, Gibraltar, and Romania. He has also presented solo performances in the Netherlands, Ireland, Romania, and Switzerland. |
| Fabricio do Canto | Reborn by Lee in India, following several workshops with Atsushi in many countries and good friend Yumiko and joined a couple of Exits in Germany. Before performing solo and collective performances in India, Lebanon, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Germany. Fabricio has academic publications and theses affiliated with UFU (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia) that analyze Butoh and embodied actor training. |
| Fabrizia Verrecchia | Fabrizia Verrecchia is a a founding member of Cafe Reason. A passionate butoh dancer and teacher, she also teaches and performs bharatanatyam (Indian temple dance) and runs regular yoga classes. Her love of Nature inspires her to explore the sensory relationship with the living world, weaving together dance, yoga, Alexander technique, somatic movement, and poetic visualisation to integrate our listening bodies with the voices of Nature and access a deeper source of movement and expression. (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) |
| Felipe Longo | Butoh performer |
| Fernanda Palacios | Her work has also developed through bodily experimentation and research via butoh dance and performance. (https://www.chopo.unam.mx/danza/variacionesbutoh2018.html) |
| Fernanda Zamorano Chávez | Fernanda Zamorano Chávez, Santiago, Chile (1989): Soy Bailarina, coreógrafa e intérprete de danza teatro Butoh. Con estudios superiores de Danza en la Universidad de Chile y formación como instructora en la Academia Chilena de Yoga. He sido Intérprete en Compañía Juvenil de DanzaTeatro Balmaceda Arte Joven, Catedral Colectivo, Compañía Bayku , Los ijos bastardos del Butoh y Ruta de la Memoria . Creando también de forma independiente. El 2009 comencé mi formación y práctica como intérprete de Butoh, junto a reconocidos maestros y compañías nacionales. He participado en el Festival Internacional FiButoh Chile 2015, 2018 y 2022 cómo intérprete y asistente a los seminarios de maestros internacionales. Del 2016 al 2017 continúa su formación independiente por México y Argentina, participando de pasantías, itinerancias y eventos como el Festival internacional de Danza Butoh en América latina y “Cuerpos en Revuelta” en México. Tabajé como asistente de talleres En producción de FiButoh 2023 , 2024 y 2025 . Y he presentado Mis trabajos den FAE en tres ocasiones (en unipersonal y también Dirigiendo un colectivo) Además he participado presentando mi trabajo en EIM en dos ocasiones. Actualmente realizo talleres de Butoh con enfoque a Disidencias y personas neurodivergentes. |
| Ferraro Valentina | Born in Palermo (Italy) in 1981. Graduated in Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia UPV (Spain) where through various disciplines such as painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, photography and video, has maintained a common unity to her research and interests for the metamorphosis of forms. She developed her research through performance focusing on the body as a primary matter, and most direct way to express herself artistically. Her encounter with the world of butoh is finally the key to continuing this research on the body and its perpetual mutation, more and more in connection with the Soul and the Origin. Trained in butoh from 2002, first with Sayoko Onishi (New-butoh) then with many choreographers from all around the world, such as Marie Gabrielle Rotie, Imre Thormann (butoh and Noguchi Taiso), Masaki Iwana, Ken Maï, Sachiko Ishikawa, Gyohei Zaitsu, Maki Watanabe, Yuko Koseki, Atsushi Takenouchi (Jinen butoh), Yukio Waguri and Yoshito Ohno. She creates different choreographies as «Mi feminino» (solo 2005), «Upside-down Flower» (solo, 2006), «Yokai» (Octuor 2008, for «Collapse Art» company, Nancy),»kotodama» (solo, 2009), «Kamigami No Si» (trio 2010, presented at the festival «Obuxofest 2010»), «So(S)ciety» (solo 2011), submitted in Butoh festival Barcelona, and others frames festivals in EU). « Composition pour un oiseau blessé » (duo 2025) In 2006 she founded «Nanae :: production» and started organizing conferences, workshops, performances and meetings of various kinds, related to the dance-theater, in collaboration with different international artists. She has conducted regular courses of butoh dance and soft training during her stay in Spain. In 2010 she started collaborating with the Cie «Orian Theatre» directed by Mehdi Farajpour. And along with Frederic Le Salle for » Cie Mangeur de Lune». She moved in France in 2012 where, after a break of motherhood, she started again dancing, collaborating with artista, posing as a model for fine arts and giving some butoh classes. |
| FerZam | FerZam (Mexico) is a performing artist whose practice is rooted in the exploration of the body as a territory of confrontation and transcendence. Graduated from “L’Artes – Jerzy Grotowski Performing Arts Laboratory” (2008), his training combines the rigor of physical theater —focused on the emotional nudity of the performer— with self-taught training that began in 2004. This duality defines his search: a language that oscillates between refined technique and wild intuition. His journey led him to delve deeper into Butoh dance, studying with teachers such as Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, Natsu Nakajima, Tadashi Endo and Atsushi Takenouchi, among others; which forged his aesthetic of contrasts: light and shadow, agony and ecstasy, denial and affirmation of existence. |
| Flavia Ghisalberti | Since 1998 intense work with Japanese Butohdance. Important teacher is Masaki Iwana. Since 2003 dancer and co-founder of the Butohgroup “In Between”. Collaboration with different musicians. Deep interest in improvisation work. Soloperformances and workshops at home and abroad. Founded the international project Limits in 2008. Director of the bi-annual festival Butoh-Off since 2010 which is now a trinational project with Freiburg and Strasbourg. Performs and teaches throughout Europe, Russia and the United States. (from inbetweenbutoh.com) |
| Flavio Arcangeli | In 1997 he met the dancer Masaki Iwana and followed his teachings for over ten years at “La Maison du butoh Blanc” in Revellon in France. He co-founded the dance company “LIOS” in 2000 and presented performances in Italy and abroad. From 2000 to 2011 he co-directed the International Butoh Dance Festival “Trasform’azioni”, at the Furio Camillo Theater in Rome. He collaborates with various theater and dance artists, including Marcello Sambati and Silvia Rampelli. In 2006 one of his works was exhibited at the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale, in collaboration with the Roma 3 University. (https://romeartweek.com/en/artists/?code=APUAMN) |
| Florencia Guerberof | Florencia is a dancer and visual artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina based in London. She is strongly inspired by a great metaphysical fear which is at the root of all ancient theatre. * Having investigated Japanese Butoh among other forms of Oriental theatre, she creates a physical language drawing a force that emanates from her own presence in a conversation with the unseen. She is a visiting artist and choreographer at East 15 Acting School for the BA in World Performance. Currently, she is undertaking a Masters Degree in Buddhist Studies at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, UK. She has engaged in research projects and workshops supported by the Scottish Arts Council, focusing on Butoh training and movement philosophy. Her document “BUTOH TRAINING” (published by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, UK) explicitly describes her research process and methodology in Butoh performance. |
| Frances Barbe | Frances Barbe is an Associate Dean of Performance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in Perth, Australia, and a seasoned butō practitioner since 1992. She trained extensively in Germany with the acclaimed Tadashi Endō’s Butō Mamu Dance Theatre from 1997 to 2008, later founding Fran Barbe Dance Theatre in London and co-directing international butō festivals in 2005 and 2009 (linked in, waapa.ecu.edu.au) Her academic research culminated in a Ph.D. by practice in 2012, and her performance-training methodology bridges butō, Suzuki acting techniques, and contemporary theatre—documented in her chapter “Embodying Imagination” in Intercultural Acting and Performer Training. |
| Francesca Garrone | Francesca Garrone approached the world of contemporary circus in 1998 in Paris where, together with the Haffner brothers, she actively participated in the birth of the company Les Farfadais. It was in Paris that she learned and deepened her study of aerial techniques, in particular rope, silks, trapeze, and aerial hoop. She studied clown dynamics and physical theater with Philippe Hottier, Jean Meningue, Philip Radice, and Enrique Pardo (Pantheatre), Commedia dell’arte with Eugenio Allegri, and the Strasberg method with Michael Margotta. (https://www.cirkovertigo.com/residenze/francesca-garrone) |
| Frank Homeyer | Born 1964 |
| Frank Van de Van | Frank van de Ven is a Dutch-born Butoh dancer and choreographer who spent his formative years training in Japan with Min Tanaka’s Maijuku Performance Company (1983–1991) and later co-founded the Body Weather Amsterdam platform . |
| Frankie Mulinix | Frankie is a butoh-based dancer, performance artist, emcee, producer, dramaturge, choreographer, director, teacher, and intimacy choreographer and coordinator. Frankie works with actors and non-actors to overcome personal barriers to achievement and develop skills in presence, voice, movement, and performance. Their theatre company, Burning Bones Physical Theatre, is dedicated to collaborating with fellow creatives to engage with the local community and expand the possibilities of live performance in daring and imaginative ways. |
| Fred Herrera | Mime, pantomime, Butoh, physical theater. Fred Herrera is a Costa Rican Butoh performer best known for his solo piece “Gigante de Sal” (Giant of Salt) |
| Frédéric Rebiere | Since I graduated from a school of fine arts, I’ve been involved in performances in which the body, either suffering under compulsion or blossoming in sweetness, is essential. I’ve led a reflection about the body in relation to social norms. For 15 years, I’ve been working as a comedian among different theater companies. Always eager to learn and experience new techniques, I’ve attended different trainings in dancing, singing and circus arts. In 2006, I met Japanese dancer Gyhoei Zaitsu and discovered Butoh dance. This meeting marked a turning point in my career as a comedian. It brought a new approach to performing techniques, mixing rhythm and expression with my aesthetic ideals and intentions. My ambition is to develop a new kind of performance art on stage that conveys a poetic language through body movement. |
| Fuei Nishimatsu | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Fujiko | Part of Butoh-sha TENKEI |
| Fujio Tsuchiya | Referenced as a butoh dancer at: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00056 |
| Fumi Takahashi | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Fumihiro Yoshino | Was part of Sakura Festival 2024 as a butoh artist (https://www.instagram.com/p/C63-9DIMWyS) |
| G Hurley Santos | Choreographer and body poet who envelops his work in the mysterious mantle of Butoh. A theater and film director who has incorporated painting and photography into his creative process as a constant personal quest for 15 years as a Butoh artist, he has been holding workshops since 2015 in different cities around the world, always under the corporal premise of “if you can move, you can dance,” centering his processes and personal research on the primordial question posed by his dance. Who or what are you really? He gained notoriety in the South American Butoh scene after his master class given at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia in 2018, while also giving workshops within the framework of performance and action art festivals such as ENAPE or Corporea, completely breaking away from the more usual or traditional channels, through which Butoh is currently shared in Latin America. He was part of the first generation of oneironauts who lived at the Hipnágora House of Arts and Reveries in Mexico City. It was around this time that he burst onto the video art and video performance festival scene with memorable pieces such as “De la casa al matadero” (From the House to the Matadero) for the “Ahora” Artivism Festival in Montevideo, Uruguay, or the well-known and memorable piece “La cumbia del corona virus” (The Cumbia of the Corona Virus), created for the first online video performance festival, “Confinamiento,” by PerforedMx in Mexico, This piece ended up being part of other important festivals in other parts of the world such as the “Hybrid Butoh Vienna Art Festival” in Vienna or the “Festival Creaciones Danza” in Peru. He is one of the main contributors to the Butoh dance special of the international magazine PERFORARTE Sentidos en Acción in its 2020 special edition. During this period, his collaboration with Kana Kitty and the creation of the short-lived company of female butoh dancers Bagu Raifu with talents such as Valeria Monforte and Jess Ramart stand out. He was later awarded the silver medal as a member of the team of artists awarded the London Design Award in 2023, a prestigious world-class Architecture award. He was part of a team of artists led by the famous Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco as part of the mega project “Chapultepec Naturaleza y Cultura” of the Mexico City government. To later found the first International Butoh Dance Festival in Mexico outside of Mexico City and without any institutional or private support, a festival that was a tremendous success despite being held in a state completely foreign to the Butoh context. The Disturbios en Tlaxcala Festival featured more than 20 artists on stage, a photography exhibition, a painting exhibition, two conferences, a Butoh Jam, a screening series, and a workshop taught by G. Hurley. Two intense days of activities that reported a full house at the Xicoténcatl Theater, the city theater in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Shortly after, co-founded Casa Butoh Tlaxcala, the first arts center in Mexico focused entirely on the dissemination and creation of Butoh. He recently collaborated with Coco Villarreal’s Ix Butoh company for the stage device presented at the Disruptivo Fest in Seville, Spain, called The First Bardo Symptoms. He later participated in the mega performance “Ma of the Elements” for the Awaking Life Festival, directed by Coco Villarreal and produced by Arran Gregory. This performance lasted five hours and featured 50 dancers. He currently lives and teaches in the mountains of Huelva, Spain. |
| Gabriela Gallegos | She began her Contemporary Dance studies in the late 1980s. She is a dancer, independent stage creator, researcher, and educator. She started her contemporary dance training at the schools of Ballet Independiente de México and Ballet Nacional de México, and she is a graduate of the Choreographic Research Center of INBA (National Institute of Fine Arts). Since 1997, she has been interested in the interpretation and research of Butoh dance, which has become the foundation of her exploration in performance and movement. This interest led her to study other fields of knowledge such as psychology, thanatology (the study of death and dying), somatic movement education, movement neurodevelopment, and art therapy. (https://filmfreeway.com/INCORATUS) |
| Gabrielle Leah New | mythology for the coming revolution with The Space Between Performance Collective which premiered at Drift Festival and had a second season in Naar/ Melbourne in 2024. In 2013 Gaby was invited by The Human Theatre Collective, Vancouver to create a site-specific performance, ‘Those that Dare not Grasp the Thorn should never Crave the Rose.’ In 2013,2014 and 2023 Gaby was invited and supported to go to Poland and work with renowned Butoh performer Atsushi Takenouchi , creating new work for The 8Day Theatre. In 2016 Gaby was a prize winner at The Yarra Sculpture Prize for ‘Persephone 7’ a performance video installation’ and is currently a finalist in the National Capital Art Prize. In 2018 she was supported by the Australia Council to be a guest artist, teacher and director with The Theatre of Friendship in Sri Lanka; a group using art for reconciliation post-civil war. Since 2019 Gaby has been collaborating with Carolyn Cardinet on sustainable multi-arts installations, exhibiting around Australia. Gaby brings a performance element to the works. Gaby is interested in opening conversations and thinking about healing and transformation as a collective and as individuals. |
| Gaëtan Sataghen | Gaëtan Sataghen entered the dance by participating in the butoh practice workshops of Yumi Fujitani and Gyohei Zaitsu.He had placed one foot under “the smallest mask in the world. He was also anchored in the digital accessibility professions and in the creation of websites: that all access to web information be easy, whatever the disability situations. As another circulation between a body (search engine) and a public flow of information, dances. With solos in theater and street, and participating in choreographies. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2015-en.html) |
| Geneviève Johnson | In 1999, after 4 years practicing Butoh in Canada, she received a development grant from Quebec Arts Council in order to study Butoh in Japan with founder of the genre Kazuo Ohno as well as Yoshito Ohno, Min Tanaka, Akiko Motofuji, and the Dairakudakan. These encounters deeply impacted her practice. (https://www.genevievejohnson.ca/Pages/About.html) |
| Geoffrey Earendil | Geoffrey was a student of Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, and a performer with Harupin-Ha from 1998 to 2000, traveling with Tamano-san to Tokyo in 1999 to perform in the Hijikata fest. He has studied with Yumiko Yoshioka, Akira Kasai, Setsuko Yamada, Mitsutaka Ishii, Kazuo Ohno, Diego Pinon, and others. He has performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, in New York City, and in the spring of 2000 he moved with his family from Berkeley, California to Joshua Tree, California where he established God’zHealer Monster butoh and has been performing throughout the Joshua Tree and Palm Springs Areas. Pulled from Wayback archive of butoh.net: https://web.archive.org/web/20210417165408/https://www.butoh.net/butoh/Butoh_Artists.html) |
| George Chua | Part of Singapore Butoh Collective. Singaporean artist George Chua Khim Ser began his career as a performer working and touring with the performance group Metabolic Theatre Laboratory (MTL) led by Zai Kunning. George’s inspiration for his performance work in dance and theatre derives from his MTL training and the approach of Butoh dance. His solo and collaborative work sees him engage site-specifically with many group shows such as The Artist Village projects “Artists Investigating Monuments” and “Bye Bye Albert”, Plastique Kinetic Worms “Worms Festival II”, and most recently in collaboration with Bonemap with Misumi Suzaki for live and filmic work “One Degree North” at The Substation Alley and “The Wild Edge” at the Australian High Commission. George is a musician who works with ethnic and electronic instruments, composes and performs music for theatre and film, and has released an experimental electronic music album “Freedom cannot be Organised” under the pseudonym “My Third Ear”. (https://bonemap.com/conflux/artists.html) |
| Gerard Almeida | Gerard Almeida (Gerry) He is a Butoh Dancer and physical theather actor from Barcelona, Spain currently based in Kyoto. He watched his first Butoh performance in 2017 but began Dancing in 2019 He has trained with several masters in Spain, Germany and Japan, as well as Performing at several festivals, such as Festival de Butoh Ibérico Alma Negra in Madrid (2023) and Butoh International Gathering in Pasewalk, Germany (2024). Recently he performed with Katsura Kan on stage at his Kyoto Butoh Festival Pre-event at Urbanguild last April and he is expected to train and perform with Dairakudakan soon (2025). He finds inspiration for his performances in dreams and mythology and folklore-related topics, especially in yôkai and the Japanese ghosts and ghouls. By channeling the inner darkness and the unknown parts of the subconscious, he delivers emotional and mind-blowing Performances. (https://urbanguild.net/event/8-27-wed-%E8%88%9E%E8%B8%8F%E3%83%8A%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88butoh-night-3days-%E5%A4%8F%E3%81%AE-special-day-2) |
| Gina Rubik | I am trained in classical hindustani arts: dhrupad vocals, kathak, bharatanattyam and odissi. In 2019 I joined Himalaya Subbody Butoh under Rhizome Lee. In 2025 I went to Tbilisi, Georgia to train under Adam Koan and his guest teachers. I also assisted Adam in documenting intensives and site-specific butoh, as well as with research and data entry for his www.butohdirectory.com I am currently organising a butoh weekend workshop for Elizabeth Damour in September, and documenting Min Yoon’s course in Poland. |
| Ginger Krebs | Ginger Krebs is a Chicago-based choreographer, performer, and visual artist recognized for her Butoh‑inspired performances such as Buffer Overrun, awarded a MAP Fund grant in 2015 and named one of the Chicago Tribune’s Best Dance of 2016. |
| Gio Ju | Gio Ju is a Korean-born textile and performance artist often residing in Tiruvannamalai, India. |
| Gio Kusanagi | Gio Kusanagi is an interpretive dancer/performance artist who is a native of Japan, influenced by butoh. (https://crsny.org/event/butoh-workshop-with-gio-kusanagi/2016-04-04) |
| Golden Suzuki | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) Studied under Anzu (https://culture360.asef.org/insights/search-dance-conversation-takako-suzuki) |
| Golzar Hazfi | Performed at Amsterdam Butoh Festival 2021. Originally from Iran. |
| Gonzalo Catalinas | My interest in art and expression in nature began as a child being rised up in a tiny village, then studied arts and went to Madrid studying Audiovisual Communication, Art Therapy, Dance Therapy and Artistic Photography postgrades in different Universities,focusing in video and performance. There emerged my passion for butoh which, during 25 years of investigation & formation with different masters of first and second generation, has become an integrative paradigm to observe and express life. Working for the statal arts school as a professor of audiovisual language and technology, I belong to Fukkatsu cultural association for japanese culture creation and promotion, enhancing butoh, haiku, taiko, shakuhachis, among other instruments and arts. When I finished my postgrade of dancetherapy fiveteen years ago I started offering regular butoh clases in Huesca, and nowadays is mantaining a transdisciplinar butoh laboratory in La Vía Láctea in Zaragoza, offering seldom workshops around Spain, Britain, Germany, Italy or Turkey. Ha estado trabajando en Zaragoza con compañías como Dies Irae, Ana Continente y Romperlanzas. Colabora con diversos artistas nacionales (Nacho Arantegui, Ernesto Sarasa, Cuerpo Transitorio, La Espiral del Silencio, Acciones Imaginarias, El Ojo Mecánico), e internacionales (Minako Seki, Wangnin Bunmei, Antony Maubert). Ha llevado a cabo multitud de performances y espectáculos teatrales, musicales y coreografías que ha presentado en España, Inglaterra, Alemania, Italia, Turquía o Japón. |
| Gootama Zamuko | Born in Sapporo. In 2005, he encountered the Dark Dance. 2009〜2018, studied under dancer Mika Takeuchi. Butoh activities started in 2012. (https://gootama-zamuko.jimdosite.com/%E3%83%97%E3%83%AD%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB-%E6%B4%BB%E5%8B%95%E5%B1%A5%E6%AD%B4) |
| Gorō Namerikawa | 滑川五郎 (1950 – 2012) Founded Sankai Juku with Amagatsu. His distinctive feature was his solo performances, which he used to create spectacular stages with large-scale mechanisms. He created stages that differed from other dancers by using effects such as hanging in the air, preparing warm clothing for the audience, and giving everyone bells to participate in the performance. He also thought deeply about the connection between the soul and the universe. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Belgrade International Festival. Recipient of the Rose Award at the Munich International Festival. After independence, presented works including “Dark Box” and “Natura Morta.” Represented Japan at the Australia 200th Anniversary Celebration. Performed the opening show at the Nagato City Chikamatsu Festival. Based at the Oya Quarry, presented works including “Arahatto,” “Flâneur,” and “Liminality.” Collaborated with numerous musicians and artists including Junko Koshino, Kan Inoue, Ryu Hong-jun, Tonosuke Kondo, Yasuhiro Shimizu, Akira Nakamura, Takuro Aisaka, Toshio Yamamura, Sayoko Yamaguchi, and Kansai Yamamoto, creating comprehensive stage performances that transcend traditional theater. (Source: Goro’s manager, Megumi Iwata) |
| Grace Olinski | Grace Olinski (she/they) is a Brooklyn- based actor and writer. Recent projects include Nationals with The 24 Hour Plays, teaching movement and body work to young artists, and the creation of her show Triptych, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Denver Fringe Festival, where it received the Audience Choice Award. Born and raised in Southern California, she grew up studying theater and training at every opportunity. After studying Meisner and Creative Dreamwork with Lea Floden, she attended the three year program at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where she graduated with honors. She is thrilled to be joining the Company! Iceberg (AD) 2023 Kuzu (Performer) 2024 (https://www.rengyosoh.com/company-members.html) |
| Grad Leung | Participant of Hong Kong International Butoh Festival since 2011 |
| Grau Torres Albà | Physiotherapist, performer, movement researcher and butoh dance facilitator. In 2018, after different approaches to the body and movement, I discovered butoh dance with Marlène Jöblst and I found myself totally fascinated. Since then I have trained with her and with different teachers such as Jonathan Martineau, Matilde J Ciria, Imre Thormann, Yumiko Yoshioka. I have also studied Body Weather with Sara Pons, Andrés Corchero and Frank van de Ven. In recent years I have entered the field of dance improvisation, studying with Horacio Macuacua, Enric Fábregas, David Zambrano, Julyen Hamilton, among others. I am inspired by other body explorations such as physical theater, site specific performance and Laban. In recent years I have been facilitating butoh dance and dance improvisation workshops and creating different pieces within these languages.) (https://www.collectif1984.net/stages-formations/butoh) |
| Grażyna Chmielewska | “In 1982 I received the professional pantomime actress certificate. Then with a group of colleagues we established the Warsaw Pantomime Theatre. For twenty years I was living in the world of pantomime and having an amazing time, the time of creating new performances and scene characters. Although the time also called for hard body training to make ourselves capable of meeting the challenges of various tasks in pantomime acting. Our training included: classical pantomime, movement plasticity, acrobatics, eastern martial arts, and classical dance. We also underwent the unique work with the body with the Jerzy Grotowski method. All that training gave way to my body awareness, and led to taking care for the quality of every aspect of movement, of every gesture as well as facial expression. At that period together with our masters we created lots of pantomime spactacles in Poland and abroad. Pantomime was my great love but… in 2001 our theatre literally ceased to exist. And then butoh came into play.” “My first encounter with butoh: the solo performance of Ko Murobushi. I saw him dancing in his Edge 01 in 2001 in an iconic Warsaw theatre. It was for me as a revelation and a very deep expierience both on spiritual and emotional level and in a way clarified things for me. I felt that it could be something I wanted to follow, my new dance path. Then I went to London to participate in his workshop. There also for the first time I saw the performance of the dance group Sankai Juku created by Ushio Amagatsu. It left me mesmerized. Shortly afterwards a new butoh dancer came to Poland, that was Atsushi Takenouchi . I started to attend his workshops regularly as well as to dance in his international choreography projects. I also took part in other dance masters’ workshops to mention: Ken Mai, Imre Thormann , Maya Dunsky, Yoshito Ohno… I went deeper and deeper into the world of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Gradually I was coming up with my own butoh improvisations which were presented in art galeries or during various art events. In 2013 I prepared my first butoh performance which was launched at the International Festival of Mime Art. This spactacle was also presented by me in Valleo, California(2017), where I performed it twice and had very nice and inspiring interactions with the audience. A friend of mine charcterized my way of dancing as ‘inner pantomime’. He might be right for my Butoh has its roots deep down in the mime art but at the same time as a new dimension of dance it has opened for me unknown territories of movement, feeling, perceiving, but first of all it gave me immense freedom of being on the stage and in life.” (Starbard, Kevin. Tsubushi Butoh Journal. Facebook post. 2022.) |
| Grigory Glazunov | Grigory Glazunov is a Russian Butoh dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in Saint Petersburg, where he co-founded the OddDance Theatre with Natalia Zhestovskaya. He has performed in various international festivals, including the Butoh Relations International Festival and the SKIF (Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival of Avant-Garde Arts). |
| Gustavo Collini | Gustavo Collini-Sartor Argentine butoh dance artist and theatre specialist Initially trained and worked as an actor. Performed under Ellen Stewart at LaMaMa Theatre in New York and later in Italy (1986) in her production of *Edipo in Colona* * Studied with masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno in Venice and Vienna (wikipedia) * Engaged with Jerzy Grotowski’s dramatic methods in Italy and with the Roy Hart Centre in France * Founded **Teatro delle Imagini** in Venice, showcasing performances across Europe * Established **Danza Butoh Argentina** in 1994, integrating theatrical technique and butoh movement * Authored *Kazuo Ohno: The Last Emperor of Dance* * Contributed articles to diverse media outlets in Buenos Aires, Italy, and the U.S. * Appeared at the first **Vancouver International Dance Festival** in 1998 * Presented *Requiem for Childhood* at the Buenos Aires Opera House in October 1998 Source: Gustavo Collini-Sartor’s biography on Wikipedia |
| Gustavo Thomas | Actor and Butoh performer, photographer, playwright, poet, stage director and independent performing arts researcher. Taijiquan practitioner. I was born in Mexico City, and lived and worked in Beirut, Beijing, Toronto, Guangzhou and currently in Berlin. First a professional stage actor, I’ve passed through different artistic stages, from realist theatre to physical theatre, becoming finally a Butoh artist who’s exploring performance art and photography. (https://gustavothomas.com/who-i-am/) |
| Guyphytsy Aldalai | Multidisciplinary artist Guyphytsy Aldalai integrates cultural management, choreography, dance, and body movement research into her practice. Her work explores the body as a site of transformation, drawing from philosophy, literature, and contemporary performing arts. She delves into the fissures of the everyday body, inviting it to un-domesticate and inhabit the margins, questioning the codes that define it. Trained in Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Method, Anthropological Theater, and Butoh Dance, her creative process traverses silence and movement, vulnerability and strength. Guyphytsy is the founder and director of MARES//encounters in Butoh Dance, a biennial festival that has fostered international artistic exchange since 2017. Her work has been presented in Japan, India, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, the United States, and Mexico, inspiring new dialogues about the body’s poetic and political dimensions. By integrating multimedia and site-specific approaches, her practice challenges norms, transforming the body into a living archive that is capable of rewriting its narratives. |
| Gyohei Zaitsu | Gyohei Zaitsu (born 1977 in Tokyo) is a Butoh dancer and choreographer, acclaimed for his improvised solo performances and group creations, and has been based in Paris since 1999. |
| Hal Tanaka | In 1982, Tanaka was a member of the Butoh Company Hokkaidō Butoh-ha and toured all over Japan. After leaving the company, he collaborated with many local and international artists, including the renowned Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, and toured his solo and collaborated works. In 2010, he hijacked a building as part of his performance and became the hot topic in the mass media for ‘building hijacking’. In 2013, the exhibition “Haru Tanaka – Death of the City -” by Spanish photographer Ricardo Baeza was held. Hal was invited to participate in a research project at Lodz University of the Arts, Poland and was engaged as a movie performer, designer, and Butoh dance teacher. (https://www.butohout.com/artists/2023/hal-tanaka) |
| Hannah Sim | 03/30/62 – 11/05/20 Early member of Harupin-Ha (Butoh America book) Hannah Sim was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1962. She died in her sleep in San Francisco at the Hotel Isabel near Mission and 7th Sts., where she had lived for several years. After “a dreadful accident” she spent her last year mostly in a wheelchair with the help of Tim Whallon, her partner of four years, according to Hannah’s friend and photographer Richard Downing. (https://www.queer4decades.com/hannah-sim-03-30-62-11-06-20) |
| Hans Andrés Martinez Riveros | Born in Arica, Chile, 1992. Interpreter of theater, oral storytelling, and Butoh dance. He began practicing ballet with teacher Marcela Ramos and was part of her company Colectivo Cuerpos en Suspensión, working in contemporary dance. In 2012 and 2014 he traveled to Bolivia, where he encountered Butoh dance and contact improvisation in a workshop led by Lucia Brasa and Luca Pacella. He was selected to participate in workshops with Katsura Kan, Makiko Tominaga, Susana Reyes, and Rhea Volij at the 1st FIBUTOH International Festival (Santiago, Chile, 2014), organized by the company Ruta de la Memoria. In 2015 he took workshops with Makiko Tominaga, Yumiko Yoshioka, Minako Seki, and Lucie Betz, and participated in the intervention “La muerte de Chile.” He performed as an interpreter in the 4th edition of the same festival with the work “La Danza de Oscuridad,” merging storytelling with Butoh dance. He currently presents performances at various gatherings in his city. |
| Happa Iwamoto | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Harada Nanten | Listed as member of Dairakudakan (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7207) |
| Haruhiko Tsuda | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00200/) |
| Haruka Tomatsu | Haruka Tomatsu is a contemporary Butoh dancer and choreographer, born in Japan and living in Berlin since 2016. After graduating from Kyoto University of Arts and design, she participated in works by various choreographers and artists before beginning to create her own works in 2014. Her creations are rooted in Butoh—a form of Japanese dance that emphasizes subtle, expressive movement. She explores the relationships between the body, objects, and space, while valuing elements deeply ingrained in Japanese culture such as “ma” (“間” the sense of space or pause), delicate atmospheres, and the play between presence and absence. From last year, she has also been developing a new performance work that critically examines cultural perceptions of Kawaii (cuteness, innocence, eternal youthfulness) femininity in Japanese society. (https://watertowerartfest.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Haruka-Tomatsu.pdf) |
| Haruko Crow Nishimura | Haruko Crow Nishimura is a dancer, vocalist and is co-artistic director of Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE). She is always searching to discover how art can create deeper connections and awakenings. Her own style of live music and movement theater and dance is rooted in her background of Japanese butoh dance, physical theater and classical music. Her art strives to embody and reveal the hidden beauty of darkness to heal and confront and to find commonality in humanity. Her most recent work Skeleton Flower tells the story of her own struggle with identity, depression, childhood trauma and finding voice. She is the recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship. |
| Harumi Kitaguchi | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00537/ (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Haruna Ueno | Studied classical ballet for 15 years under Mika Ootake at the Kaiya Ballet Company Fukuchiyama Laboratory from the age of 3. Entered Kobe University, Faculty of Developmental Sciences, Department of Human Expression.While in school, I began performing Double Dutch at various events and on the street. After graduation, participated in the 6th Domestic Dance Study Abroad Program, Performed in works by Kota Yamazaki, Zan Yamashita, Shintaro Hirahara, Chie Ito, and others. In 2018, I began studying Butoh under Masami Yurabe. Since then, I have been interested in the relationship between “spirit” and “body, I have been creating and presenting works on the theme of “life and death” that question people’s fundamental ability to live and their view of life and death. (https://haruna-ueno.com/en) |
| Haruyo Arita | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Hata Kanoko | Japanese-born Butoh dancer and choreographer who relocated to Taiwan in 1998 and went on to establish Yellow Butterfly Flying to the South, the first Butoh company in Taiwan. She created multiple original works there between 1998 and 2010, responding to the history and social contexts of Taiwan, including the site of Lo-Sheng Sanatorium for leprosy patients. (https://www.airitilibrary.com/Article/Detail/U0014-2308201015312600) |
| Helen Edwards | Helen works as dancer, eco-somatic therapist, educator, artist and integrative arts psychotherapist, having trained in environmental art, Amerta movement and Butoh dance in the UK, Europe, Japan and Indonesia over the last 25 years. She has an MA from the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education, Islington in Integrative Arts Psychotherapy. Helen has created artwork in response to ecological explorations across the last three decades, bridging art and science, engaging with intercultural exchanges and communities with a focus on water and ecology, making visible felt aspects of the natural world connecting with nature restoration and environmental projects. She is Chair of Oxford Urban Wildlife Group. |
| Helen Smith | Helen Smith is a physical theatre performer, teacher and director whose main influences have been Japanese-influenced artforms, including Butoh and Suzuki actor training. Helen was first introduced to the world of Physical Theatre, through Brisbane-based company, Zen Zen Zo with whom she trained, performed nationally and internationally from 1993 to 2010. Helen’s first encounter with Butoh was in Kyoto in the 90s through Zen Zen Zo’s founder member, Lynne Bradley. Inspired by the principles of this company to always go back to the source, Helen pursued her passion for eight years, studying under several Tokyo-based, masters from the lineage of both Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the two recognised creators of Butoh. Helen relocated from Brisbane to Melbourne in 2010 to pursue a Masters in Theatre Research at Monash University in which her thesis focused on the transformative power of Butoh. In her own practice, Helen is most at home when she is exploring innovative combinations of Butoh, such as performance projects involving Butoh and Shakespeare, Butoh and Kathakali, and site-specific Butoh in outdoor performances with an environmental focus. Helen’s recent encounter with Syndey-based composer, Fiona Hill, is her latest exciting collaboration exploring the interface between dance and soundscapes with live musicians. Academic Texts Smith, H. (2018). Performing Silence: Embodied Resistance in Contemporary Butoh Practice. (University Repository, UK). Smith, H. & Dean, R. (2009). Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh University Press. Smith, H. (2014). “Corporeal Memory and the Aesthetics of Transformation in Butoh Dance.” Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, 6(2), 123–139. |
| Helen Thorsen | Founding member of Daipan Butoh Collective. Helen is native of Chicago, graduated Columbia College with an emphasis in Dance Therapy and choreography. She was a founding member of The Yuni Hoffman Dance Theatre in Chicago, a Graham based modern dance company. She discovered Butoh dance in 1980 through the dances and workshops of Eiko and Koma. |
| Helena Thevenot | She worked in Japan with Kazuo Ohno, the founder of the Butoh, and his son Yoshito Ohno. In 1999 she joined the ExIT! Project in Germany and Poland, where she performed works by the Butoh duo Itto Morita and Mika Takeuch. The Miami Light Project presented works by Thevenot at the Here & Now Festivals 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2003. A performance of her choreography took place in 2000 The Anatomy of Desire through that Artemis Performing Network instead of.[5] At Celcit’s IX International Theater Festival in Managua were theirs in 2003 Annotations listed. Thevenot teaches Nancy Topf and Butoh’s dance technique internationally and is a teacher at the New World School des Arts Theatre Department in Miami. (Wikipedia) Academic Mentions: 1. Flournoy, B. (2018). “Global Butoh as Experienced in San Francisco.” In The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (eds. Baird & Candelario, Routledge). ◦ Thévenot is cited among key figures involved in the American and international Butoh festival circuits, facilitating intercultural artistic exchange. ◦ Mentions her as an organizer, teacher, and contributor to the transnational dissemination of Butoh. 2. Calamoneri, T. (2022). Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the early 2000s. Routledge. ◦ Thévenot appears in the context of American anchor artists and festivals, cited as part of the international Butoh network that supported early U.S. Butoh festivals (1990s–2000s). |
| Hélène Barrier | Hélène BARRIER is a visual artist and dancer. She creates worlds in which she joined the dance: she creates landscapes to dance , she dances in her imaginary landscapes. Her works are strongly inspired by nature and in particular animal architectures nests , cocoons , webs, networks … and dance permits to slip in all subjects, in all skin types, and in different places , adapt her dance to the environment. Exploring new materials , new places and new sounds allows her to enrich her dance and to open new prospects tangible and plastics ; She enjoys working with musicians , video artists , singers , to question the possibilities of extension of the body , spaces to carve, to take her dancing in shifting locations. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2016-en.html) |
| Hélène Messier | Having completed a Bachelor’s degree in Choreography at Concordia University, her creative work is based on the sensitive imagination, accessing different states, as well as somatic work, creating deep, sensitive, and poetic worlds. Her creations have been presented at Short and Sweet (FTA), Danses Buissonnières, Piss in the Pool, and Quartiers Danses. Hélène completed her Master’s in Dance at UQAM, studying the relationship between a presence that is attentive to internal impulses and the experience of the spiritual in her practice of Butoh. She has also been practicing mindfulness meditation for about ten years, in addition to working as an artist’s model for four years. These practices also form part of her artistic approach and nourish her spiritual quest. |
| Henriette Heinrichs | VISUAL ARTS: At 19, I became self-employed as a visual artist. Since then, I’ve earned my living with portable paintings, as an airbrush artist, and as a stage and costume designer in my own studio in Berlin. With the sale of my brush and airbrush works, I also financed my studies at the “Etage School for Performing Arts e.V.” and my private studies of Butoh dance with “tatoeba-theatre-dance-grotesque” and others. And I continued painting until I became self-employed as a performing artist and choreographer. Since then, I’ve only pursued visual arts as a sideline. PERFORMING ARTS: Two years of training in stage dance and mime at the “Etage School for Performing Arts e.V.” in Berlin. This included two years of Butoh dance studies with Shanti Oyarzabal. She was a student of Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka for several years, which led to her being a dancer with “tatoeba-theatre-dance-grotesque,” the first German Butoh dance company. Since then, she has been a freelance performer. Subsequently, she studied Butoh dance independently for several years with various teachers, including: Anzu Furukawa, Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, Akaji Maro, Carlotta Ikeda, Ko Morobushi, and Atsushi Takenouchi. She has worked as a choreographer, dance trainer, and performer with various independent theater groups: “College of Hearts” Berlin, “Hagazussa” Berlin, “Antagon Theater” Frankfurt/Main, “RAMM Theater” Berlin, including a one-year residency at Schloss Bröllin. IN VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS Working as a Butoh dance teacher and movement trainer for actors: “Schokofabrik e.V.” Berlin, “Etage School for Performing Arts e.V.” Berlin, Lecturer at the University of Innsbruck in the “Peace Studies” department, Innsbruck “Frauen-Landhaus Charlottenberg” THERAPEUTIC SIDE PROFESSION: After ten years of part-time training, I have been working as a therapist in the psychological field for many years. I am a trainer for “body-oriented self-awareness according to Salama Inge Heinrichs.” I have attended many advanced training courses over the years. I work with various methods of humanistic psychology, which are derived from psychodrama, Gestalt therapy, encounter therapy, and client-centered talk therapy. To loosen up, I use techniques from meditation, Butoh dance, and Tantra. And I am licensed to practice therapeutic psychotherapy professionally. (HP) |
| Heyward Bracey | butoh dancer / movement activist – has worked and performed with a number of outstanding experimental dance collectives including Los Angeles Movement Arts and The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People – a North America based project addressing the histories and social realities surrounding black and queer bodies. He has collaborated with master butoh artist Katsura Kan in Los Angeles, New York and at the Seattle International Dance Festival. His solo “Stealing Skin 6” was presented at the Bare Bones Butoh Showcase in San Francisco, Pieter Performance Space in Los Angeles and the Convocatoria Dance Symposium in Mexico City.Heyward’s interest in the body as a social/political/spiritual process has led to collaborations with Emily Mast in “The Least Important Things,” presented in 2014 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and “The Cage is a Stage,” presented presented in 2016 at University of Toronto Mississauga, the Harbourfront Centre Theater – Toronto, and the REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater) – Los Angeles. In 2018 Heyward presented “Thick Bones,” a solo work exploring the relationship between butoh and the African Diaspora at the Kyoto International Butoh Festival. For the Hammer Museum’s 2018 “Made in LA Exhibition” he collaborated with choreographer Taisha Paggett and the WXPT Dance Collective on a series of social justice oriented dance actions. Heyward’s work explores the effects of colonialism upon diverse populations – as well as the intersections of butoh, indigenous cosmologies, the African Diaspora, the Pacific Basin Renaissance and street dance. (https://howarewe.xyz/heyward-bracey) |
| Hideki Nakazato | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Hikaru Inagawa | Born in 1974, in Wakkanai, Hokkaido. Studied philosophy at Sophia University. From 1998 to 2004, he was a member of the Ku Na’uka Theater Company. With this group he performed all over Japan and worldwide. Under Satoshi Miyagi, he studied the traditional Japanese art of acting based on the Suzuki method. In 2005, he cofounded 4RUDE. 4RUDE is a performing arts unit that aims to find alternative ways; acting without words and dance based on inner experience instead of body movements. 4RUDE performs works in Tokyo and overseas. Since 2011, Hikaru has studied Butoh under Yukio Waguri. Since 2013, he lives in Berlin. |
| Himari Soejima | Born in Aichi, Japan in 2005. She started learning street dance at the age of 6, and has been active in the 2-person team MaliB for 8 years. She won many top prizes at national finals. Later studied Butoh and contemporary dance, and performed in Ryu Suzuki’s work “proxy” (produced by DaBY) in 2021. Recently, she has been creating her own works and presenting them in Aichi and Kyoto. (https://sapporo-butoh.com/himari-soejima-toyota) |
| Himeko Narumi | Dancer. Art model. Dancer to pursue the world view of spirit between this world and another world. She is currently a member of “The Physical Poets” that is using body movements and dance. At the same time, she has a career as a solo dancer and have been working with music in improvisation dance session. Dancing all over Japan and participating in many International Festivals. She focus on Invisible things, a sense of air, music, mind and energy, spirit of the land… Those are not visible to the eye, but she thinks to be important for her dance. Part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00619/ |
| Hinaka Uchiyama | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Hiro Ushiyama | Listed as butoh artists forgotten during butoh’s rise in France. Source: Pagès, Sylviane. “A History of French Fascination with Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. approx. 519–528. |
| Hiroki Kitano | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Hiroko Hosoi | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Hiroko Marukane | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s. |
| Hiroko Sadamori | Butoh performer Video of performance: https://vimeo.com/316818850 |
| Hiroko Tamano | • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/tatsumi-hijikata • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/shinichi-momo-koga-inkboat • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/mizu-desierto • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/terry-hatfield |
| Hiromi Sakaino | Part of first generation of Hijikata. Listed on the notes at Coker, Caitlin. “The Daily Practice of Hijikata Tatsumi’s Apprentices from 1969 to 1978.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, 1st ed., Routledge, 2018 |
| Hiromi Sakamoto | Hiromi Sakamoto is a Japan-based dancer who ultimately embraced Butoh after exploring various dance forms like street, modern, jazz, and contemporary techniques, gravitating toward Butoh’s intense expression of inner turmoil, darkness, and the beauty within it. (https://culturewatcher.com/361) Hiromi is listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57 |
| Hiromichi Tsuchiya | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Hironobu Oikawa | Hijikata learned Hironobu Oikawa’s mime with Isso Miura in 1960’s. Oikawa was master of Isso Miura, Kei Takei, Gan Tokuda, Shu Uemura, Shigenobu Toshima and more. In his title, “Gesura Teru Gunron”, Hijikata and Akira Kasai performed. He performed Butoh in 1970s. |
| Hiroshi Ito | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Hiroshi Nishiyama | Hiroshi Nishiyama is originally from Osaka, Japan. In 1990, at the request of Kazuo Ohno, he moved to Yokohama, where he began studying Butoh with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno. For 20 years, he was a student of Kazuo, attending the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and participating in classes with Yoshito Ohno. He was part of several Butoh projects in Tokyo and Yokohama. In 2015, he danced with Yoshito at the SHINANO Primitive Sense Art Festival in Nagano. In 2016, he came to Brazil for the first time to perform in the show “Caminhos pelos Quais” (Ways Through Which) with Ana Medeiros at Instituto Ling and Casa Cultural Tony Petzhold. After other visits to Brazil, where he made his mark through, among other activities, both editions of Semana Butoh in Porto Alegre and São Paulo, Nishiyama moved permanently to the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state. Still in collaboration with Ana Medeiros, he created and danced in the show “A Música Não Tocada” (The Unplayed Music), with the participation of Uruguayan musician Jorge Peña, also one of the project’s creators. Today, he teaches Butoh alongside Ana at MEME Estação Cultural. “People should get to know this dance to share the happiness of being able to feel every movement of the body. What inhabits Butoh is endless joy,” Nishiyama defines. |
| Hiroyuki Kobayashi | In The Tale of the Floating World, Hiroyuki Kobayashi was credited as playing the Butoh dancer. Hiroyuki was part of Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) |
| Hiruko Hino | Hino Hiruko is a Japanese choreographer closely associated with the experimental butoh theatre company Gekidan Kaitaisha, working across immersive and physical performance art. Was Hijiakta’s student. |
| Hisafumi Urasoe | Member of Daizu-ko Farm |
| Hisako Horikawa | Hisako Horikawa is a Japanese-born choreographer and performer renowned for co-founding the Body Weather Laboratory and the Maijuku troupe, actively working with Min Tanaka from 1978 to 1998 |
| Hisatoshi “Poppo” Shiraishi | Retired butoh dancer. Originally from Tokyo, Poppo settled in New York City in 1978 and remained active in the East Village arts scene through the 1980s and ’90s. (https://theincubator.live/2016/11/18/poppo-shiraishi-with-nocturnal-emissions-newcastle-1990/#more-1180) |
| Honza Svasek | Honza researches Butoh since 2007 ”My art is about the body seeking freedom from human and cultural programming. It is performed in an altered state of consciousness, a modern form of shamanism. Perceiving the body as a colony of trillions and trillions of cells, each with its own memory, resonating with life, co-creating life, makes it possible to drop the mind and sink deep into the body to dance the whole of existence.” |
| Horacio Ganem | Horacio Ganem is an Argentine-born Butoh dancer, choreographer, and educator based in Barcelona, Spain. He has been active in the European Butoh scene since 1999, presenting performances in cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, and Berlin. In 2016, he established a permanent Butoh research laboratory in Valencia and Barcelona, and has also conducted workshops in Berlin at venues like Tatwerk Performative Forschung, DOCK 11, and Monopol. Since 2019, he has been a member of the WaldenWesen Artist Community in Berlin. |
| Hosana Matsushima | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Hoshio Kumicho | Part of Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) |
| HU Chia | As one of the pioneering voices of Butoh in Taiwan, Hu Chia bridges his deep martial lineage — the Monkey-Crane Double Form — with the evocative language of Butoh. As the founder of Miè Theatre, he explores the tension between fragility and strength, giving form to the shifting emotional topographies of life. |
| Hugh Major | A freelance teacher/performer listed at butoh.net directory (Wayback archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210417165408/https://www.butoh.net/butoh/Butoh_Artists.html) |
| Huguette Sidoine | French professional dancer, who has danced contemporary dance, African dance and since 2010 she began dancing Butoh with several Spanish and Japanese dancers. With the group “Ma-Jo” she participates in the Butoh Festival of Barcelona, in Zaragoza in the Festivals “Street Scene”, “Ecocine”, “Open Door”; Meditative Walk in the street, Pablo Serrano Museum, in artistic evenings in Aragonese natural spaces. In the following years she collaborated with singers, musicians in multidisciplinary projects, such as “Pandora” “By Taxi to the Moon” In 2019 she presented the solo “My other body” at the Festival “Pies para que os quiero” |
| Ian Wen | Ian is a movement teacher and performance artist based in NYC, dedicated to exploring the transformative power of embodied expression. With over three decades of experience, Ian has performed, taught, and devised seminal works across the US, Greece, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Ukraine. As a faculty member at CUNY Brooklyn College for 20 years, he guided both MFA and BFA acting students through Butoh inspired explorations and animal work, guiding the next generation of performers. Ian is a member of both AEA and SAG-ATRA, and is currently represented by Fifi Oscard Agency (212) 764-1100. De Novo Dance (www.denovodance.com) is the dance theater company he co-founded with Irina Wen. A performance collective of multidisciplinary artists, composers, dancers, actors, and academics, De Novo Dance seeks to examine and explore both the quotidian and the mysterious aspects of life in a performative context. Its work has been made possible with support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department for the Aging, and the Queens Council on the Arts. De Novo Dance is a fiscally sponsored artist with New York Live Arts. |
| Ibuki Kuramochi | Ibuki Kuramochi is a Japanese-born interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited internationally in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Sydney, Taipei, and Rome. Since 2016, she has studied Butoh under Yoshito Ohno at the Kazuo Ohno Butoh Dance Studio, translating the poetic, choreographic physicality of Butoh and the human body into performance, video, installation, and painting, exploring metamorphosis and post-human feminism. Her recent solo exhibition m/Other (2025) at the Japan Foundation Los Angeles expanded on themes of kinship, the maternal body, and Otherness through performance, video, and installation. She is the recipient of the 2025 AHL Foundation AAPI Woman Artist Fellowship, the 2024 DCA EMPOWERMENT grant, the 2024 DCA Dance in the City grant, and the 2022 SCIART Ambassador Fellowship. In 2019, she was featured as Artist of the Year on the cover of LA WEEKLY’s People 2019 issue, and in 2025 she was named one of the Ten Essential Local Artists in Los Angeles by Los Angeles Magazine. |
| Ichikawa Aseema Yuki | “I studied Japanese dance in my childhood, Western dance in high school, and gradually began improvisational performances in my 20s. In my 30s, I studied Spanish dance while directing, choreographing, and performing in groups at live houses and club events. Due to illness and child-rearing, I retired from the stage once and spent 10 years exploring Gurdjieff movements. In the latter half of the year, I participated in overseas groups every year and was a key member of the Gurdjieff Movements archive video. I am currently continuing my research at Butoh Yoshimoto Daisuke’s Tenku Yoran. I wouldn’t say it’s the same, but the Japanese dance I was taught rigorously at a young age overlapped with my awareness of my body, and I felt a nostalgic trembling and shock. After many trips and detours, I felt like I had finally returned to my foundations and source. I discover every day that the common points of stillness, relaxation, and tension between the Gurdjieff movements with form that I have explored a lot at the same time and the dance without form enhance the possibility of deepening my existence through the relationship between myself and the body.” (https://www.instagram.com/p/DFb16_4JOmd/?img_index=4) |
| Ichiro Ojima | Part of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Iida Shigemi | Born in 1967 in the Suwa region (Japan), Iida Shigemi was raised by his grandmother, a storyteller who passed down to him a rich legacy of traditions, ancestral techniques, and magical knowledge. Among these: Japanese martial arts, Seitai (a method of body rebalancing), and traditional oriental medicine. A disciple, assistant, and collaborator of Kazuo Ohno and his son Yoshito Ohno, pioneers of Butoh dance, he trained in the art of stage performance before developing an international career as a director, musician, actor, and dancer. His artistic approach is based on the “Three Treasures” (Mitakara), which he integrates into all his creations. After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, he decided to share Mitakara not only with artists but also with those interested in this tradition. He now gives workshops in Japan and around the world, while living simply in the countryside with his family, where he cultivates his poems and his garden. Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=25118351644441695&set=pcb.10165531296976729 |
| Ikki Taoka | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Ikko Kato | Listed as part of Ko Murobushi’s company: Sebi (fire on the back). Source: Centonze, Katja. “Murobushi Kō and His Challenge to Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 226–236. |
| Ikko Suzuki | Born in Tokyo in 1972. After he entered Ritsumeikan University in 1992, he started to study theater performance. Since 1997 he has been doing dance and butoh performances in countries all over the world. At present, he is studying kagura and exploring the fundamental elements of butoh. (https://read.artspacetokyo.com/interviews/suzuki-kawachi) |
| Ikko Tamura | Tamura’s passion for theater began in adolescence—he was drawn to performances by Dairakudakan, especially during high school when he watched their production Ugetsu – Jōten suru Jigoku, noting the powerful, wordless stage presence of Akaji Maro (The Theatre Time) Joining Dairakudakan In his second year at Nihon University, Tamura started regularly attending the troupe’s sessions (circa 1997). By 1998, he became a full member, his debut performance being the Taiwan tour of Shisha no Sho (The Book of the Dead) Japan Foundation Performing Arts Network. Training & Methodology Tamura took part in Dairakudakan’s rigorous retreats—9 days and 8 nights in mountaintop rehearsals with intense physical practice and spiritual discourse led by Maro. This program deepened his commitment to Butoh’s primal expression |
| Iko Lee | 2003 hasta hoy sigo haciendo Butoh talleres, funciones y Performace tenemos la Cia dragón del butoh. |
| Ikumi Takebe | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Ikuya Sakurai | Born 1964 in Nara, Japan, Ikuya Sakurai trained from 1984 to 1995 under Akira Kasai, absorbing the Kasai-style improvised Butoh approach. His studies also incorporated eurythmy and contemporary dance philosophy. |
| Ima Tenko | Began studying butoh in 1979, later becoming a founding member of the influential group Byakkosha in 1980. She remained with them until the company disbanded in 1994. Also member of Byakko-sha which has been active 1980 – 1994. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh Choreography Lab https://vimeo.com/560801476 |
| Imre Thormann | Studied under Kazuo Ohno and also studied under Michizō Noguchi, founder of the Noguchi Taiso movement discipline. |
| Inaho | Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Iñaki Oyarvide | Multidisciplinary scientist and artist who comes from Michoacán, Mexico. Iñaki has dedicated himself to research on butoh dance, experimental music and has a career in the area of biotechnology as an ethnomycologist. It is an invitation to return to the intimacy that has no bottom, it is to try to find everything that has domesticated us, the reflection of the body as a space, the depth of the flesh, a vast territory for exploration. (https://ccesd.org/evento/esporas-resonantes-laboratorio-de-danza-butoh) |
| Inao Yukinari | Listed as part of Dairakudakan Source: https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7207 |
| Ine Yatsushima | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Ioanna Garagouni | Ioanna Garagouni is a professional dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher with extensive training and long-standing experience in contemporary dance and Butoh. |
| Iori Kinki | He lives in Osaka, Was brought up in Asuka-village Nara-prefecture of ancient city of 1400 years ago. From 2002 he studied with Mr. Mushimaru Fujieda. One of the members of compound art group “The Physical Poets” presided over by Mr.Mushimaru Fujieda. He participate in a work and workshop as The Physical Poets by appearance, planning, organized. Besides, other work also appeared in another groups of theater and dance, and activities such as film production and come with a wide variety of appearances. He sought human possibility in between every move in the spirit of “body soil singularity” to basic the “idea of physical The Physical Poets” the relationship between the ego and the universe primarily. He says “improvising physical poetry” that’s described as “a trip to meet oneself who has not still watched” it as a ritual for “the human being who is apt to become an unnatural presence” to get back to “the human being as a part of nature.” He is active around west japan. In late years an evaluation in Korea. He often does the collaboration with the impromptu musician to regard improvising and live as important. He is appearance for annual commuter pass performance as “The Physical Poets” in Nanatsudera Kyoudou Studio-Nagoya,Enishian-Shijonawte-city Osaka, and “Korea experimental art festival” “Jeju international Butoh festival” etc. In addition, he is active solo performance or orgernaized respect gathering “En-no-en(Celebration of the relationship)”. His main appearance work is a work of Mr.Mushimaru Fujieda: “DattanGensoufu(dattan fantsia)” “Okunen-no-inori” “Urashima legends” |
| Ireli Vázquez | Ireli Vázquez is a Mexican choreographer and director affiliated with the Laboratorio Escénico Danza Teatro Ritual (LEDTR), founded by Eugenia Vargas in Mexico City. In 2021, Vázquez directed the LEDTR production Umbría, a choreography created by Yukio Waguri, Tadashi Endo, and Eugenia Vargas, featuring Eugenia Vargas as solo performer and Vázquez as director. |
| Irem Calikusu | Irem Calikusu’s life as a dancer started in Istanbul, at the Theater Research Lab with Mustafa Kaplan. Being deeply moved by a butoh performance she saw in Istanbul, she went on to complete a Master’s thesis on but and post war politics in Japan at the Anthropology Department of Mass, Amherst. She has studied with Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, and Takuya Muramatsu as well as trained for 2 years at the Cunningham School for Dance. Her biggest inspiration was the 5 months she spent training with Min Tanaka at the Body Weather Farm. (https://temporary.leimay.org/category/people/presenting-guest-artist/nybf-artist-people/page/2) |
| Irizawa Hisashi | Listed as part of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo company. Source: SU‑EN. “Light as Dust, Hard as Steel, Fluid as Snake Saliva: The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 203–213 |
| Iryna Avdyeyeva | Former or current butoh performer who has directed butoh performance and workshops in Ukraine. Currently, does work in clown. |
| ISA Maga Maya | Isa Maga Maya Shamanic artist, born in Brazil. Dancer and researcher of Butoh Dance (butohka), pioneer of this modality in Sergipe, and performer of Liquid Dance. She is a certified physiotherapist, yoga instructor, and Ayurvedic therapist, initiated into the Shamanism of the Mother Goddess as a Daughter of the Moon through the Terra Mirim Tribe in Bahia, Brazil. Her creative work emerges at the crossroads of art, healing, and ritual in nature—exploring the body as a channel for the soul, accessing trance states to unveil an existential dance. Since 2011, she has been dedicated to the research and embodiment of Butoh Dance, sharing her work through performances, video dance creations, courses, retreats, and rituals in countries including Spain, Mexico, Brazil, India, Peru, Japan, and Denmark. She is co-creator of the Arte Medicina movement and director of the Elemental Collective, where for five years she has facilitated artistic residencies, performances, festivals, and courses—researching ritual art in nature as a path to authentic expression. Since 2017, she has been manager, therapist, and teacher at Espaço Artemísia – Terapia e Arte, in Aracaju-SE. She is also the creator of the School of Sensuality, guiding a path of embodiment through healing body practices, sacred sexuality, and ancestral medicine—cultivating balance, harmony, and self-development for those who feel the call. |
| Isaac Immanuel | Mentioned in Butoh America as being a part of Tamanos’ Harupin-Ha. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Isamu Osuka | An original member of Dairakudakan. Also founding member of Byakko-sha. Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994 |
| Ishide Takuya | Ishide, a native of Tokyo (born 1958), describes himself as a bee who has visited many flowers. He began dancing in 1984 as a student of Ishii Mitsutaka and Hijikata Tatsumi. He performed in Hijikata Tatsumi’s “Tohoku Kabuki Keikaku 2, and 4” in 1985, as well as with Tanaka Min. He danced with Teshigawara Saburo (as part of a trio) in various cities of France, including Paris, Bordoux and Aix-en-Provence. Eventually moving to Paris for 3 years, creating the dance group “Ensemble Naka” with Ea Sola and Francois Evangeristi. (https://www.inkboat.com/inkbio/bioishide) |
| Israel Berruecos | Israel Berruecos is a Butoh Artist whose journey began in 2023. Deeply drawn to the expressive, pre-expressive and transformative power of this art form. His work has developed in a self-taught manner, studying from books he comes across or that find their way to him organically, but he has also trained with Natsu Nakajima, Atsushi Takenouchi, Makiko Tominaga, whom he considers his true Butoh masters so far. His work explores the body as a vessel between worlds-between memory and land, life and death, and space misterys. He co-created El ultimo rezo al rio, a Butoh-theatre piece on the water crisis. His first solo Lleno de mariposas, inspired by the destruction of nature and the ancestral meaning of Papalotla. In 2024, he presented Cempasuchil, a solo rooted in the flowers symbolic bridge between life and death, performed in Tlaxcala and Puebla. In 2025, he colaborated with Taiwanese pianist Chiu Yu Chen as part of a concert tour in Mexico. His path in Butoh continues to grow-rooted in presence, not-presence, silence, and the poetic of body. |
| Isso Muira | Born in 1935, Isso Muira encountered Butoh during the late 1960s and early 1970s while studying at the Nihon University College of Art in Japan. It was during this time that he was introduced to the works and philosophies of Butoh’s founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. |
| Itou Soutarou | Member of Sankai Juku (https://www.ssense.com/en-us/editorial/culture/inside-butoh-the-japanese-dance-of-darkness) |
| Ivan Guryanov | Listed as butoh dancer in description on instragram account |
| Iván-Daniel Espinosa | Iván-Daniel Espinosa is a dance choreographer primarily working in performance and Butoh. Iván-Daniel is the Founder and Executive Producer of the SALISH SEA BUTOH FESTIVAL in Port Townsend, Washington. Since 2021, Salish Sea Butoh has become one of the largest active Butoh festivals in North America, and the only annual festival in the United States that continues to consistently offer an extensive international Lineup featuring multiple Japanese teachers from the senior generation of Butoh as well as diverse Butoh performers from countries all over the world. Iván-Daniel began his Butoh training in 2014 and has studied with many Japanese masters from the lineage of Tatsumi Hijikata including Natsu Nakajima, Saga Kobayashi, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, and Moe Yamamoto of Kanazawa Butoh-Kan. Iván-Daniel’s most formative training has been with Seattle Butoh pioneer Joan Laage, who continues to serve as his foremost teacher and collaborator to this day. He is deeply grateful to Joan Laage for providing him with a continuous stream of inspiration. In his work as a choreographer, Iván-Daniel frequently collaborates with avant-garde musicians, like Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and the NAKATANI GONG ORCHESTRA, as well as with art-makers of various mediums, to create his sensorially immersive performance environments. Iván-Daniel is also an academic scholar specializing in the ecological themes and philosophies of Hijikata’s Butoh-Fu and Hijikata’s serial performances of the 1970’s. As of 2025, Iván-Daniel is a PhD scholar in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder and he also holds a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tish School of the Arts. As an academic, Iván-Daniel’s research is situated at the intersection of mycology, bio-performativity, and ecology-themed Butoh performance, while also examining the ecological dimensions of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata’s choreographic methodologies. Iván-Daniel’s recent multimedia Butoh installations exploring mushrooms and mycelium fungi networks have been cited in academic journals as innovative contributions to the emerging fields of Bio-Art and interspecies performance, and a chapter-length discussion about his artwork with fungi was published in the 2024 Routledge book titled “Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene.” Academic Text Espinosa, Iván‑Daniel. “Mycelium in Motion: Choreographing Care in Iván‑Daniel Espinosa’s Messengers Divinos.” Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene, edited by Angenette Spalink, Routledge, 2024, pp. xx–xx. |
| Izuru Mori | Mentioned as butoh dancer for the butoh film Curtain of Eyes, directed by Daniele Wilmouth and choreographed by Katsura Kan (https://www.danielewilmouth.com/curtain-of-eyes) |
| Jaakko Kuikka | Jaakko has been a performer at Helsinki Butoh Festival. Jaakko Kuikka researches the terrains of the body-mind through stillness, movement and sound. (https://www.helsinkibutohfestival.fi/matter-1) |
| Jacquelyn Marie Shannon | Jacquelyn Marie Shannon is a theatre, dance, and ritual artist and PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York City interested in magic, witchcraft, and ritual; theatres of death, haunting, and mourning; queer and feminist performance; materiality, affect, and dramaturgies of the body. Her work gravitates towards questions of presence and transformation, enchantment and whimsy, the supernatural and the extraordinary, spirituality and sensuality, and the tenuous relationship between life and death. She is intrigued by how performance conjures, making the invisible visible, apprehendable, or encounterable, and how people are moved and make meaning within the sometimes blurred line between stage magic and ritual magic, spectacle and spirit. As both a scholar and practitioner, Jacquelyn is especially drawn to performance and artistic process which engages witches, ghosts, spiritualism and seance, necromancy, western esotericism and the occult, thaumaturgy, animism, shamanism, puppetry, vaudeville, sideshow, as well as other queer or marginal registers of performance that extend beyond bounded notions of body, space and time, that cultivate and operate as and through liminal and altered states, alternative temporalities, synesthesia, visions and dreams. Jacquelyn holds an MA degree from Indiana University in Communication and Culture where she studied expressive modalities through theories of affect, performance, and visual and embodied rhetoric, as well as an MA degree from NYU in Educational Theatre where she researched process-oriented and affect-informed theatre education, and an MPhil from The Graduate Center CUNY in Theatre and Performance where she studied histories and dramaturgies of magic, enchantment, witchcraft, and the supernatural in performance. As an artist-teacher-scholar, she has performed, presented research, and led workshops across the US and internationally. Her writing appears in published articles and edited volumes, including The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (2020) and The Witch Studies Reader (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2024). Over the last nine years, Jacquelyn has developed and taught “Ghostly Practice,” a constellation of movement and ritual techniques for working with memory, haunting, spirit, and the more-than-human through the body, heavily informed by over fifteen years of training in Japanese butoh, expressionist dance, physical and psychodramatic theatre, ritual practice and performance. Jacquelyn is currently a graduate teaching fellow at City University of New York (CUNY) where she enjoys teaching courses in theatre, acting and performance. She has taught at Brooklyn College, Allegheny College, Indiana University, and the New York City College of Technology, and has lectured and led classes at Barnard College at Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, and Hunter College, among other institutions. Beyond academia, Jacquelyn is also a certified integrative hypnotist who works primarily with artists, performers, and other creatives to overcome creative and emotional blocks, process and alchemize grief, and re-enchant their daily lives. Academic Texts Shannon, Jacquelyn Marie. “Beware the Word: Butoh, Ethnotheatre, and the Limits of Speech.” PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, vol. 4, no. 1, Aug. 2021. https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/members/jshannon1/?utm_source=chatgpt.com Shannon, Jacquelyn Marie. “Butoh Beyond the Body: Shakina Nayfack on Transition, Evolution, and the Spirit at War.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2020. https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/members/jshannon1/?utm_source=chatgpt.com Shannon, Jacquelyn Marie. “Disappearing Acts: Witchcraft Dramaturgy at the Crossroads of Exposure and Loss.” The Witch Studies Reader, edited by Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, Duke University Press, forthcoming 2025. https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/members/jshannon1/?utm_source=chatgpt.com Shannon, Jacquelyn Marie. “Suffering the Spirits: Affective Excess in Early Twentieth‑Century Spiritualist Séance Performance Technique.” Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 2022. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ghostly-practice-in-person-movement-ritual-workshop-october-8-wednesday-registration-1505304790149?utm_source=chatgpt.com Shannon, Jacquelyn Marie. “’All that is dark, potential, and quiet’: Riding the Hinge in The Witch’s Dance.” Anthropology of Consciousness, 2024. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-witchs-dance-ritual-movement-workshop-223-in-person-tickets-1977773117635?utm_source=chatgpt.com Shannon, Jacquelyn Marie, and Dohyun Gracia Shin. “Events from the Arab/Islamic World at the 2019 PRELUDE Festival, New York.” Arab Stages, vol. 11, Fall 2019. |
| Jaime Martinez | Life performer and educador míxing physical Theatre, conceptual performance, butoh dance. |
| Jaime Razzo | He served as director and choreographer for the Butoh-infused production “Huesos Rotos” (Broken Bones) with his company 0.618 Butoh Dance Company, presented at the International Butoh Dance Festival in Cuenca (https://www.lilliancmuller.com/work) |
| Jamie Burris | One of Oguri’s main dancers. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jun-30-he-bound30-story.html) |
| Jane Tellini | Steeped in a dedicated practice of Self-discovery Jane Tellini, a movement artist, dancer, and choreographer currently based in St. Louis, MO, utilizes the body to express internal relational structures that comprise the holistic Self. Led by intuitive images, dream themes, and universal concepts of Love, Loss, Grief, Fate, Eroticism, and Uncertainty she shows various ways to grapple with and live through the struggle and beauty of the human condition. Jane is a recent graduate of the MFA Dance program at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on cultivating a link between the ritual practices of Butoh and Western concert dance. (https://www.houskagallery.com/jane-tellini) |
| Jasmin Perrow | Jasmin Perrow grew up in Wales and initially trained at Rubicon Dance School. She graduated from Dartington College of Arts with a first class degree in Dance and Cultural Entrepreneurship. After working as a cabaret dancer she abandoned sequins and feathers and pursued her growing interest in Butoh dance. (https://cargocollective.com/unearthed/The-Artists) |
| Jay Hirabayashi | Jay Hirabayashi is a Japanese‑Canadian butoh artist and co-founder (with Barbara Bourget) of Vancouver’s renowned Kokoro Dance Theatre Society, established in 1986, which has created over 200 works blending Eastern butoh aesthetics with Western dance forms and regularly performs at site-specific venues like Wreck Beach. He also co-produces the annual Vancouver International Dance Festival and was inducted into the Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame in 2022 for his contributions to modern and postmodern dance in Canada. |
| Jean Daniel Fricker | Jean Daniel Fricker undertakes an exploration experience to inner and limitless spaces. This crystalline and cellular dance is a non-form state, “another” intimacy; intimate and universal, a receptacle body, serving each single moment, innumerable. A life that seeks itself, new at each moment, offering itself to the becoming. (Fricker’s website) |
| Jenni Cockrell | Jenni Cockrell/strange daughters butoh is a dancer, choreographer and teacher of butoh and modern dance. She choreographs and performs her own work in addition to that of Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre, Moving Women, Legacy Butoh and Anemone Dance Theater. Jenni has regularly performed in the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, The Asheville Butoh Festival and the Re{Happening} as well as in festivals in Mexico. She received a Regional Arts Project Grant in 2015 for her solo show “strange daughters.” Jenni earned her M.A. in Dance and Women’s Studies from UNC Greensboro (2002), where her thesis project investigating female butoh artists won the Sally Schindel Cone Award for Excellence in Women’s Studies. Strange daughters butoh approaches dance as a laboratory to explore the quirkiness and rawness of life. (https://strangedaughtersbutoh.wordpress.com/bio) |
| Jennifer Hicks | Active Dates1980s – Present Director of CHIMERAlab Dance Theatre Locations • Boston, United States • New Orleans, United States |
| Jens Peter de la Fuente | Jens Peter de la Fuente (often styled “Jens”) is a Butoh teacher and director who, in 2007, announced a six-month intensive Butoh workshop in Spain through Butoh School, where he served as the director of the program. |
| Jerry Gardner | Dr. Gardner is an accomplished teacher and dancer of Butoh. He studied in Japan with the co-founder of this unique art form, Kazuo Ohno; Yukio Waguri, a disciple of Tatsumi Hijikata; and Yushito Ohno, the late Kazuo Ohno’s son and current director of the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio. He has also studied with Diego Piῆon of Butoh Ritual Mexicano. Dr. Gardner is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Allen Gardner Dance Theater, a company dedicated to the integration of numerous movement and dance forms to create engaging theatrical performances. (https://theatre.utah.edu/about/people/actor-training/gardner-jerry) Academic Texts Gardner, J. (2018). “Walking Toward Transformation: Butoh as a Practice of Being.” Gardner, J. G. (1997). Asian Theatre: Tradition and Practice. University of Utah Press. Gardner, J. G. (2010). Moving into the Void: The Actor’s Discipline in Butoh. University of Utah Lecture Series. |
| Jess Cottee | Has been dancing since she was a child. Her professional background is as a humanistic and integrative psychotherapist. For the past ten years she has been dancing butoh with masters including Masaki Iwana and Minako Seki, and in her own teaching and practice has been exploring combinations of imagination, the placement of attention, somatic awareness and movement that bring about shifts in internal states. She is the writer of Minako Seki’s upcoming book and recently completed the Seki Method Teacher Training Programme, for which she was also the writing assistant. In December 2022 she was dancer in residence at the first Hybrid Butoh Vienna Art Festival and in 2023 she was an ATLAS participant at ImpulsTanz Festival. (https://www.imflieger.net/artist/jess-cottee-uk-ie-en) |
| Jess Ramírez | Jess Ramírez studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Archaeology at UAEMex. She is a model, a dancer of Belly Dance, Belly Dance Fusion, TFB style, and Butoh dance. She has not only devoted herself to the world of archaeology but has also studied various forms of dance for several years, mainly Belly Dance (saidi, baladi, fusion, tribal, etc.), Kalbelia, Tanoura, Gurdjieff’s Sacred Dances, and Butoh. She trained as a Belly Dance dancer 10 years ago at the Spiral Academy with Tania Yedith, continued her training by taking workshops with Al Rachid, studied in a self-taught manner, and more recently with the international teacher Zoe Jakes. As a Butoh dancer, she has had a career of more than 9 years in the Butoh scene, beginning her training with internationally renowned masters. She guides her dance through the teachings of Butoh-kas such as Natsu Nakajima (Japan), Hiroko and Koichi Tamano (Japan), Makiko Tominaga (Japan), Tetsuro Fukuhara (Japan [with the latter, she collaborated in two performances under his direction]), among other national and international masters. She has reinforced her training with practices such as Body Weather with master Sherwood Chen (USA) and Gurdjieff’s Sacred Movements and Dances with teacher Graciela Gómez (Mexico). She has performed various works as a Butoh dancer throughout much of Mexico, as well as interventions in various artistic gatherings. In most of her works and such interventions, she has had major collaborations with musicians, especially with free improvisation and/or sound experimentation musicians. (https://www.instagram.com/p/ClEkMNSOIf7/?img_index=1) |
| Jesús Soberón | Was part of Yumiko Yoshioka’s Ten Pen CHii Art Labor |
| Jo Invisible | Performer, organizer, educator in Buenos Aires. Runs Spacio monteCio. |
| Joan David | Joan David(They/He) is a butoh performer based in Athens, Greece. They practice this art since 2018 and they are part of Quantum Body Athens butoh dance group lead by their mentor Vicky Fillipa. Outside their group,they have created various solo works such as “the Ghost of Fuorigrotta” , “Apousia” and “Transgressions”. Except butoh, they are also a fetish performer, musician in metal bands and drag queen called “Epitaphio” |
| Joan Laage | Joan Laage (also known as Kogut Butoh) is a Seattle-based Butoh pioneer and educator who studied intensively in Tokyo under Butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa and performed with Ashikawa’s troupe Gnome in the 1980s. |
| Joana Von Mayer Trindade | Choreographer, Performer and Teacher. Founder with Hugo Calhim Cristovão of NuIsIs ZoBoP. BA in Psychology University of Porto. Master Soda (Solo/Dance/ Authorship) University for the Arts Berlin UDK/HZT. Course of Contemporary Dance Performers, Forum Dança. Course Essais” CNDC d’ Angers/Emmanuelle Huynh. She was a scholarship holder at the National Culture Centre in Japan (2002), where she researched and practiced Butoh with Min Tanaka at the Body Weather Farm, and Soto Zen Buddhism at the Zazen Dojo Antai-Ji. https://bolsadasartes.pt/en/young-creators/joana-von-mayer-trindade/ |
| Joanna Rosenfeld | Joanna Rosenfeld is a British-German performance artist, director, and butoh practitioner based between Tokyo and the UK. With over 20 years of experience, her work spans solo performance, devised theatre, and collective improvisation. Deeply engaged with butoh since 2022, Rosenfeld’s work explores themes of grief, memory, identity, and transformation, often combining movement with sound, stillness, and emerging technologies. Her recent solo performances include Resonant Void (Suisei Gallery, Tokyo, 2024), a sold-out piece with over 75,000 views on YouTube, and Fragments of Silence (Café Muriwui, Tokyo, 2025), a duet with musician Mamoru Hoshi. She is a founding member of the *JAFY collective*, with whom she co-created (Me)mbrane (Berlin, Feb 2024). She also developed the ongoing improvised performance series Dialogue Without Words as a solo artist. With the *Sho Synergy Collective*, she co-created Beyond the Directions of the Wind, a durational performance premiered at the IRU Arts Platform in Tokyo in March 2025. Rosenfeld is the founder of AboutFace Theatre Company and the One Fell Swoop Project, directing award-winning productions including A Very Great Mischief and The Polished Scar. Her upcoming solo Memoria will be shown at the Centre Line Arts Festival (ClafT) in Tokyo on 4 October 2025, and the trio ‘Cricles of Ash’ with Isso Miura and Hoshino Megumi at OAG Tokyo on the 29 October. Joanna is a faithless Butoh student and researcher (not attached to any one master), curious and radical in her engagement and desire to share her findings. |
| Joanna Sarnecka | Cultural anthropologist, storyteller and performer. Dances butoh dance. She also works socially through artistic means, including performative ones. She is curious about the memory of a place, also embedded in objects, landscape, and what is non-human. He is interested in multicultural heritage and the idea of a multi-species community. He co-creates the WMA – collective of the Virtual Museum of the Anthropocene www.wma.museum. Two-time scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. (https://taniecpolska.pl/wydarzenia/rzeszow-krosno-przestrzenie-sztuki-joanna-sarnecka-jakub-hader-synesthesis-performans-butoh) ”I started my butoh education in 2009 from workshops with polish dancers: Sylwia Hanff and Krzysztof Jerzak, then Aleksandra Capiga-Łochowicz in Warsaw. Then I had the possibility to participate in trainings with Daisuke Yoshimoto in Warsaw and in Kraków Butoh Festival in Manggha museum with Ko Murobushi. Later I was two times in workshops with Tetsuro Fukuhara and participated in training with master Yoshito Ohno. But when I met for the first time Atsushi Takenouchi it was clear to me that Jinen butoh was my way. Every time Atsushi was in Poland I was trying to learn from him. This is my great sensei. I’m friends with his student Marusha Ronchi too, and this way of working with energy and Nature has connected with me and deeply changed me. I have many life limitations. I have no money to travel to Atsushi or go to Japan but I’m trying to be as deep as possible. This is an art and life practice for me. I’m very happy that I met so many great butoh masters. I have their knowledge always with me.” (Instagram message) |
| Joao Dos Santos Alexandre | Lisboa 1975 |
| João Roberto de Souza (João Butoh) | João Butoh is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist. He began practicing Butoh in 1983 when he founded the Ogawa Butoh Center. He is considered the greatest exponent of Latin American Butoh, with dozens of international awards for the more than 50 Butoh performances he has created and produced for Ogawa and other companies. In December 2009, he participated in the 50th anniversary celebration of Butoh in Bangkok, Thailand, as a workshop instructor and performer with the piece Venezhvela. In 2010, he returned to Asia to pay tribute to Kazuo Ohno at the 3rd Nyoba Kan Butoh Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the 6th International Butoh Festival Thailand in Bangkok. He is the founder and director of the Ogawa Butoh Center Company and its associated institution, where he researches and develops his own method called Aiar Butoh Technique. He has created numerous solo and group works with his company, many of which remain in active repertoire. (https://ma.mapas.cultura.gov.br/agente/101031) |
| Jocelyn Montpetit | Jocelyne Montpetit (b. 1952, Montréal) is a Canadian choreographer and performer known for her minimalist, poetic dance exploring life, death, and embodiment. After early ballet and mime training, she studied Butoh in Japan with Min Tanaka, Kazuo Ohno, and Tatsumi Hijikata, becoming the first Westerner to join Tanaka’s company Maijuku. She founded Jocelyne Montpetit Danse in Montréal in 1990 and has since created over 20 solo works, while also teaching movement in Canada and Japan, notably at Waseda University, Rikkyo University, and the National Theatre School of Canada. Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia — Jocelyne Montpetit |
| Joelle Gruenberg | Joelle Gruenberg was born in Peru. He was trained in contemporary dance school in Carmen Senra in Madrid and later obtained a degree in dance and choreography at the Laban Center for Movement and Dance in London. Peruvian dances studied at the School of Folklore of the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Peru and in 2001 Home & oacute e; his butoh dance studios in Germany with Yumiko Yoshioka. Since 1997 he has worked with many different artists: Integro Group, LOT Theater, Ten Pen Chii Art Work, Yumiko Yoshioka, Guillermo Castrillón, Marisol Otero, Anushiye Yarnell, Yuko Kominami, Rafael Freyre, Melissa Pauchi Castagnetto and Sasaki. |
| John Giskes | I am working with Butoh as a startingpoint since 2005. In 2007 I founded a Butohgroup in Rotterdam, that group fell apart after two years working. Since then I had a solo career, working sometimes together with former members of the former Butoh group. In the Netherlands then, there where only a few individuals involved in Butoh. I was happy to invite Itto Morita to Rotterdam to guide us in our Butoh practice. Itto Morita had then a sabbattical year in England from his work at the university of Sapporo, Japan. As a group we performed mostly in the Netherlands and one time in Czech Republic. As solo artist I performed, ofcourse in the Netherlands but next to that in Belgium, Germany, France and Russia (Moscow). My work as a Butoh dancer differs slightly from that of the mainstream by using costumes like a second skin and the profoundly use of cocoons. I am finding a lot of inspiration in the nature, insect world and using materials as plastic, rubber and paint. Intense relationships between the dancers as they can be vacuumed in their costumes or put together in stretchy cocoons. Letting the emotions go of the dancers in their roles. Two dancers in a hugging cocoon, one left outside while the two in the cocoon getting involved in each other, leaving him with his emotions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6qBrdJWyq0) This is a recurring theme in my work. |
| John Michael Doyle | John Michael Doyle is credited as a dancer with Harupin‑Ha in the San Francisco Butoh Festival 1999, alongside Koichi Tamano and others. (https://calisphere.org/item/4cfcfd09468066bb2ae8d783c179185c) |
| Jonathan Martineau | Philosopher and researcher of the movement. The translation of his doctoral thesis Shadows of justice. Political consequences of a nascent conception of being to corporal practices has given light to the butosophy, a new way of thinking that is not based on the fiction of stillness and is not based upon the individual as an alien entity to the space where it evolves. We are the space and we only exist as we are being born. This work is mainly nourished by Subbody Butoh, contact-improvisation and the teachings of improvisation teachers such as Fernando Nicolás Pellicioli, David Zambrano, Cristiane Boullosa. He regularly imparts Seminars of butosophy and has published articles and presented papers around what he calls nascent thought as a praxis of movement, collected in butosofia.com. He has been a member of the dance company Omos Uno (Cristiane Boullosa) and directed along with Diana Bonilla the company Coracor (Bordes12, Sosiego, Noli me leggere, Hundred demons in solitude). He has created the pieces Principles and Pinz& together with Matilde Javier Ciria for their common creation Alma Negra. Iberian butoh festival. Together they now direct and teach in Aula nostra · Innate butoh formation. Together with Carlos Osatinsky and Fernando Nicolás Pelliccioli, has taken place Crucifluxión and Tre3. In solo, he has presented Exposing the exposition, the piece titled & and The flower. For the project Obscena, has created I have come to not return. With Al descubierto physical theatre, he codirected and performed Ashes and diamonds and he is now involved in A dance for everybody and for no one. Finally, he co-organizes EXIN workshops (www.exindance.com) with Diana Bonilla and Rafael Ibáñez. |
| Jonathan Nosan | Jonathan Nosan is a multidisciplinary performance artist whose Butoh practice is deeply informed by his two-year intensive training under master Katsura Kan in Kyoto. Blending the rigorous minimalism and poetic stillness of Japanese Butoh with his background in contortion and physical theater, Jonathan creates a visceral language of transformation and tension. In New York City, he has developed and performed numerous collaborations and solo works with Vangeline Theater, expanding the theatrical possibilities of Butoh through contemporary narrative, gesture, and extreme physical articulation. His work bridges the sacred and the grotesque, the ceremonial and the absurd—often pushing the body toward its expressive limits while honoring the philosophical roots of the form. Jonathan’s performance career spans global stages—from circus to Broadway to experimental movement theaters—and his current practice continues to explore Butoh as a vehicle for spiritual inquiry, anatomical research, and transmutation of identity. |
| Jongye Yang | Jongye Yang was born in Busan, Korea and now performs Butoh (舞踏) in the Japanese dance company Dairakudakan, active as a choreographer and director in a variety of genres from dance to theater and arts. In 1998, Yang founded Performance Park, a multidisciplinary arts group in cooperation with artists from diverse backgrounds. Then the artist moved to Japan in 2009 to be active on diverse stages throughout Europe and Latin America as a member of Dairakudakan. https://bpam.kr/en/performances/detail/Ef1NdON1SEnwrYsP |
| Jordan Rosin | Jordan Rosin (they/them+) is a gender-fluid / trans non-binary parent, community member, theatre artist, and educator. 5th generation European-American, Jordan’s ancestors migrated to Turtle Island/North America from Germany, France and other parts of Europe in the early 17th and 20th centuries and have lived on and around the Salish Sea in the territories of the Duwamish, Puyallup, Muckleshoot, and other Coast Salish peoples since approximately the 1900s. Jordan is currently expanding their reputation as a freelance theatrical director and movement/intimacy coordinator/director for film and live theatre while striving to create more gender-inclusive spaces and to embody more restorative ways of being. Jordan has trained at the intersection of arts and social justice with organizations like the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, Nicole Brewer’s Antiracist Theatre, Amplify RJ, Equity Literacy Institute, Theatrical Intimacy Education, Theatre of the Oppressed NYC and more. Jordan is a co-founder and co-artistic director of the New York City-based physical theatre ensemble, The Ume Group and frequent collaborator with the butoh/physical theatre company Ren Gyo Soh. Their direction and choreography have been seen Off-Off Broadway, as well as across Europe and North America. Their creative practice-led research on the intersection of consent/boundaries, harm reduction, creativity, and collaboration has been presented at dozens of national and international conferences and published in PARtake: The Journal of Performance-as-Research. As a teaching artist, Jordan has worked for Children’s Circus of Middletown, Tacoma Musical Playhouse, Auburn Regional Theatre, 5th Avenue Musical Theatre, and the Overlake School. They have also served on the performance faculty at Virginia Tech, the Northwest School, and Dell’Arte International. Jordan holds a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from Dell’Arte International. They are a member of Actors Equity Association (AEA) and the Pacific Northwest Theatrical Intimacy Professionals Collective (PNWTI), and an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers’ Society (SDC). |
| Jorge Luna | Jorge Luna (he/him) is an actor, photographer, and filmmaker born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. THEATRE: Baipás (George Street Playhouse), Constellations (George S. Lindsey Theatre), Hamlet (Jersey City Theater Center), Deathwatch (New Ohio), by wing, fin, hoof or foot (The Ume Group), Starry Messenger (Theatre For The New City), Cymbeline (Chashama), FLORIDITA, My Love (IATI), Barceloneta, de noche (IATI), The Tempest (BC), Julius Caesar (BC), The Promise (CBA). FILM: The Week Of (Netflix), planet b234 (Vail ; Aesthetica), All The Beautiful Things (Sundance), MACHO, papa y yoyo, The Last Frankenstein, Catching Fireflies, All Is Not Lost, Angelo. TELEVISION: Law & Order, Elementary, The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, The Code, One Life to Live. UPCOMING TV: Zero Day (Netflix). TRAINING: RADA (Shakespeare), Universidad de Puerto Rico (BA Theatre), Brooklyn College (MFA Acting). www.jorgeluna.net @jorgelunadj @jorgelunaphotography Yuragi (2017) at UNFIX NYC SHINKA (2026) at Capital Fringe EN: 2021 *online |
| José Bravo Franco | He is one of the pioneers of Butoh Dance in Mexico. In 1984 he began his studies in Contemporary Dance with Luis Fandiño and Isabel Hernández. In New York he was a student at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio and with teacher Jim May, with whom he studied Limón technique. In that city he discovered the Butoh Dance through Mariko Okamoto, with whom he collaborated in the group Vagabondage Dance Theatre. Since then he has continued research in Butoh Dance with teachers such as Anzu Furukawa, Natsu Nakajima and Diego Piñón. With the latter he collaborated in the group The Butoh Cell Mexican Ritual from 2010 to 2014. In the city of Montreal he worked with the Compagnie de Théâtre by Pol Pelletier. He has been awarded choreographic production scholarships by Fonca on several occasions. Taichi practitioner since 2006. In 2013 he founded, together with Constanza Herrera, the Butoyolotl Movement Arts Center, AC., in Mexico City. |
| José Pepe Bravo | One of the pioneers of Butoh Dance in Mexico. In 1984 he began his studies in Contemporary Dance with Luis Fandiño and Isabel Hernandez. In New York he was a student at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio and with teacher Jim May, with whom he studied Lemon technique. In that city he discovered the Butoh Dance through Mariko Okamoto, with whom he collaborated in the group Vagabondage Dance Theatre. Since then he has continued research in Butoh Dance with teachers such as Anzu Furukawa, Natsu Nakajima and Diego Piñon. With the latter he collaborated in the group La Célula de Butoh Mexican Ritual from 2010 to 2014. In the city of Montreal worked with the Compagnie de Théâtre de Pol Pelletier. He has been deserving of scholarships for choreographic production on several occasions by the Fonca. Taichi practitioner since 2006. In 2013 he founded, together with Constanza Herrera, the Arts Center of the Butoyolotl Movement, A.C., in Mexico City. (From post made from Movimiento Creativo, a collective of therapeutic dance studies.) |
| Josef Ka | Josef Ka (b. 1980, Western Siberia; based in Finland) is a performance, visual, and sound artist whose bold, site-specific works merge Butoh dance, cinematic theory, and nomadic world travel. Since 2015, her practice has explored the body as both a lived and symbolic system, navigating tensions between human and post-human existence. Her participatory performances invite audiences into intimate zones of ritual and reverie. She has presented works at the 6th Moscow Biennale (2015), Venice Biennale (2017), Parallel Vienna (2021), Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm (2021), Documenta 15, Kassel (2022), Vox Populi, Philadelphia (2023), Grace Exhibition Space, New York (2023), and the Hermann Nitsch Foundation, Austria (2024). Ka has also collaborated with Marina Abramović and has curated Sauna Gallery in Helsinki since 2021. |
| Josephine Grundy | Josephine Grundy is a UK/France–born multidisciplinary artist based in Barcelona since 1996, known for her work that fuses Butoh, voice, and physical theatre in international festivals like Barcelona en Butoh and Amsterdam Butoh Fest. |
| Josie J | Josie J, also known as divinebrick, is a Native American butoh artist based in Los Angeles, California. She is recognized for her immersive workshops and performances that explore the intersection of body, nature, and ancestral memory. |
| Josma Kalho | I do performances based on the aesthetics of disease. |
| Juan Antonio Suinaga | Invited to participate in the International Butoh Dance Festival in Kyoto, Japan, in 2019 and 2022. He also participated in the International Noh Theater Seminar taught by Hirota and Katsura Kan. He received ongoing guidance from them for the development of his dance through Butoh solos, which he presented in the Popol Butoh program in Guadalajara and in Butoh Week 2023, where he taught a workshop and presentation in Mérida, Yucatán. He also manages and produces the Butoh Dance, Noh Theater, and Ritual Movement Encounters since 2018 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, where he resides. Year after year, he invites first- and second-generation Butoh masters to teach workshops and give presentations. He also creates a program featuring Mexican artists of the same genre, contributing to the development of Butoh in Mexico. His approach to dance began when he developed a love of movement through Cesta Punta, Basque Pelota, as a professional Jai Alai dancer, and Tango, specializing in Mexico and Argentina. Later, he moved on to Butoh, as a way to create his solos since 2011. This is how maestro JAS expresses his spirit through movement. |
| Juan Carlos Linares | Carlos Linares, a choreographer, architect, and yoga instructor. Born in Caracas and originally trained as an architect, Juan Carlos later shifted to dance and music, eventually discovering butoh through early performances of Kazuo Ōno and Sankai Juku in the 1980s. Described as the creator and founder of Thot Danza Butoh operates largely as an independent, locally based collective in Caracas rather than a formally structured, widely documented company. The focus tends to be on collective performance rather than individual dancer publicity.Supporting ensemble — Usually involves 3–8 dancers; identities of those dancers are not publicly detailed. https://revistamuu.com/2021/04/20/juan-carlos-linares-creador-de-danza-caotica |
| Juan José Olavarrieta | Mentioned in Butoh America (Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022.) Director of company Gajuca Butoh. |
| Juan Manuel | Juan Manuel is a nature and performing arts enthusiast. He has participated in over 20 stage productions in Mexico. His interests lie in laboratory processes and interdisciplinary work that culminate in theater, music, and dance projects. His latest participation was in the 2024 National Theater Showcase held in La Paz, Baja California. He is part of the Corporal Laboratory team, which organizes and executes workshops and events related to Butoh dance, including the “First Butoh Dance Encounter in León, Guanajuato. |
| Judith Kajiwara | After 20 years as a solo butoh performing artist, Judith has shifted forward to train and mentor a talented ensemble of dancers. As a third-generation Japanese American dancer, having studied numerous dance genres throughout her life, in 1994, she decided to devote herself entirely to the study of Butoh. Butoh, with its rebellious origins, was the perfect bridge between being Japanese born in America and her Japanese ancestry. Butoh was the answer to her search for a dance form that truly voiced her experiences as a Japanese American woman. Judith considers her Butoh “self-taught”, having spent endless hours alone, searching within, to find innovative ways to express the endless stream of stories, memories, images and emotions that had begun to emerge. She has since created and performed countless Butoh solo works for the stage, beginning with “The Ballad of Machiko”, at the NOHspace, in 1995. Much of her work has focused on creating characters that reflect the history of Japanese Americans. She loves to teach, and has taught and choreographed dances since she was in her early 20s. In addition to Butoh, Judith teaches a weekly hip hop dance workout for adults and is a Reiki (energy healing) practitioner and teacher. ( |
| Juju Alishina | Japanese choreographer and Butoh dancer, born in Kobe, Japan. Trained in traditional Japanese dance and Butoh, Juju Alishina began her professional career with the Byakkosha company in Kyoto in 1982. In 1990, she founded her own dance company, Nuba, in Tokyo. She has performed with her dancers in Japan, the USA, and Europe. Having assimilated many different styles and approaches to dance, she has developed her own unique and original movement vocabulary, creating a refined blend of traditional and avant-garde styles. The trademark of the Nuba dance company is its paradoxical combination of shadow and celebration. In 1998, Juju Alishina moved her company to Paris. Since then, she has expanded her methods beyond Butoh and has led numerous artistic and educational activities worldwide. Her dance method book Butoh Dance Training – Secrets of Japanese Dance through the Alishina Method is published in three languages and read around the world. ### ▶️ Video Classes * How to improve Butoh (large series) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fArKj4h47Xk&list=PLA42b3s86j99egTQX5ezvTMsIB8eB_cQv Book Alishina, Juju. Butoh Dance Training: Secrets of Japanese Dance Through the Alishina Method. Translated by Corinna Torregiani, Jessica Kingsley Publishers/Singing Dragon, 2015. |
| Julia A Vessey | Julia A. Vessey, MFA Faculty, School of Theater and Dance – James Madison University, Virginia, USA Julia A. Vessey began her dance journey in ballet at a young age and later expanded her training at James Madison University (JMU), where she discovered the transformative world of modern dance. After graduating from JMU in 2005, she pursued her Master of Fine Arts in Dance at Arizona State University (ASU), completing her degree summa cum laude in 2008 and earning the distinction of Graduate Choreographer of the Year. During her time at ASU, Vessey trained and performed extensively with Mary Fitzgerald and David Dorfman, further developing her choreographic voice and physical expressiveness. In 2009, Vessey was accepted into the world-renowned Butoh company Dairakudakan in Tokyo, Japan. She joined the company for their 2009–2010 performance season, studying the movement philosophies and aesthetic principles of Butoh master Maro Akaji, the founder of Dairakudakan. Her training also included mentorship from esteemed Butoh artists Takuya Muramatsu, Mukai Kumotaro, and Yoshito Ohno. Through this experience, Vessey became one of the few Western artists to gain such deep insight into the inner world of Butoh. Vessey is the founder of Shojorakudava, Dairakudakan’s USA-based satellite Butoh company, which is dedicated to teaching and performing Butoh works choreographed by both Vessey and Maro Akaji. Shojorakudava has performed and conducted workshops throughout Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Japan. Her continued engagement with the Butoh community includes performances and residencies with Takuya Muramatsu (2014, James Madison University) and Daiichiro Yuyama (2015, James Madison University and Staunton, Virginia). Julia is in the publication: The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Butoh-Performance/Baird-Candelario/p/book/9780367517908 Sources https://www.jmu.edu/theatredance/people/vessey-julia.shtml & personal FB message Academic Text Vessey, Julia A. “My Dairakudakan Experience.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 453–460. |
| Julie Becton Gillum | Julie Becton Gillum, artistic director of the Asheville Butoh Festival, has been creating, performing and teaching dance in the US, France, and Mexico for over 40 years. Julie has received numerous grants and awards for her choreography. She was awarded the 2008-09 NC Choreography Fellowship and used the funds to travel to Japan to study Butoh, her primary form of artistic expression. (ashevillebutoh.com/legacy-butoh) ### ▶️ Video Classes * Instant Butoh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MIlm4CbWlQ * Perpetual Image Walk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdWBLjrzT5s |
| Julie Valentine Dind | Julie Dind is an autistic artist and scholar, whose artistic and scholarly work explores the resonances between butoh understood as the unlearning of the (neurotypical) social body and the/her autistic body. For the past 15 years, she has been studying and researching butoh, both in Japan and abroad. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo, where she works on a manuscript on butoh and disability. Academic Texts Dind, J.V. (2024). “Dancing hors sujet: On butoh and autism.” Choreographic Practices, Intellect. Dind, J.V. (2016). “The Sought For Butoh Body: Tatsumi Hijikata’s Cultural Rejection and Creation.” Transcommunication Journal, Waseda University. |
| Juliet Henderson | Juliet Henderson is an artist and academic. She began butoh dancing with Café Reason in 2017. Since then, it has become a vital part of her life and creative expression: “Butoh encourages us to explore the non-normative side of our bodies. To use our imagination to improvise being an ancient rock, a flower germinating, blossoming and then dying, or to dive deeper into old and present emotions. When I discovered butoh it immediately felt like my natural element.” (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) Academic Texts None directly related to butoh or theatre |
| Julio Láudano | Julio Láudano (Monterrey, Mexico, 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist who, from an early age, has felt the drive to experiment with different artistic tools. In 2006, he began working with performance, a practice he occasionally fuses with his role as a DJ in the underground scene. Other forms of expression he regularly explores include Butoh dance, painting, collage, and object art. He has presented his work in public spaces as well as in clubs, galleries, and festivals. (https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck6tn_vrg24/?img_index=1) |
| Junji Iijima | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00003) |
| Junk Fujita | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Junko Iwahashi | Was part of Yumiko Yoshioka’s Ten Pen CHii Art Labor |
| Juri Mangekyo | Listed as butoh artist in Japan Contemporary Dance Network (https://wikiwiki.jp/jcdnmdfe/ARTISTS/Mangekyo%20Juri#:hl:word=butoh) |
| Juri Sawada | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Juschka Weige | Juschka Weigel starts her studies of dance at ‘Colombo Dance School’, in Zürich. After she finished successfully her three-year course, she received a six-month scholarship for ‘Merce Cunningham School’, in New York, accomplishing her basic dance education. After this period she received another scholarship for the ‘Academy of Art’, in Solo/ Indonesia. Since 1999 she studies Indian traditional music with master Pandit Sankha Chatterjee. In Germany she co-founds the dance company ‘Verwandlungsamt’, under the direction of Butoh master Anzu Furukawa. (http://juschka-weigel.de/englisch/bio.html) |
| Jutta Mayer | Jutta Mayer, of Austrian origin, moved to France in 2006. She practices butoh dance and improvisational dance with several masters in France and Japan, including Yoshito Ohno, Ko Murobushi, Lorna Lawrie, Atsushi Takenouchi and Mushimaru Fujieda. She is part of the butoh dance research and creation group “Tacuabé”, performing in various rooms and public spaces with solos, duets and group dances. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2015-en.html) |
| Kae Ishimoto | Kae Ishimoto is a renowned Japanese Butoh dancer, choreographer, and teacher—director of the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive at Keio University—who has taught Hijikata’s notational method and performed globally since the early 2000s. Relationship to other butoh artists • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/yukio-waguri |
| KAI-EN | KAI-EN studied with Swedish choreographer and butoh artist SU-EN 2005-2010 when she participated in many of SU-EN Butoh Company’s performances and projects as well as assisted in workshops and performance projects. Through her final examination she was given the name KAI-EN (SEA SHELL-GARDEN) which signifies the living link from SU-EN’s body and SU-EN butoh method. Since 2010 she develops her own choreographic work through KAI-EN Butoh Company. KAI-EN Butoh Company produces dance works in close collaboration with artists from different disciplines for theatre, art museums and galleries, public spaces, site-specifics and film as well as giving workshops. The work has been shown in Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong and Ecuador. The base of SU-EN butoh method was developed from the Shizune/Ashikawa method. Yoko Ashikawa is a legendary butoh dancer working closely with one of the main founders of butoh Tatsumi Hijikata during almost 20 years as the principle dancer in his company. There is a living link from Hijikata–Ashikawa–SU-EN–KAI-EN through an intense bodily transmission. |
| Kakuya Ohashi | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) |
| Kalman Robert Attila | Buton dancer with master in contemporary dance. |
| Kana Kitty | Kana was born in Tokyo, Japan. She graduated from the Art course of Aoyama Gakuin Woman’s Junior College. While in school, a model in a painting class was a butoh dancer, which led her to enter the world of butoh dance. In 2009, Kana started dancing by herself without any teachers to quest on the journey for her own movement. Kana Kitty’s Butoh is a prayer for the unseen existence and life on earth. With Butoh, she aims to stimulate people’s senses and memories beyond time. She does both solo performances, and often collaborates with musicians and various artists. She has been invited to participate in art festivals in Japan and abroad, including Art Islands TOKYO, Primitive Senses Art Festival, and FRESH WINDS (Iceland). Touring internationally, Kana has performed in France, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Mexico, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, and Korea. She has also been active in the entertainment field, appearing in many movies and TV dramas, including “Ossan’s Love the Movie – LOVE or DEAD” in 2019, and music videos of DIR EN GREY and Kitani Tatsuya. She also performs butoh dance with a techno DJ at the Re:birth Festival and the internationally renowned MUTEK electronic music and digital art festival in 2021 and 2022, and modeling for fashion and international skin care brands. Her works are diverse, and she strives to expand the recognition of butoh and present the next generation of butoh. (kanakitty.com) |
| Kanoko Tamura | Born in the dense, crowded metropolis of Tokyo in 1980, while still a child, my family moved to the forests of Nagano where I grew up in a quiet, nature-filled environment. At the age of 18 while studying abroad in Scotland, I was greatly shocked by the huge difference in both the culture and the way of thinking compared with Japan. This was the start of my continued fascination with the world and its cultures, leading me to live in England, New Zealand, Austria, Thailand and Spain. In 2001, I started contemporary dance training in London, England, later continuing my training in Salzburg, Austria. During this time I learned the exsistence of the avant-garde Japanese Butoh dance form through a Slovenian classmate who thought my work bore similarities to the Butoh style. Upon my return to Tokyo a year later, I eventually studied Butoh under Butoh dancer Yukio Waguri. Between 2011 and 2015, I lived in Thailand, giving birth to two boys. During this time, my artistic performances were restricted to a small number of video works. I returned to Europe in 2016, moving to Madrid, Spain, where I resumed my career as a performing artist. I learnt harmonic voice from singer Enrique Martinez, which I used to then create my own unique style – a combination of harmonic voice and authentic body expression influenced by contemporary dance and butoh techniques. (https://kanokotamura.art) |
| Kanoko Tsubosaka | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 19944) |
| Kansh | Part of Singapore Butoh Collective Drawn to forms that liberate rather than dictate, Kansh’s practice cuts across mediums, questioning systems and structures we live within. Their work often invites audiences to enter alternate realities and trance-like states. (https://www.instagram.com/p/DNnQbzNJnrC/?img_index=1) |
| Kao Arahata | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Kaori Saito | Studied at Meiji University with Theater major, Kaori took part in workshops at Dairakudakan and Theater Asbestos. Has took part in Tenkei since its work Kanata (In the distance) in 1999. Has been active in solo performance and produced her own solo work “Newton in a rainy day” in 2001.(ST spot in Yokohama). |
| Kaoru Okumura | Kaoru Okumura is a Japanese Butoh performer based in Seattle, US. A fan of Butoh since the 1970s, Kaoru studied Butoh in 1993 at Asbestos-Kan in Tokyo with Akiko Motofuji, the wife of one Butoh’s originators, Tatsumi Hijikata. This is where Kaoru first performed. She started Butoh activities in Seattle in 2008. Since then, she has enjoyed performing solo and with Danse Perdue, KOGUT Butoh, and others, where she experiences how a body bridges the soul and the world. Recently she is focusing on solo work, periodically premiering new pieces at various venues. Kaoru had about 20 performances a year from 2016, including Seattle International Dance Festival, and 9E2 Seattle in collaboration with Google Deep Dream, which was also supported by Google AMI (Artists & Machine Intelligence). Kaoru has a MS degree in mathematics, and a career in computer research as an advisory researcher. She enjoys tech worlds, gadgets, including photography. |
| Kara Tsukimaru | Part of Butoh-sha TENKEI |
| Karolina Bieszczad-Stie | With a PhD in Performing Arts from Brunel University in London, Karolina’s academic research led her to transhumanism, introduced by Professor Stelarc, her doctoral thesis examiner, who inspired her creative search for alternative futures. Her practice is driven by curiosity as well as the wish to redefine the existing ways of choreographing and dancing as they may no longer apply to the future Homo Evolutis – a term coined by Juan Enriquez that describes new species of human, resulting from Butoh Encounters is a dynamic and innovative creative platform that fuses art, science and technology to investigate the future of the human condition. Initiated by Karolina Bieszczad-Stie in 2017, the platform creates performative and collaborative projects that examine the body in a variety of forms, ranging from non-biological to hybrid to non-permanent, connecting previously isolated ways of thinking and working. Butoh Encounters represents a paradigm-shifting approach that goes beyond the creation of full-scale dance productions. Karolina’s focus on process, research, and multi-format public engagement enables her to create contexts that offer audiences new perspectives on dance and prompt contemplation of current and future social dilemmas from fresh angles. She raises thought-provoking questions such as what kind of bodies will we inhabit in the future, how will they move and relate to the new environment, and will there be multiple human species with different bodies, and how will they communicate and dance together? She explores possible answers to these questions by artistic research processes, collaborative actions, exchange with audiences via dance productions and after-show talks, written texts, video work and online engagements. At the core of Karolina’s projects, Butoh – the Japanese avant-garde dance – serves as a concept around which absurdity, paradox, grotesqueness, and the method of working with the flexible and “intangible” body revolve. She often works with Japanese Butoh dancers, such as Yoshito Ohno, Saga Kobayashi, Yumiko Yoshioka, Yuko Kaseki and Azumaru, as well as with non-human dancers, including cancer cells or the industrial robot iiwa.evolution driven by human choice with the use of AI, genome editing or body extensions. Academic Text Bieszczad‑Roley, Karolina. Photo‑Performance: A Study of the Performativity of Butoh Dance Photography. PhD dissertation, Brunel University, 2009. |
| Karuko Aiyama | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Kasumi Muraki | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Kat Macmillan | Kavita “Kat” Macmillan, performer, dancer, vocalist, musician. Kat performed as one of the original members of the Vangeline Theater, a contemporary Butoh dance company based in New York City and founded by preeminent dancer, choreographer, & artist Vangeline. She now continues to train, teach and present dance in Portland, Oregon and internationally. Through the lens of Butoh Kavita was led back into the theater & music – performing in original plays, creating movement scores, writing and performing original songs and coaching individuals and performers with voice, movement and creative awakening practices. As a life practice, Butoh is woven through Kavita’s work. It is an invaluable tool to move through experiences and patterns of being, always returning her to the authentic Self connecting us all and the strength of spirit. For information about current offerings online and in-person contact Kavita directly. kavitakatmacmillan.com |
| Katarzyna Julia Pastuszak | Dancer, director, choreographer, artistic director of the Amareya theater. Theaterologist and cultural animator, long-time dance researcher butō. She runs dance workshops butō and theater workshops, she also completed a course in psychosomatic therapy through dance and movement Dancing Down the Bones – Somatic Practice – Dance and Movement Therapy in London. On a daily basis, she is the curator of the Theater Stage of the „Żak” Club in Gdańsk, where she carries out cyclical cultural events such as: Gdańsk Dance Festival, „Poza Borders” project, Dance Festival Butō. (https://taniecpolska.pl/ludzie-tanca/katarzyna-pastuszak) Academic Texts Pastuszak, Katarzyna Julia. Ankoku butō Hijikaty Tatsumiego — teatr ciała‑w‑kryzysie. Universitas, 2014. https://w.bibliotece.pl/4757443/Ankoku%2Bbut%C5%8D%2BHijikaty%2BTatsumiego%2Bteatr%2Bcia%C5%82a-w-kryzysie?utm_source=chatgpt.com Pastuszak, Katarzyna Julia. “Zapętlony czas: Notatki z pracy nad projektem performatywnym ‘LoopCurrent’.” K, vol. 2025, 2025, doi:10.36744/k.4341. https://czasopisma.ispan.pl/index.php/k/article/view/4341?utm_source=chatgpt.com Pastuszak, Katarzyna Julia, translator and contributor. Studia Choreologica, vol. XXI. (Translation and editorial contributions in dance scholarship). |
| Katarzyna Żejmo | Multimedia artist, butoh dance practitioner, performer, graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (Faculty of Graphics, diploma in the Multimedia Artistic Creation Studio of prof. Stanisław Wieczorek); scholarship holder in the performance class, directing, Mobile Academy, Warsaw; graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź (Faculty of Fabric and Clothing, bachelor’s degree in Clothing Design); participant of the Academy of Theater Practices in Gardzienice. She completed a yoga instructor course in asanas, pranayama, philosophy and mudra under the leadership of BNS Iyengar (Mysore in India). She was a student at the Himalaya Butoh School run by a Japanese dancer butoh Lee Rizome in Dharamsala, India, whom he still regularly visits and invites to Poland. She participated in educational workshops of the Forum Theater using the drama method; pantomime workshops with Stefan Niedziałowski and his guests, as well as dance workshops butoh with Atsushi Takenouchi, Daisuke Yoshimoto and Ken Mai and Lee Rhizome. She has taught classes for artists at Blue Pearl Gallery, Chiang Mai in Thailand and for Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, India. (https://taniecpolska.pl/wydarzenia/wroclaw-katarzyna-zejmo-i-performerzy-cichy-dom-wieczor-indywidualnych-performansow) |
| Katerina Bakatsaki | Katerina Bakatsaki is a Greek-born dance artist, choreographer, and teacher, widely recognized for her involvement in the Body Weather practice initiated in Japan by Min Tanaka. (https://www.paalabres.org/tag/butoh) |
| Katerina Drakopolou | Katerina Drakopoulou was born in Athens. Following the completion of her studies at the University of Kent in England (BA in Drama and Theatre Studies, 1996-2000) where she specialized in devising, she pursued a postgraduate degree in Performance at Goldsmiths College, University of London (MA in Performance, 2000-2001). Her interest in physical theatre led her at the University of Huddersfield where she was awarded a scholarship and completed the postgraduate degree MA in Ensemble Physical Theatre: Training and Performance (2012). She worked as a Theatre/Performance lecturer at various Universities in England from 2002 till 2010 (University of Kent; Goldsmiths College, University of London; St Mary’s College; University of Leeds; Manchester Metropolitan University), teaching mainly in the areas of psychophysical approaches to actor training and performance, physical theatre, movement, mask work, devising, and contemporary approaches to performance (site-specific, durational, autobiographical). Since September 2012, she has been working as a freelance performer and theatre/performance teacher, running workshops and classes in butoh, physical theatre, Viewpoints, and site-specific performance in Greece and in England. In 2013 she returned to Manchester Metropolitan University and worked as a Visiting Lecturer till 2014, teaching butoh and contemporary performance. As a performer she has participated in various productions in Greece, England, U.S.A., and Japan. She recently created and performed a solo durational, site-specific butoh performance that explored the notion of “unexpected discoveries” through the encounter between the body and various environments. https://22stops.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/katerina-drakopoulou-cv.pdf |
| Katherine Adamenko | Katherine Adamenko is a multi-disciplinary feminist performance artist, actress, butoh dancer, choreographer, and writer. Her boundary-breaking and interactive performances have been presented in theaters, festivals, galleries, museums, conferences, and site-specific locations throughout the United States and Europe. Her character-driven, body-based work often explores embodied emotions, gender roles, and the satirization of female beauty. Most recently, Katherine performed with collaborator Speranza Spir as part of It’s Gonna Be Noir evening of improvisational music and dance at the converted Chapelle de la Cité-des-Hospitalières cathedral in Montreal in a work entitled “Le Versement Des Sœurs Cygnes” (The Pouring of the Swan Sisters), their second collaboration. In 2023, she headlined the second LatinX Performance Art Festival in Seattle, where she presented three putoh-inspired pieces Shocked, a premiere excerpt from her long-time passion project For Her Own Good: Chronicles of Women and Madness, Tres Chic: The Beauty Borg Full Circle and The Soft Cyborg Meets the Beauty Borg with artist and festival founder Xavier Lopez. Putoh is a unique brand of performance art co-created by Katherine and Xavier that draws from their Latin heritage and merges it with a fervent post-punk sensibility and traditional Japanese Butoh dance. She is also a proud member of Pulp City Comedy in Glens Falls, NY, performing in the local area since 2023. From 2020-2023, Katherine pivoted video (as we all did) and was a member of the international Endlessly Performing Artists group, creating and self-filming numerous performances for the camera culminating in a virtual collaboration for the It’s Gonna Be Hot festival in Serbia. During this time she also performed at the Irondale’s On-Women Festival, the annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts and Halloween Balls at Theater for the New City, the UNFIX NYC Arts and Ecology Festival, and the international Butoh Breath Project,. In 2019, Katherine was one of 13 artists to perform at Vangeline Theatre’s 2019 New York Butoh Institute Festival and collaborated with New Zealand artist Miki Seifert at the Butoh Next 10×10, a symposium to celebrate the publication of the Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (in which she published an article). As an entertainer and storyteller with three solo shows under her belt (Ladies Who Go Bump in the Night, The Story of a Phallus Woman, Escaping Biology), Katherine has created her brand of feminist “cabaret performance art” that fuses gender politics and satire with monologues, musical theatre, and dance in highly charged and often humorous character vignettes. Her fourth show, FOR HER OWN GOOD: Chronicles of Women and Madness, is a long-term passion project with a new excerpt presented in 2024. As an artistic disrupter, Katherine enjoys turning traditional notions of spectatorship on its head by performing in non-traditional performance spaces and producing immersive and intimate audience experiences in such places as on the unsuspecting laps of academic conference-goers (Moving Bodies, Moving Boundaries) to her bathroom, closet, and a kitchen (Apartment Series). As a ballerina, bodybuilder, and butoh dancer, Katherine uses this eclectic background to inform her ongoing dance works and site-specific movement installations. As a choreographer and improviser, she finds great joy in the kinesthetic interplay between muscle and music. She co-founded the experimental duo Neuvo Butoh Harpa with electric harpist Mia Theodoratus and has enjoyed relationships with Vangeline (Vangeline Theatre) and Claire Elizabeth Barrett (Cilla Vee Life Arts). Additionally, she has worked and collaborated with well-known international artists such as Pablo Helguera and Guillermo Gomez Pena, butoh master Diego Pinon, fine artist Julie Harvey, sculptor Sylvia Nagy and directors Gabriele Shafer and Nick Fracaro (International Culture Lab). As a traditional actress, singer, and dancer, she has also appeared in numerous regional and Off-Off-Broadway productions and films with writers and directors Arthur Sainer, Isaak Esmail Isaak, Jack Ragotzy, Lissa Moira, Tom Wopat, and filmmaker Albert Neremberg. Katherine has had performance residencies at the Obie award-winning Theater for the New City and Evolution Arts – City of Yonkers. She received a full teaching fellowship in Performance Studies from the Department of Theatre and Dance, University of California, Davis, and lecture and travel grants to develop artistic and academic work. Select festivals include LES, Performa 11, HOWL, DUMBO Dance Festival, and the Coney Island Butoh Festival, LUMEN. Select NYC Venues include MOMA, Theater for the New City, Galapagos Art Space, HERE, Slipper Room, Webster Hall, Wow Café Theatre, BWAC, the Gershwin Hotel, and regionally at Cellspace, and the Museum of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco), Unicorn Theatre (Minneapolis), and internationally at the Lakeside Theatre and Trinity Studios Gallery (Colchester, UK) and the Ceredigion Museum in Aberystwyth, Wales, among many others. With a love for the lip-smacking language of poetry, Katherine has presented boundary-pushing poetic papers at international conferences that have also been published in journal and book form. She has performed her original performance poetry and poems throughout NYC and London and is the author of a written collection (Madness Unique to those who Call Themselves Atheists). Katherine possesses a deep love of teaching, first as a creative movement teacher for at-risk and special needs children, teens, and adults (NYC Board of Education, Brooklyn Boy’s Town, National Dance Institute) and later as a performance studies lecturer and workshop leader (Departments of Theater and Dance and Environmental Design, UC, Davis). Her most profound teaching experience was as an arts educator with the AIDS Theater Project during the throes of the AIDS epidemic in NYC. Katherine dedicates her work to the remarkable institutions and teachers that influence her work to this day. Among them are – Ballet: Patricia Wilde and Nancy Clemens (American Ballet Theatre). Modern: Paul Taylor and Jose Limon company members, Martita Goshen, Claudia Gittelman. Butoh: Diego Piñon, Tetsuro Fukahara, Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, Vangeline. Acting US: Gene Frankel, Anthony Grasso. Acting UK: Jean Marlow, Mike Alfreds, Zofia Kalinska, Irina Brown. Mime: Paul Curtis. Performance Art: Bobby Baker, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Les Waters. Voice: Steve Sweetland. Dialect: Julia Wilson-Dixon. Additionally, she is a well-being and engagement expert and former fitness pro having harnessed her passion for movement and teaching as a yoga instructor, personal trainer, group fitness instructor, wellness coach, and amateur bodybuilding champion. She has helped to build award-winning well-being programs for major corporations such as Ascena Retail, Dressbarn, American Express, Ropes & Gray, LLP, and Gympass. She’s written for and appeared in numerous fitness and wellness blogs and magazines, such as Charity Miles, Ace Fitness, and Bloomberg Law. You can learn more about her career here. Katherine holds a BA in Modern Dance and Joint Political Science/History from Rutgers University and an MA in Contemporary Theatre Practice (with Distinction) from the University of Essex in England. Academic Text Adamenko, Katherine. “Reaction Tactics: Redefining Postmodern Spectator Response and Expectations.” Audience Participation: Essays on Inclusion in Performance, edited by Susan Kattwinkel, Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies no. 101, Praeger, 2003, pp. 15–?. |
| Katherine Rose | I am an artist and spiritual practitioner. My practice originates from and investigates how we interrelate within the web of life. My primary mediums are dance, voice, and writing. My work explores sensitivity, boundaries, and relationship from an animist perspective; synesthesia and sensory differences; gender and womanhood; multiplicity of identity; transformation; the natural world; and undomesticating the body. My dance practice and performance is informed by many devoted years of training in butoh. (https://katherinerosepdx.com) https://katherinerosepdx.com |
| Kathi von Koerber | New York butoh dancer, film maker, and choreographer |
| Katia Della Fonte | Visual Artist and performer I work with Nature and my research is directed towards the perception and enjoyment of the state of presence. Butoh gave me the beauty of recognizing myself in its philosophy and practice, making what I was doing concrete. My dance is with the rocks, on the trees, in the mud, … |
| Katia Shklyar | Butoh performer who attended Helsinki Butoh Festival #1. Katia Shklyar is an actress, a butoh-dancer, and a performance artist. She had studied dance, acting and stage art in Russia, Finland, and Spain. As a co-founder of UtoUto theatre, she devised and performed in the independent theatre performances, directed audience-driven pieces, and lead creative movement and poetry workshops. Her deep interest lies in exploring the connection between the body and the mind, between movement, self-being, and creativity, which makes bodily movement to be the core language of her stage work. https://www.myymala2.com/?p=5677 |
| Kato Masamichi | Listed as part of Sebi (fire on the back). Source: Centonze, Katja. “Murobushi Kō and His Challenge to Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 226–236. |
| Kats D Fukasawa (Gadu) | Studied under Rhizome Lee. See video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlZ2Iwr1Tb8 |
| Katsura Kan | Katsura Kan (b. circa 1948) is a senior-generation Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer from Kyoto, founder of the international troupe Katsura Kan & Saltimbanques, known for his globally influenced approach and role as director of the Kyoto International Butoh Festival. ### ▶️ Class Excerpts * Taller Danza Butoh y Teatro Noh (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbs3SUyCo8Q |
| Katya Taboo | Katya is a butoh dancer and an experimental performer based in Japan and Goa. A peculiar concoction of avanguard, punk, and barroc as well as gloomy landscapes and histories and inclination to oriental wisdom of her native Saint-Petersburg, a wild spirit of perestroika and her liking for deeper aspects of reality makes her work one of the kind. She rebels against industrialist war to demystify soul, phenomena and experience as well as against human obsession with anthropocentric drama. “Butoh dwells deep in the heart of things, and with it I shall too reside, among the petals of a white rose drawing in its intoxicating aroma”. (taboo on her encounter with Yoshito Ohno) Over the years she has staged a number of unique experimental solo dance performances in art galleries, and various festivals throughout Japan. She has studied butoh in Japan with Yoshito Ohno, first generation Butoh master and the son of Kazuo Ohno, the founder of Butoh, as well as Temmetsu Toshi Matsumoto, Sankai Juku, Seisaku and Yuri Nagaoka. She is also conducting research on butoh-fu and Japanese avanguard art at Hijikata Archive at Keyo University Art Centre, Tokyo. Through her work as a model and under a mentorship of avanguard photographer, shamanic and a poet Kowa Ikeuchi, she is inspired by shamanic and ‘butoh’ approaches to art and creative process. For the last four years, she has directed and produced a number of butoh performances in Jungle Dance Theatre, Goa, where she conducts regular butoh classes and monsoon butoh residency and art-directing a butoh performance collective. |
| Kayo Mikami | Kayo Mikami is a prominent Japanese Butoh dancer, choreographer, and educator—disciple of Tatsumi Hijikata, associate professor at Kyoto Seika University since 2004, and co-founder of Torifune Butoh Sha, where she continues to teach and perform internationally. Academic Texts Mikami, Kayo. The Body as a Vessel. Ozaru Books (BJ Translations Ltd), 2016. https://www.abebooks.com/Body-Vessel-Kayo-Mikami-Ozaru-Books/31760298325/bd?utm_source=chatgpt.com Mikami, Kayo. “土方巽・暗黒舞踏の受容と変容（1）国際化社会における研究の現状と論文のオリジナリティの問題・栗原論文を事例に.” 舞踊学 (Buyōgaku), no. 26, 2004, p. 65. https://researchmap.jp/read0211075?utm_source=chatgpt.com Mikami, Kayo. “土方巽・暗黒舞踏の受容と変容（2）身体、言語、イメージ―野口体操との比較から.” 舞踊学 (Buyōgaku), no. 27, 2005. https://researchmap.jp/read0211075?utm_source=chatgpt.com Mikami, Kayo. 土方巽研究 ― 暗黒舞踏技法試論 (A Study of Tatsumi Hijikata or an Approach to the Techniques of Ankoku Butoh). PhD dissertation, Ochanomizu University, 1997. |
| Kaz Kobayashi | Kaz Kobayashi is an actor, sword-fighting performer, and fight choreographer. As a choreographer, he has trained famous actors in Japan, and he has also been active as an actor and performer, appearing in various films and stage productions. He believes that the art of acting is similar to Japanese martial arts, and he has pursued both martial arts and stage combat. He teaches a method that enables realistic expression, as well as powerful, flexible, and beautiful movements. Currently, he is based in Los Angeles, where he performs at events like Anime Expo and offers training and performances in a wide range of genres, including choreography for anime, films, and stage productions. (https://www.rengyosoh.com/company-members.html) |
| Kazuko Takato | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s. |
| Kazuo Ohno | Kazuo Ohno (大野 一雄 Ōno Kazuo, October 27, 1906 – June 1, 2010) was a Japanese dancer who became a guru and inspirational figure in the dance form known as Butoh. It was written of him that his very presence was an “artistic fact.” He is the author of several books on Butoh, including The Palace Soars through the Sky, Dessin, Words of Workshop, and Food for the Soul. The latter two were published in English as Kazuo Ohno’s World: From Without & Within (2004). Ohno once said of his work: “The best thing someone can say to me is that while watching my performance they began to cry. It is not important to understand what I am doing; perhaps it is better if they don’t understand, but just respond to the dance.” ### ▶️ Video Class * Rare 1995 Kazuo Ohno Footage (long) https://vimeo.com/104427897 |
| Kea Tonetti | Dancer, choreographer, performer and teacher, eclectic artist who has made dance her primary path, interweaving many other disciplines, such as theatre, voice and yoga, in her personal and spiritual growth, which have nourished and enriched her artistic and pedagogical message. In 2008 she founds CompagniaKha with Tivitavi, producing performances of Butoh dance and Sensitive Dance with live acoustic and electronic music, collaborating with artists such as Atsushi Takenouchi, founder of Jinen Butoh, the musician Hiroko Komiya, the choreographer and butoh dancer Joan Laage, the dancers Yuko Ota and Marek Jason Isleib, the master of Noh Theatre Monique Arnaud, the performer Shaiba Vincenzo Geddo, the musician Ogam Fabio Malizia, the video artist Alessandra Pescetta. With Tivitavi she opens the Spazio Continuum in Milan, a centre of artistic research, where she teaches and creates. She has been teaching for more then 20 years in Italy and abroad, offering her pedagogic, artistic and spiritual research through courses and seminars in various venues, including theatres, dance schools and art studios. ### ▶️ Class Excerpts * Butoh and sensitive dance workshop https://youtu.be/TXztYT9bL2Q?si=-vXGJW-158j-ELaJ |
| Kei Ishikawa | Kei Ishikawa was born in October 1986 in Japan. She started training classical ballet at the age of four. In 2007 she met Daisuke Yoshimoto. She performed in Departure of the Prodigal Daughter directed by Daisuke Yoshimoto (2008) and Adieu, My Sirius (2010). |
| Kei Shirasaka | Has performed alongside Moe Yamamoto. |
| Keiko Hashimoto | A Japanese actor and dancer, Ms Keiko Hashimoto has studied experimental possibilities of body/voice/theater from Toshiharu Takeuchi(1994-2009) acting in a number of his stages. She has also learned butoh dance with Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno since 2000, providing translation in the class on a daily basis. Performances: “To the island”(butoh solo, 2002), “Kyoto”(butoh solo, 2005 and 2006), “Meeting”(2005), a collaboration with a Brazilian dance/theater group Tia Tamandua, which was supported by Japan Foundation in San Paulo. She has studied “Whole-body focusing”, a meditative movement therapy created by Kevin McEvenue since 2006 for herself and hopefully for others in need in the future. Graduate of psychology, Sofia University. https://www.novinite.com/articles/126341/Keiko+Hashimoto%3A+I+Love+Japan+Even+Better+than+Before |
| Keiko Katsumata | Danced with Mutsuko Tanaka and Yuri Sakurai (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00132) |
| Keiko Tokuyasu | Keiko Tokuyasu was born in 1999 in Ibaragi Prefecture, Japan. Her main works are butoh performance, Choreography, and Educational activities for physical expression. She graduated from a BA from Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Inter Media Art in 2022. Now she is a graduate student of the Global Art Practice Major. She focuses on the spirituality behind the body or existence in “dance culture” including butoh and traditional folk performing arts, and conducts research and art creation. She explores Butoh as a existence of ‘’Marebito’’ in the city –– an existence that has connections with nature and can resonate with the deepest essence of human beings. (https://gap.geidai.ac.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/archive_data_2024_as_a_matter_of_fantasy.pdf) |
| Keiko Yanagawa | Student of Akiko Motofuji, as listed at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00012 |
| Keisuke Oka | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) |
| Keita Arai | Member of Dairakudakan |
| Keitoku Takata | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Ken Mai | Ken Mai is a Japanese-born Butoh dancer, choreographer, teacher, and yogi based in Helsinki, Finland since 2006, who studied with Kazuo Ohno in the mid‑1990s and has performed and taught in over 30 countries, blending Butoh with martial arts, modern dance, yoga, and Zen practices. ### ▶️ Class Excerpts * 8 Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzFVs3oZ4V0 * In Cuernavaca https://youtu.be/coGNL-uY7GE?si=GAeiwJ_4H8h5GJFe |
| Kenichi Fujioka | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Kenji Kamiya | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Kenji Oketani | Listed in Japan Dance Archive at https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00669/ |
| Kenta Sakadume | Kenta Sakadume is a contemporary butoh dancer and choreographer. He is known for his unique approach to the dance form, often incorporating elements of contemporary dance and performance art while remaining rooted in butoh’s core principles. |
| Kentaro Kujirai | Kentaro Kujirai is a renowned Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer known for his innovative and deeply expressive performances. His latest work, “U-BU-SU-NA,” is a world premiere that explores the tension between contemporary urbanism and Japan’s ancient spiritual heritage, reflecting on the buried legacy of discrimination in the Sendai area of Tohoku, where he was born and raised. The piece, which premiered in 2024, is part of his Butoh series “To the Light of Taxidermy Vol.1” and is described as a spellbinding and transformative experience. https://www.thecoronettheatre.com/whats-on/kentaro-kujirai-u-bu-su-na/ |
| Kevin Bergsma | Relocating to Vancouver I began an intensive training period with Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi and performing for eight years in their butoh/modern dance company, Kokoro. Inspired to create ourselves, Thomas Anfield and I founded Butoh-a-Go-Go, and decades later have three appearances in Moscow, a half dozen BC appearances in festivals |
| Kevin Segal | Kevin Segal has been creating mostly solo, improvisational work that has often been uncomfortably personal and that makes people laugh since the 1980s. Recent work has been nominated as best choreography at The Montreal Fringe. He has two BFAs: one in Theatre as an actor, (performance,) and the other in Dance as a choreographer, (contemporary dance,) both from Concordia University in Montreal. He is the recipient of a Canada Council Arts grant from the performance art and interdisciplinary art section. Kevin became aware of Butoh early in his training. Midway through his studies he had the opportunity to see the work of and to work with Natsu Nakajma. After that, any time a Japanese person came to teach Butoh in Montreal Kevin would take the classes. Sometimes Kevin would continue his research in this area with westerners who had studied the form and would teach what they had learned. |
| Kevin Starbard | Works at San Francisco Zen Center and brings much butoh activity there. He is also the creator of Tsubushi Butoh Journal which was a physical magazine in the early 90s. He continues the Tsubushi Butoh Journal but on Facebook and Instagram. |
| Kim Ito | Kim Itoh is a celebrated Japanese Butoh dancer, choreographer, and director—disciple of Anzu Furukawa (since 1987), founder of “Kim Itoh & The Glorious Future” (1995) and later GERO, whose dynamic, theatrical style has earned international acclaim and awards like the Bagnolet International Choreography Competition (1996) and the Asahi Performing Arts Shuji Terayama Award (2002). |
| Kim Itoh | Choreographer, Dancer Kim Itoh began studies under the butoh artist Anzu Furukawa in 1987 and began solo performing in 1990. In 1995 he founded the dance company Kim Itoh + The Glorious Future. His works employ satire and a unique sense of humor in portraying “the extraordinary within the everyday.” In 1996, his group won the Rencontres Choregraphiques Internationales de Saint-Denis for Dead and Alive—Body on the Borderline , which led to an increasing number of overseas performances. Since then Itoh and his company have presented new works at a pace of about one a year. In addition to Japan, Itoh has performed in countries including France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Argentina, the Netherlands, the U.S., Canada and Denmark. (https://performingarts.jpf.go.jp/en/article/6887) |
| Kimiko Shin | Born in Oita prefecture, Japan. Memeber of ButohSeiryukai. Listed as part of 2nd Kyoto International butoh Festival 2019. (https://kyoto-butohfes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2nd-KBF-2019.pdf) |
| Kin Tokuhisa | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Kinji Hayashi | Mentioned in the book Butoh America as an actor and Harupin-Ha dancer who passed away in 2018. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge, 2022. |
| Kinya “Zulu” Tsuruyama | Kinya “Zulu” Tsuruyama is a renowned Japanese Butoh dancer, originally a member of Akaji Maro’s Dai-Rakuda-Kan, later founding his own company Yan-Shu. |
| Kisako Hagiwara | Danced with Minako Seki, Yumiko Yoshioka, and Koichi Ito. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00116/) |
| Kitt Johnson | Born in Odense, Denmark, Kitt Johnson trained in elite athletics, modern and contemporary dance, contact improvisation, martial arts, butoh, and German Expressionist theatre. (https://www.kittjohnson.dk) |
| Kiyokazu Matsumoto | Kyoto-based butoh artist listed at Japan Contemporary Dance Network (https://wikiwiki.jp/jcdnmdfe/ARTISTS/Kiyokazu%20Matsumoto#:hl:word=butoh) |
| Kiyoko Hasegawa | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Ko Murobushi | After studying under Tatsumi Hijikata in the late 1960’s, Murobushi gave up dance to become a wandering monk in the Yamabushi tradition. He returned from his ascetic life in the mountains and co-founded the performance group Dai Rakuda Kan together with Akaji Maro in 1970. In 1972, Murobushi co-founded the all-female company Ariadone with with Carlotta Ikeda. Relationship to other butoh artists • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/tatsumi-hijikata • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/ushio-amagatsu • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/akaji-maro • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/carlotta-ikeda • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/yumiko-yoshioka • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/minako-seki • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/ximena-garnica-leimay-cave • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/shinichi-momo-koga-inkboat • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/yukio-suzuki |
| Kohei Wakaba | Kohei Wakaba is a prominent butoh dancer and choreographer, known for his work with the Dairakudakan Butoh Dance Company and his own group, Wakaba Coffee. He is also the choreographer for the all-women butoh troupe, Wozme. Wakaba’s butoh style is described as avant-garde, incorporating elements of darkness and grotesque imagery while also exploring themes of femininity and elegance. Born in Fukui, Kohei Wakaba studied fine arts at the Kanazawa Gakuin University. Then he became a Butoh dancer of Dairakudakan Dance Company, performing as a member from 2004 to 2020. He has been seen in many plays, dance pieces, and films. From 2021 he became a freelance dancer, and was selected as the “Heaven Artist”certificated by Tokyo Capital. His piece Those who ain’t damn nobody received 1st prize at SAI international Dance festival 2021. It was also awarded the judge prize at Choreographer’s Concert in 2021. https://www.hdx.com.hk/2022/kohei-wakaba/ |
| Koichi Ito | Danced with Minako Seki, Yumiko Yoshioka, and Kisako Hagiwara. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00116/) |
| Koichi Notoya | Known as a disciple of Mitsutake Ishii (https://tondekarashizuka.com/taniguku/news.html) |
| Koichi Tamano | Tamano was one of Tatsumi Hijikata’s principle dancers from 1965-1972. Hijikata called him “the bow-legged Nijinsky.” Relationship to other butoh artists • Trained under https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/tatsumi-hijikata • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/bob-webb • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/hiroko-tamano • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/shinichi-momo-koga-inkboat • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/mizu-desierto • Trained https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/terry-hatfield |
| Koji Shokaku | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Koma Otake | Koma Otake (born Takashi Otake in 1948 in Niigata, Japan) is a globally renowned dancer, choreographer, and founding half of the performance duo Eiko & Koma, known for their slow, meditative works blending movement, visual art, and ritual |
| Kota Yamazaki | Kota Yamazaki is a Japanese-born choreographer and performer, recognized for his innovative integration of Butoh with contemporary dance and interdisciplinary art. He was born in Niigata, Japan, and began his Butoh training at 18 under the guidance of Akira Kasai. Yamazaki also studied classical ballet with Hirofumi Inoue starting in 1981. He later graduated from Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo with a BA in Fashion Design. |
| Krystel Coper | Krystel Copper is second-generation immigrant dance artist born to parents from Argentina and Portugal. She joined LEIMAY as a member of the performance and research ensemble in 2016 for the premiere of Frantic Beauty at BAM. Copper holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Maryland. |
| Krzysztof Jerzak | Butoh dancer, choreographer and aikidoka. In 1987, he started aikido training, and in 2003-2020 he taught regular classes. He currently holds a 4th dan master’s degree. He was the founder and teacher of the Krakow Aikido Academy Kobayashi Hirokazu. In 1999, he also began learning Japanese butoh dance. (https://hsr.edu.pl/team/krzysztof-jerzak) |
| Ksenia Ponsova | Shown as having performed at St. Petersburg Butoh Festival 2021 |
| Kuni Chiya | Kuni Chiya was an avant-garde female dancer. Her studio, Kuni Chiya Butoh laboratory, was in Komaba, Tokyo. In the early 1960s she collaborated with Group Ongaku, Araki Nobuyoshi, Kazakura Shō and other members of the avant-garde. Kunimoto, Namiko. “Tsujimura Kazuko and the Body Object.” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, vol. 19, no. 3, 1 Feb. 2021, apjjf.org/2021/3/kunimoto. |
| Kuniichi Hashimoto | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Kunishi Kamiryo | Active primarily in Tokyo, Japan during the early to mid-1980s, performing alongside figures from the Tenshi‑kan company under Akira Kasai. He toured internationally with this ensemble. (Japan Dance Archive) |
| Kuritaro | Kuritaro is a veteran Butoh choreographer and performer who led the group Kobuzoku Arutai (Altaic) after relocating from Hokkaido to Tamba in the mid-1990s. His works are known for connecting peasant life, rural identities, and social ritual with dark, visceral movement. |
| Kyo Tochikawa | Listed butoh artist on Japan Contemporary Dance Network (https://wikiwiki.jp/jcdnmdfe/ARTISTS/Kyo%20Tochikawa#:hl:word=butoh) |
| Laura Eva Avelluto | She trained with Rhea Volij in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has taken workshops with Minako Seki, Magy Ganiko, Katsura Kan. She was part of the Hymenoptera company, under the direction of Volij, in which he worked for four years; works among which stand out, “Brief slide” and “Memories of the ground”. He was part of the “Iwóka Group”. With which he participated in the project “butoh visions in South America”, under the direction of Katsura Kan, Japanese dancer; carried out by the production of Axis Mundi, cultural management, under the auspices of Japan foundation, Argentina. (https://festivaldeartepublicografff.wordpress.com/v-edicion-grafff2013/) |
| Laura Fernandez | Mentioned on Butoh America as danced under Diego Piñón. |
| Laura Oriol | Laura is a Butoh dancer and performer. After spending 8 years in the United States where she studied theater and dance and where she discovered Butoh, she returned to settle in Paris a year ago. She started dancing Butoh with Vangeline in New York then continued her practice by studying with Diego Pinon, Natsu Nakajima, Yukio Suzuki, Katsura Kan, Kat McMillan and more recently Gyohei Zaitsu and Maki Watanabe. She performs solos in various places and recently began teaching Butoh as part of a collaboration on an artistic project with Syrian refugees. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2015-en.html) |
| Lawrie Lorna | Butoh perfomer teacher and choreographer. Dramatic Arts Diploma at Cordoba National University ( Argentine) in 2002. Studying classical and contemporary dance techniques since early age, Lorna has later developed Butoh as her main language for research and creation. After beginning butoh with Rhea Volij in Buenos Aires, she studied in Japan under masters such as Yoshito Ohno, Ishi Mitsutaka and Yukio Waguri, also in Germany with Tadashi Endo, Sumako Seki and Léone Cats in France, etc. She was part of the Argentinian Butoh Company LA BRIZNA directed by Rhea Volij, during 5 years. Living in Paris since 2006, Lorna has performed internationally at numerous festivals and gives Butoh workshops in France, Argentina, Belgium, Spain and Germany. She created SEUIL COMPAGNIE with musician MICHEL TITIN SCHNAIDER in 2009; this company gives regular performances in Paris and other countries during six years. Also in 2009 she founded the project BUTOH OUVERT, which aims at developing Butoh research in Paris. Interested in relation between butoh and other arts, in 2010 she graduated in MasterDance Research at Universty Paris VIII which theme was “Butoh and Francis Bacon’s paintings”. She participates at “Experimenta Butoh Menorca” and other butô Festivals in Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, etc . She is the artistic director of “Tacuabe butoh” company since 2015, and guides “Blob” collectif butoh experiences. Now living in the south of France Lorna gives her art in contact with nature, also still dancing and creating in Paris, and developing new projects with her company EMPREINTE EN MOUVEMENT. The coming project is “24h of butoh” in June 2026. |
| Ledoh | LEDOH is an internationally-renowned choreographer and performance artist. Ledoh trained in Japan and electrified audiences around the globe for over 15 years with his riveting solo and ensemble performances as the artistic director of Salt Farm Butoh. In 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, Ledoh suffered a massive stroke. His amazing recovery journey is his current creative project. Born into the Ka-Ren hilltribe, Ledoh came to America at age 11 to escape the oppression of his people by the brutal dictatorship holding power in Burma. As Artistic Director of SALT FARM, Ledoh choreography is renown raw movement improvisational vocabulary. He also directed the production of sets, video art, and musical scores to create a vital, visceral brand of live theater and site-specific installations that can soothe then shock within the span of a timeless moment. You can check out his unique work via the projects page here. |
| Lee Swee Keong | Lee Swee Keong is a pioneering Malaysian Butoh dancer and founder/director of KL Butoh Fest, who has dedicated nearly 30 years to exploring the form—melding meditation, Taoist and Zen practices into a deeply personal performance style rooted in his Malaysian identity. |
| Leigh Evans | Leigh Evans was a member of the Tamanos’ Harupin-Ha. She is currently a New York–based performance artist, dancer, choreographer, and yoga teacher. Sources Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/leigh.evans.129 https://www.yogafinder.com/yoga.cfm?yoganumber=6043 |
| Lela Besom | Lela Besom is an international performing Butoh artist, producer, and educator currently based in Springdale, Arkansas. She was a member of DAIPANbutoh Collective in Seattle, WA for six years. |
| Lelyana Stanishevskaya | Butoh choreographer |
| Léone Cats-Baril | Léone Cats-Baril is a Butoh dancer and choreographer who performed with the all-female company Ariadone, created by Carlotta Ikeda, where she served as assistant from 1988 to 1993 before founding her own company, INCARNAT. |
| Leya Klots | Born in 1980, painter, performer… |
| Liliana Segovia | Liliana Segovia is a Mexican butoh practitioner, featured in the Cuerpos en Revuelta. (https://www.chopo.unam.mx/CuerposRevuelta/CuerposenRevuelta.html) |
| Liz Sgt Tan | Part of Singapore Butoh Collective Liz Sgt Tan – An actor and mover, Liz graduated from the Intercultural Theatre Institute in 2016. Her journey has led her into butoh and odissi, pursuing long-term training while exploring expression through physicality. Recent works include Devil’s Cherry (SIFA 2022) and Four Horse Road (2018, 2020). She enjoys performing in unconventional spaces, from Zouk to the monthly butoh jam Butoh Don’t Cry at Enclave Bar. |
| Lizzy Spight | Lizzy Spight is a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, dance therapist, singer, and songwriter. She has a long experience in a wide range of styles and loves collaboration with all arts modalities, including poetry and visual arts. She came into contact with butoh in 2010, and has taught and performed with Café Reason since 2017. (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) |
| Lobsang Palacios | Lobsang Palacios is a Butoh dancer who has performed in Latin America, notably in collaboration with indigenous arts initiatives in Chile. |
| Lori Ohtani | Lori Ohtani, age 61, of Honolulu, Hawaii, died September 1, 2020, from complications arising from lung cancer. Born in Honolulu, and a graduate of Maryknoll School, Lori was a Butoh dancer who earned acclaim from prominent Butoh masters, her fellow artists, and was a beloved sensei (teacher) to her many students. As a child, Lori enjoyed summer art classes at the Honolulu Academy of Arts as well as learning to sew. Her later interests in fashion, particularly cutting edge trends in hair and make-up of the 1980s, led her to obtain a cosmetology license at Trendsetters, in Honolulu. She went on to become a stylist at some of the most popular local salons at the time, including Tsuki’s, Paul Brown, and Hairscapes. Returning to her passion for visual art, Lori obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 1985. While attending college, she took up modern and jazz dance classes, and finally, Butoh, a contemporary Japanese dance form, as taught by instructor Cheryl Flaharty. Struck by the intensity of Lori’s stage presence and unique ability to blend the grotesque with beauty and humor, Flaharty quickly enlisted Lori for her Iona Pear Dance Theater company, where Lori became a principal dancer and later, assistant director. In 1991, Lori was paired with fellow company member Dan Hermon in the Mythology of Angels. Though Lori was painfully shy initially, a gradual romance culminated in a marriage full of art and joyful dancing in 1994. That same year, Lori left Iona Pear to form Tangentz Performance Group, to create and perform her own Butoh productions. Lori poured her artistic abilities into every aspect of every performance, including in the design and construction of all sets and costumes. As a solo artist, with her husband and co-performer Dan, and sometimes with other Tangentz company members, Lori taught and performed at numerous performing arts conferences and festivals in Hawai’i, in the continental US, Canada, and Japan. High points of her artistic career included a 1997 certificate of commendation acknowledging the power of Lori’s solo performance at Terpsichore Theater in Tokyo. At the 2002 final performance at the studio of the late Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, Lori was given the honor of performing alongside Hijikata’s widow, Akiko Motofuji, and first-generation Butoh performer Hiroko Tamano. Lori also brought several internationally acclaimed Butoh artists to Hawai’i to teach and perform; among them were masters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, as well as Yumiko Yoshika and Katsura Kan. Following his performance with Lori in Honolulu in 2005, Kan remarked that Lori was the only artist who had ever threatened his status as the world’s preeminent master of Butoh. Other admirers of Lori’s Butoh work included photographer Franco Salmoiraghi; the most famous photo from their many collaborations is titled “Angel of Choice.” After several viewers of Lori’s performances requested opportunities to learn Butoh from her, classes began at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i in the late 1990s. The classes continued until they were forced to end due to the Coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. Lori enjoyed teaching and was greatly loved by her students, many of them remaining in contact for years, even after relocating to distant places. In addition to Butoh, Lori remained active in the visual arts with occasional group exhibitions in local venues over the years, and as a member of the Coalition of Japanese Women in Art. More informally, Lori continuously incorporated art into the interiors of her home and everyday life, combining her collection of pigs with her passion for abstract art, new wave and post-punk influences from the 1980s and ’90s, and Japanese aesthetic traditions. Her yearly lunar new year cards, handmade and featuring whimsical pen and ink drawings, delighted all those on her extensive mailing list https://obits.staradvertiser.com/2020/10/04/lori-ohtani-04102020/ |
| Luan Machado | Writer, producer, performer Brazilian italian, graduated in Theater and librarian, founded his own company Paris Blues in 2012. Since then participated in international festivals as performer, director and videomaker. Won laurels in different festivals and now is based in Amsterdam. (https://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2021-en.html) |
| Lucas Matus | Butoh performer at Cuerpos en Revuelta – Festival Internacional de Butoh in Mexico City |
| Lucía Sombras Callén Herrero | Lucía Callén holds a PhD in Biomedicine (Neurobiology) from the University of Barcelona (2012). She is also an actress-performer, choreographer, and stage director, specializing in physical theater, clowning, and Butoh dance. She trained at the Nouveau Colombier Mime School (2018) and the Arturo Bernal International Theater School (2019). Lucía discovered Butoh in 2015 with Jonathan Martineau and, shortly after, co-founded Oracles Theater in Barcelona with Orland Verdú, fusing Butoh dance with physical theater. She has trained with renowned Butoh masters such as Yumiko Yoshioka, Yuri Nagaoka, Mushimaru Fujieda, and Atsushi Takenouchi, with whom she studied at the JINEN Butoh School. She is also a member of the international Butoh company The Physical Poets , directed by Mushimaru Fujieda. Since 2018, she has led La Sombras & Company, a multidisciplinary collective that integrates butoh dance, physical theatre, poetic voice, new technologies, and science to explore human nature in collaboration with international artists and scientists (http://luciasombras.com/) Through butoh, Lucía develops a distinctive language — a poetry of the flesh — exploring the unconscious through sensorial awakening and symbolic movement. Her work evokes dreamlike states in the audience by animating poetic imagery in the body. As Chantal Maillard wrote, “Infinity does not exist: infinity is the surprise of limits.” For Lucía, butoh is a way to explore that infinity — the spaces between sense and imagination, inner and outer worlds, dreams and reality. It is also a playground to awaken creativity, echoing the words of master Tatsumi Hijikata: “Butoh… plays with perspective. If we learn to see from the eyes of an animal, an insect, or even an inanimate object, the everyday road comes alive… everything is valuable.” She has created several spectacles and performed in numerous festivals across Europe and Asia (Spain, Italy, Austria, South Korea, Japan) and participated in various international residencies, including as a Goethe Institute fellow. She is also involved as a leader in several interdisciplinary and international collaborative projects: Space for Nature, MolinoLab, Cuerpo In Chaos together with Leonarda Saffi, Synaptic Body together with Alec Ilyine, Gonzalo Catalinas, Javier Marco and the Neurobioengineering Lab of UMH University (Elche). In 2023, she started to develop the Synaptic Butoh (http://synapticbutoh.com/) method to integrate art and science aimed at awakening the creative soul through movement and expanding our sensory and perceptual experience of the living world. Her latest project, INNER-ACTIONS (2025), explores translating brainwaves during Butoh dance into real-time stage changes, supported by the Creation Grants from Madrid City Council and the Culture Moves Europe program. As both a scientist and an artist, she also served as Communications Director for the Spanish Society of Neuroscience (SENC), Lucía is committed to building bridges between art, science, technology and nature. Her work seeks to integrate butoh, theater, and neurobiology to deepen our understanding of the body-mind connection. |
| Lucie Betz | French artist, Butoh dancer, choreographer, director and founder of the Nuage Fou ensemble, clown and clinic clown. Over 15 years of experience organising a number of artistic projects and productions (as a soloist and with artists from various disciplines) also teaching workshops with the aim to create a platform for innovative Butoh dance projects. Collaboration with renowned dancers such as Makiko Tominaga and Joan Laage. Improvisations and performances in Germany and abroad as well as at international festivals (FiButoh Chile 2015, TENRI Paris 2018, Sahara International Theater Algeria 2022). Founder of the Theater Nuage Fou in Freiburg, a unique independent theater dedicated to Butoh and its related arts (2012-2022). Active member of the Tanznetz in Freiburg, she teaches several professional trainings, performs at the ONES Festival 2019 as well as in the Club Unique event 2024. Lucie Betz expands her repertoire on stage in the new production “a final joke” with Theater Zerberus and Art of Being, in November 2024. |
| Luis “Loco” Brusca | Luis “Loco” Brusca (b. 1964, La Pampa, Argentina) is a Barcelona-based psycho-clown, actor, director, sculptor, photographer, and Butoh-clown specialist whose performance work spans street theatre, circus, cabaret, and film. He studied acting at the National School of Dramatic Art in Buenos Aires, then film directing in Barcelona. |
| Luiso Sister – Luis Cisternas | Transdisciplinary artist, trained in physical theater, visual arts, and Butoh dance. Practicing and creating from Butoh since 2016. He is currently creating the Bucaro project, a multi-art exploration platform based on Butoh. His first performance piece is titled “Atávico,artefactos inútiles” (Atavistic, useless artifacts). |
| Lynne Bradley | Dr Lynne Bradley has worked as a leader in the arts and education sectors for the past 30 years. After training in Japan for 5 years, she co-founded one of Australia’s first physical theatre companies, Zen Zen Zo, in 1992. Lynne’s speciality areas as a director include large-scale physical and visual theatre, as well as immersive, site-specific, and transcultural work. Her PhD (on Cultural Translation) investigated best-practice models for conducting cross-cultural and transcultural creative practice (with a specific focus on Asian-Australian collaborations). Lynne is also an actor-trainer specializing in movement and physical theatre, and has founded all of Zen Zen Zo’s flagship training programs, including Stomping Ground, The Actor’s Dojo and the Creative Entrepreneur Internship. Her training includes the Suzuki Method, Noh, Kabuki (Nihon Buyo) and Butoh, which she studied intensively whilst living in Japan from 1989-1995. In 1998 she received an Arts QLD professional development grant to study Viewpoints with Anne Bogart and the SITI company in New York, and she and Simon Woods subsequently became the first teachers of this actor training method in Australia. She is also a qualified teacher of Ashtanga Yoga (1st series). Lynne is currently the Artistic Director of the Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival, where she is deeply committed to engagement with the local arts sector, and artist and audience development. Prior to working with the Horizon Festival, Lynne designed and ran the Performing Arts Masters program at USC. She also has a number of articles published in her areas of passionate interest – artist mental health & wellbeing; innovation & contemporary performance practice; and transcultural performing arts collaborations. Lynne travels regularly to teach nationally and internationally, and mentor emerging and mid-career artists. Academic Texts Bradley, Lynne. “Parody, Burlesque, Satire.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, edited by Bruce R. Smith, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 1273–1281. Bradley, Lynne. Meddling with Masterpieces: the On‑going Adaptation of King Lear. Thesis (Ph.D.), University of Victoria, 2009 (or similar). |
| M Aria Abe | Abe “M’aria” (born Abe Masako, 1965 in Tokyo) is a Japanese performance artist whose work draws heavily from Butoh improvisation and energy release. Described by SFGate as a “tiny big-eyed force of nature” in the 1998 Global Butoh Festival class, she is characterized by spontaneous, visceral movement that follows the principle, not the form, of Butoh. (https://www.sfgate.com/music/article/IS-BUTOH-A-ZOMBIE-2995440.php) |
| Macarena Ortuzar | Macarena Ortuzar is a dancer and teacher born in Chile who has lived in the Oxfordshire countryside for the past seven years. She has worked as a dance performer in New York, Houston, Italy, Chile and Japan. One of the most influential experiences on her work were her studies and residence in the countryside of Japan at the Body Weather Farm led by well-known dance maker Min Tanaka founder of Body Weather Technique and as a member of his dance troupe Tokason in 2002. After more than 20 years of dance and search for new languages of expression and training for the body of the performer, she has now developed her own approach, inspired primarily by the research of improvisational butoh-body which has translated into her current investigation named “Human Landscape” as an outdoor dance practice and movement exploration in relation to the environment and its constant and subtlest changes. |
| Maco | Born in Kamakura, Japan. She began her artistic career in 1980s. In 1992 she received Butoh lessons from Kazuo Ohno. After that she performed many solo pieces in Tokyo. From 1999 to 2006, she was a member of the Ku Na’uka Theatre Company and played main roles. Since 2005, she has studied Butoh under Yukio Waguri. In 2005, she co-founded 4RUDE and has appeared in all of their performances and choreographed. Since 2013, she lives in Berlin. “Maco” is her artist name. |
| Maddalena Gana | Maddalena Gana Degree in Letterature and Philosophy at III Rome’s University. She lives and works in Rome as dancer and yoga teacher. She studied Butoh dance with Masaki Iwana, Yoko Muronoi, Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, Tadashi Endo, Hisako Horikawa, Daisuke Yoshimoto, Nanami Kohshou, Silvia Rampelli. She co-founded LIOS butoh dance company, organizing 11th editions (20001-2012) of “Trasform’azioni” International Butoh Dance Festival. In 2004 she joined GIANO theatre and dance company (together with Giordano Giorgi, performer and musician). Since then they have been creating different shows and performances in Italy and abroad. In 2023 their last creation Triscaidecafobia won the jury prize at “Premio Tuttoteatro.com Dante Cappelletti”. In 2007 she co-founded Adama, a dance project of three dancers (Alessandra Cristiani, Maddalena Gana, Samantha Marenzi), now working on Signora di sé dance performance. Since 2000, in her work, she has been exploring and deepening the relationship between body and sound with different musicians, especially with the double bassist Roberto Bellatalla. She danced with several dance and theatre companies, choreographers and directors and in the Akira Kasai choreography “Eliogabalus” (Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts JAPAN program 2010). |
| Mael Maom-Orff (Maelstrom) | With the tenacity of a cyclist in his speed corridor, Maelstrom wrote an epic poem at the age of 23, acclaimed by Éditions du Noroît. Then, between the ages of 28 and 38, a novel that caught the attention of Éditions du Quartanier. Through this, five self-published books, six novels awaiting publication, a dozen poetry books in the making, 45 video poems, three albums of music and poetry, and numerous performances. All this work is simply a symptom of an art of living dedicated to creativity. Always in search of joy, the sublime, and presence. |
| Maëva Lamolière | Maeva is a French artist, teacher and dance researcher. After completing a bachelor’s degree in dance at London’s Trinity Laban Conservatory, Maeva returned to Paris. She immersed herself in butoh and has since worked with different choreographers (contemporary and butoh): Marie Gabrielle Rotie, Tetsuro Fukuhara, Marguerite Danguy des Deserts, Alain Michard. At the same time, she teaches contemporary dance and dance history at the Genevilliers Conservatory. Her interest in butoh led her to further studies and she is currently doing a doctorate in dance at the University of Paris 8. Her research is about the Japanese dancer and choreographer Carlotta Ikeda who arrived in France in 1978. In this research, Maeva crosses gender studies, aesthetic theories, movement analysis, and the history of butoh;focusing mainly on the relationship between butoh and cabaret, the theory of the grotesque, eroticism and a feminist approach to dance by Carlotta Ikeda. Maeva participates in several workshops to develop a better understanding of butoh through practice. In July 2019, she was to go Japan to study with Maro Akaji. (https://campoabierto.uy/maevalamoliere) |
| Magdalena Jakubów | Butoh performer. Since 2016, she has been cooperating with the Limen Butoh Theater in Warsaw. She graduated in sociology with a specialization in social psychology and coaching. She learned butoh dance from Sylvia Hanff, Imre Thorman, and Rui Ishihara, among others. In performance art, she most often explores topics related to identity, myth and ritual. The topic of her master’s thesis was theater with community as a tool for restoring memory and identity in Western lands. For several years, he has been implementing the site specific „Figura lost_Chinkon” performance project dedicated to the memory of places excluded from the collective memory of Myślibórz.He implements a grassroots animation project playing his performance butoh „Houses of Presence. Anamnesis” and running a butoh workshop Body House. Since 2019, he has been actively supporting the international Butohpolis Festival in Warsaw. (https://opowiesci-stories.pl/artysci/magdalena-jakubow) |
| Magy Ganiko | Magy Ganiko was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His parents, originally from the Okinawa archipelago in Japan, immigrated to Argentina in 1954. Thus, he grew up between two extremely contrasting cultures: Asian and Latin American. This cultural fusion would shape his entire artistic creation. In Buenos Aires, he studied music at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory and later at the López Buchardo National Conservatory. Later, his attention turned to the performing arts, and in 1979 he studied at the Argentine School of Mime and Body Expression, directed by Angel Elizondo, a disciple of Lecoq. In 1982, he became interested in theater and studied with Carlos Gandolfo, Gustavo Fernández, Mary Sue Bruce, and David Amitin, with whom he took staging seminars. During the same period, he took contemporary dance classes with Ana Itelman. In 1986, he attended a Butoh dance performance for the first time. Japanese dancer Kazuo Ohno, already in his eighties, presented the show “Homage to Argentina” at the Teatro San Martín in Buenos Aires. This “encounter” left a profound impression on him, and a few years later, led him to travel to the land of his ancestors. In 1991, after participating with the English contemporary dance company Dudendanse at the Belo Horizonte International Dance Festival, he left for Japan and settled in Yokohama, where Kazuo Ohno’s dance studio is located. There, he began a fruitful seven-year period alongside this legendary dance master and his son, Yoshito. He participated as a dancer in various performances with K. Ohno’s company. In particular, a mega-performance, “Goden Sora-o Tobu,” held in a huge warehouse in the port of Yokohama and now the Akarenga-Soko Cultural Center, would mark his creative spirit. In 1997, he returned to Argentina after a five-year absence, during which time he collaborated with various Japanese and Argentine artists. From 2000 to 2003, he studied filmmaking at the Conservatoire Libre de Cinéma Français (C.L.C.F.) in Paris, where he earned a diploma in directing. In mid-2004, he founded the company FuryMoon Ultrabarroka Tanztheater, fusing Butoh, Baroque, performance, and theater with other Japanese arts such as Manga and concepts from Latin American Baroque art. He invented his own style, calling it “Ultra-Baroque,” a “rare Latin-Japanese blend.” In mid-2012, he decided to settle in Buenos Aires and created his own space in the La Boca neighborhood, “Espacio Utaki,” a performing arts research center. He not only teaches seminars and regular classes there, but also invites other local and international researchers. He currently teaches training in his DanzaMOI method (Organic Movement of Individuation) at Espacio Utaki; he is periodically invited as a teacher to dance and performing arts training institutions. |
| Mahoko Shiramizu | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Mai Burns | Previously known by either her English name Taz Burns, or her Japanese name Mai Honda. Pronouns: she/they. Born in London to British and Japanese parents. After studying ballet for eight years she became mostly involved in theatre while also practicing Shintaido, and worked as an actor, producer and silhouette artist while living in England. After encountering butoh during her masters degree, she moved to Japan in 2016 and studied with master Ohno Yoshito at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio. She currently works for NPO Dance Archive Network and continues her butoh practice with Uesugi Mitsuyo. |
| Mai Ishiwata | Listed as Butoh dancer in https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00562/ |
| Mai Nguyen Tri | Mai Nguyen Tri is a French Vietnamese dance artist based in London. 35 years ago, between Brittany and Vietnam, Mai found her creative nest in East London. There, she set home to bring together her multiple identities, and contradictory faces of her arts between the rebellious and the poetic aspect of her Zen/Punk Butoh dance. Drawing from her literary background, eclectic dance training, and passion for storytelling, Mai’s tragicomic Butoh theater mirrors the spiraling journey between life, death, and rebirth. Specializing in site specific performances, May also brings her explosive energy to street festivals, night clubs, art galleries or theaters. Her dance practice is based on structured improvisation, performing solo her own choreographed Butoh dance pieces, or dancing in collaboration with improvisational live musicians, poets, and visual artists. |
| Maica Martínez | Born in Rosario, Argentina. She lived in Barcelona for 15 years and since 2010 has resided in Menorca, Spain. A dancer since before birth. Graduated as a Body Pedagogue in 1995. Director of Experimenta Soma Butoh Menorca |
| Maite Soler | Maite Soler, artist born in Barcelona in 1979, lives and works between Paris and Barcelona.Black belt in Korean kung fu, graduated from the Versailles School of Fine Arts, she trained in contemporary dance at the University of Montpellier. Then continued his training in sensory movement, improvisation techniques and finally Butoh with Atsushi Takenouchi, Yoshito Ohno, Gyohei Zaitsu… His exploration of movement resonates with nature, imagination and intimacy. His solo pieces (“interior landscape”, “with sensitive body”, “in the shadows”, “vɛʁ”, “origin”…) are characterized by a strong emotional commitment and refined staging work.She teaches butoh in several centers in Paris and Barcelona. His pedagogy,benevolent, is centered on the sensitive experience of the body which constantly dialogues with the deep life of each person. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2015-en.html) |
| Maki Tahahashi | Part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00619/ |
| Maki Watanabe | Born 1976 in Miyagi / Japan Butho dancer After initially learning modern jazz dance, Maki Watanebe stopped dancing until she saw the dance of Kazuo Ohno, then began to dance again. Since 1998, she’s lived in Paris and has had many solo performances, improvisations and experimentations. She also works with choreographers such as Gyohei ZAITSU, Marie Kazue, Naomi MUTHO. Her recent creations are; ”A beat of a butterfly” – 2002, ”Moment to harvest” – 2003, ”Rolling into the wind” – 2004, ”Silent vein” – 2006 , ”Enfant-loup” – 2008, ”I wonder”, ”un chat mort me nourrit” – 2009, ”Looking the sky”, ”Eternal season” – 2010, ”Over the rainbow” – 2011, ”Let it be with my heart” – 2012… |
| Makiko Tominaga | Makiko Tominaga is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer, who was a member of Akaji Maro’s Dairakudakan company from 1978 to 1991 and has been based in Berlin since 1993, performing internationally and teaching workshops across Europe and Latin America. |
| Makoto Takase | Current member of Sankai Juku |
| Malte Brammer | Malte comes from the community movement and thinks and acts in collectives. His roots are in traditional Buddhist Tantra and, artistically, in Surrealism and Dadaism. A long psychoanalytic self-experience deepens his horizon of being human. His performances, which involve the creation of social sculptures, often take place in private spaces to preserve the secrecy surrounding them. Sometimes nudity and sexuality are public, and other times they are not. |
| Mana Kawamura | Mana Kawamura is a Japanese-born contemporary dancer and choreographer known for her interdisciplinary approach that blends Butoh, contemporary dance, and original sound design. She is the founder of the performance project Kawamura the 3rd, established in New York in 2008.https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/impressions-reviews/view/IMPRESSIONS-Mana-KawamuraKawamura-the-3rd-2012-01-30 |
| Manami Furuta | Part of Dairakudakan |
| Manho HUI | Listed as butoh dancer at Sapporo Butoh. (https://sapporo-butoh.com/manho-huihong-kong/) |
| Manri Kim | Manri Kim (born 1953, Osaka, Japan) is a Korean-Japanese performer and dancer who trained under Kazuo Ōhno, bringing a butoh lineage into her work. A founding member and leading performer of TAIHEN, an experimental troupe directed by Ōsamu Matsumoto in Osaka, Kim has developed a distinctive stage presence shaped by her lived experience with polio. Through her collaborations with Ōhno and her long-term involvement with TAIHEN, she has been recognized internationally for performances that merge butoh aesthetics with radical explorations of the disabled body. (https://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~tj2m-snjy/eng/kim-e.htm) |
| Manu Bazzano | Manu Bazzano is a Butoh dancer, workshop facilitator, author, Zen priest, and psychotherapist. Academic Texts Bazzano, Manu. Re‑Visioning Existential Therapy: Counter‑traditional Perspectives. Routledge, 2020. Author biography and profile. https://www.routledge.com/Subversion-and-Desire-Pathways-to-Transindividuation/Bazzano/p/book/9781032248226?utm_source=chatgpt.com Bazzano, Manu. Nietzsche and Psychotherapy. Routledge, 2019. Biographical note describes him as a psychotherapist and visiting lecturer. https://www.routledge.com/Nietzsche-and-Psychotherapy/Bazzano/p/book/9781138351257?utm_source=chatgpt.com |
| Manu Bazzano | I have been a keen student of Butoh, working since 2001. An international lecturer and workshop facilitator, I presented my work in a wide variety of settings, integrating Zen practice with contemporary psychotherapy and the world of philosophy, culture, and the arts. Currently I am a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University and Goldsmiths College, London. Since 2020 I have run monthly CPD courses for psychotherapists and artists and in 2024 I have founded Affect Therapy, a new approach to psychotherapy, supervision, group work and research which capitalizes and creatively expands on insights from psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, Zen, Butoh, and poststructuralism. (https://manubazzano.com/) |
| Manuela Gilabert | Manuela Gilabert is a Butoh dancer, actress, poet, performer, researcher, and stage creator. Challenging the boundaries of art, she expresses herself through the body, allowing herself to be traversed by different artistic disciplines such as dance, theater, circus, painting, poetry, sculpture, music, digital art, and performance. Without distinguishing between art and life, Manuela understands the artist “as one who listens to space,” merging with the mystery and poetry that emanate from the materials of nature. She has performed at festivals, gatherings, and theaters in Japan, Latin America, and Europe, including Habana Ciudad en Movimiento 2015 (Cuba), Historias Corpóreas 2018 (Mexico City), Transmutaciones Fest 2022 (Spain), Butoh Amsterdam Festival 2022 (Netherlands), among others. She also collaborates with and supports other artists in their creative processes. (https://entradium.com/en/events/del-silencio-a-la-vibracion-del-cuerpo-danza-butoh-workshop-sevilla?utm_source=chatgpt.com) |
| Manuela Giovagnetti | Manuela Giovagnetti has been a dancer since 1998. She studied Butoh dance with Masaki Iwana, Akira Kasai, and Yuko Muronoi. She is a co-founder and member of the Butoh dance ensemble Lios in Rome, with which she initiated the Butoh festival Trasform’azioni. She works at the intersection of theater, music, and dance, particularly in multidisciplinary contexts and improvisation. As a solo dancer, she has created the piece The Left-handed Woman, which she performed at festivals in Rome, Berlin, and Mannheim. She currently lives and works in Berlin. |
| Mao Hosoda | Dancer. 1967, Tokyo, Japan. Started dancing at the age of 15. You will soon be able to improvise and dance. At the age of 19, she discovered butoh. After that, she started solo and group activities. Works, many improvisational collaborations. She has also starred in many avant-garde plays and made guest appearances. Married at 32. While creating collaborative works with her husband, a spatial designer, she created her own new dance style. From the age of 34, he participated in art festivals overseas. They dance and receive applause in France, Poland, Germany, China, South Korea, and other countries. 39, daughter born. He started living with dogs and cats, had doubts about eating animals, and became vegan at the age of 48. Since then, she has also worked as a vegan artist. He also carries a loudspeaker on the street and sings his own vegan songs. Starring in the phantom cult movie “HIRUKO”. ” Dr. Inugami’ guest performance. In addition to dancing, her activities include movies, theater, singing, writing, cooking research, and wildflowers. Currently, she is taking on the challenge of a new field of online dancer. (https://mao.tx-d.art/bio.html) |
| Marc Ates | Marc Ates is a Butoh artist, choreographer, and lighting designer based in Berlin, Germany. He is best known for being the co-founder of the dance company cokaseki, which he established with fellow Butoh artist Yuko Kaseki in Berlin in 1995. (https://www.cokaseki.com) Listed as performer for Anzu’s performance Goya: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00588 |
| Marcela Vásquez | Marcela Vásquez is a butoh performer featured in the exhibition/performance project Cuerpos en Revuelta at the Museo Universitario del Chopo (UNAM), Mexico City. The project foregrounded Butoh and embodied protest practices in Latin America and listed her as one of the performers. (https://www.chopo.unam.mx/CuerposRevuelta/CuerposenRevuelta.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com) |
| Marco Nektan | Live and work on relation Görlitz – Berlin, Germany. Performance Artist, Butoh dancer/choreographer/teacher, and theatre and performance art producer. In his twenty-year career, he has created over 500 works in Serbia, Germany and Europe. He has a Master’s degree in dramatic and A/V arts – Creative Production, and currently pursuing his PhD studies in Polymedia art. Butoh, as the most important medium of his work, he learned from the great masters from Japan and Europe. He started his career in the Belgrade performance group ‘Corpus Artisticum’ in V.I.P. Art gallery in Student Cultural Center. Marco is an independent artist and a member of the Association of Ballet Artists of Serbia. In 2020, the monograph ‘Something called butoh’ was published by the Japanese Dance Archive. He has collaborated with several alternative theaters, dance and art troupes from Serbia and various European countries. He is a member of the World Mime Organization and CID-UNESCO Council of dance. |
| Marcos Branquinho | Fiz Dança moderna, contemporânea e ballet clássico na adolescência e mais tarde fui estudar o butoh, primeiro com Gustavo Collini e depois o butoh ma com Tadashi Endo, hoje sou ator dançarino com meu próprio butoh |
| Marek Jason Isleib | *1968 Berlin, Mime, professional classical and modern dancer. Since 2000 Butoh and Body-Weather. Since 2008 developing my own way (Koerper/Wirklichkeit). Offering classes, workshops and coaching since 2012 mostly in Milan. |
| Marek Kowalski | Prominent performer of Limen Butoh. (https://taniecpolska.pl/organizacje/teatr-limen) |
| Maren Konn | During a serious illness, I discovered the path of dance to bring soul and body into harmony in order to enable communication only through body language. I had already danced before, but from that moment on it was clear: I was dancing for my life. And I have to do it immediately. My particular passion is Butoh, the Japanese dance of darkness. In Butoh I rely on a mixture of different influences, including my teachers *and masters * who train me (especially Sabine Seume and influences from Minako Seki and Tadashi Endo and others). Butoh reinvents himself every day of the dance and the influences can also change. I don’t dance and teach strict Japanese butoh, but fluid, open European butohwhich is open to influences from all kinds of dance and theater styles. I also dance Dansexpressie (expressive dance from Holland) and trained in Royston Maldoom’s „Community Dance“ („Rhythm is it“). (https://marenkonn.wordpress.com/about) |
| Margherita Tisato | I am an embodiment enthusiast, a dancer, a perpetual learner, and a subtle disruptor. My mission in sharing information and experiences with others is to soften the dichotomy between body and mind, to investigate visceral sensations in order to create emotional resilience, through the main mediums of embodiment, curiosity and dialogue. My passion lies in creating spaces for exploring suffering, discomfort, and marginalized experiences, finding growth through catharsis and integration via somatic practices leading to liberation. I facilitate a range of movement experiences spanning from Trauma Informed yoga and somatic movement to dance, Butoh and body suspension; my educational offerings include experiential workshops in anatomy, pain science, embodiment and trauma theory and take place in a variety of environments, from colleges to prisons. I draw from decades of studies in dance, Butoh, yoga, somatic and developmental movement, meditation, anatomy and kinesiology, shibari and flesh hook suspension, and my offerings are informed by all my practices and interests, including seemingly less embodied practices such as poetry, metaphors, neuroscience and music. I am also a performer whose work aims at letting audiences into my process through shared intentions and vulnerability, often in intimate settings where the journey through emotions and heightened senses takes the foreground over mastery. ### ▶️ Video Class * Butoh Somatics Hollows https://youtu.be/9g7fRup8JTg?si=zw8d-efQYFOHUFNC Academic Text Tisato, Margherita, C. Theofanopoulou, S. Paez, D. Huber, and E. Todd. “Mobile Brain Imaging in Butoh Dancers: From Rehearsals to Public Performance.”BMC Neuroscience, vol. 25, no. 2, 2024. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12868-024-00864-1 |
| Mari Hirose | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s. |
| Mari Osanai | Mari Osanai was born and raised in Aomori, Japan. She was trained in Classical Ballet and Modern dance at an early age, and later studied Noguchi Taiso(野口体操),Tai Chi, Jazz dance, and the traditional folk dance of Aomori, Tsugaru Teodori(津軽手踊り). In particular, Noguchi Taiso training, and its philosophy has had a great influence on her creations. In addition, dance teacher Hironobu Oikawa has given her great ideas of moving. Her unique and complex movements are created by interweaving all these techniques. “My first experience with butoh was about 40 years ago, watching a performance by Sankai Juku (山海塾) at small space in Aomori City in Japan. I was surprised. I thought it is not my way. But I read an interview with Tatsumi Hijikata in a newspaper, and it gave me power to dance. I could start again with new ideals of dance. I think my style is not Butoh, but I do not say “no” when somebody says Mari is a Butoh dancer.” (https://www.instagram.com/p/C7xz3oARq1C/?img_index=1) |
| Maria A. Listur | Born in Argentina in 1964. She studied at “Facultad de Artes” of the Univ. Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. In 1991 she moved to Europe where she researched the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary fields of paint, sound, writing, movement, and art training. Though not strictly a butoh artist, Maria is influenced by butoh and performed the following piece twice in Paris: Hommage à Kazuo Ohno: Performance Gutai-Butoh |
| María Cas Rose | María Cas Rose 1980, Córdoba, México. She is a transdisciplinary artist. Her creative work involves butoh, somatics, visual arts and its relationship with nature. Currently, she is living in Xico, Ver. México, developing the project “AGUA DE RÍO, TIERRA DE CERRO. Entrenamiento para convertirse en bosque”. Through that, she wishes to blur the hegemonic anthropocentric vision, to explore other ways of connection between the beings and species, as a continnum, body and nature. |
| María Eugenia Prosello | Aquí tienes una biografía de María Eugenia Prosello, redactada a partir de la información proporcionada en tu portfolio y CV: María Eugenia Prosello: Artista Multidisciplinaria, Docente e Investigadora de Danza Butoh María Eugenia Prosello es una artista multidisciplinaria, Licenciada en Artes Visuales con especialización en Grabado por la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC). Su búsqueda artística se sitúa en la intersección poética entre la Danza Butoh y las artes visuales, explorando la transformación del cuerpo y la resignificación de la materia. Con una sólida trayectoria, María Eugenia ha profundizado su práctica de Butoh con maestros destacados como Nadia Grisetti (desde 2013) , Rhea Volij y Natalia Cuellar Díaz. Su trabajo se inspira en referentes como Ko Murobushi y las “Cuatro Flores del Shikunshi” del Sumi-e, fusionando la práctica del Butoh con la tinta china y la pintura corporal. A lo largo de su carrera, Prosello ha dictado seminarios y talleres de Danza Butoh, Pintura e Historia de las Vanguardias Artísticas desde 2015 , incluyendo el seminario intensivo “Movimiento Absurdo” en el Festival Internacional de Butoh (FIBUTOH) Enlace Chile-Córdoba en septiembre de 2023. También coordina talleres virtuales de Historia del Arte para adultos mayores en el Espacio Illia de Córdoba. Como performer, María Eugenia ha presentado diversas obras de Danza Butoh que invitan a la co-creación del público y abordan temáticas profundas: “Elástica” (2013): Su primera presentación pública de Danza Butoh, inspirada en “Agua Viva” de Clarice Lispector y en colaboración con Nadia Grisetti, explorando la fluidez y transformación del ser. “KOAN 11” (2019): Un experimento escénico que marcó el inicio de su investigación para la tesis “La Poética del Vacío”, donde el movimiento era moldeado por el paisaje sonoro creado en vivo por los espectadores. “La Poética del Vacío” (2021 y 2024): Una performance relacional que indaga en el concepto Butoh del “Cuerpo Vacío” y el arte como “Estado de Encuentro”. La versión de 2024, presentada en el Centro Cultural La Piojera de Córdoba, incorporó “Australes” (moneda en desuso) para reflexionar sobre el valor artístico, la memoria ancestral y el legado personal. “YAKISUGI” (2022): Un videodanza que surge de un campo de cenizas, encarnando la realidad del ecocidio y meditando sobre la transformación de la materia calcinada hacia la conciencia y conexión con la naturaleza. Fue seleccionada en el Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales “Domingo José Martínez” del Museo Bonfiglio de Villa María. En este proyecto, se encargó de la dirección general, interpretación en danza y edición. “Shizen: La Fuerza de lo Simple” (2025): Una performance de Butoh improvisada que fusiona danza con música intuitiva en vivo. El vestuario, elaborado con hojas secas y lienzos de pinturas Sumi-e, encarna conceptos de otoño, muerte y transformación, obteniendo una recepción pública positiva en Rafaela. María Eugenia Prosello reside actualmente en Rafaela, Santa Fe , donde se dedica a la investigación, práctica y docencia de Danza Butoh. Su compromiso sociopolítico y ambiental se refleja en sus obras, utilizando materiales reciclados y objetos cotidianos que portan memoria para generar conciencia ecológica y tender puentes culturales entre filosofías de Oriente y Occidente. Además, es participante activa en la comisión del Centro de Artistas de Rafaela |
| Maria Lappa | In my journey as a performance artist, I treat my body as transmitter and receiver, transformer and phenomenon of transformation, as a medium of reaction and carrier of political statement. The vehicle I have chosen to dwell in the field of art are Japanese Butoh, Performance Art, Sculpture and Αnthropological Τheatre. Using elements from these four I create embodied hybrid living organisms that act as transmitters of thoughts and positions, both personal and collective. Α key element In my workshops, is the hybridization of matter with the materiality of the body, the liquefaction of the human form and transformation. The discharge initially, of the performer from the physical occupation of the dualistic model that polices body and imagination, reproducing right and wrong, beautiful and ugly bodies, good and bad art. Aiming at purification and return of the performer as Channeler to his primary expressive starting point.” |
| Maria Malaxianaki | Maria Malacitanakis began her dance course in 2001 in Chania with the Hegemony group. Within the next eight years he will watch Butoh seminars with Japanese dancers Masaki Iwana and Sumako Koseki. In 2006 she leaves the team and raises her first solo dance in Chania, accompanied by the musician Genimaoka. In 2007 he goes to Normandy and participates in the educational and artistic activities of Masaki Iwana from which he draws Returning to Greece raises many performances inside and outside the theater and participates in a festival in Chania and Athens. Since 2013 he has been delivering seminars in Athens in collaboration with the Eileos Theater and weekly workshops in Chania,operates as a teacher and choreographer as it continues to evolve into this area. In recent years, he has sometimes collaborated with the dramatic school, Delos of Dimitra Hatoupi, where he delivers seminars to the trainees. (https://kydonhotel.com/%CF%80%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%AC%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%B7-%CF%87%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%8D-butoh) |
| Maria Nole | Between Berlin, Spain and Portugal. Performer, dance researcher and deeply commited to poetry. Inspired by the sadness of being and the conclift of existance, the ocean, sexuality and touched by flamenco. Combining visual, plastic and Scenic arts, landscapes that come through butoh practises. |
| Maria Pia D’Orazi | Born in Madrid (1997), Maria moves through life with art in her bones—blending dance, poetry, and visuals into a raw, expressive journey. From paint to Butoh, she dives deep into the unknown, where movement meets emotion. Her work is a fusion of body, paint, and words—each piece a glimpse into her ever-evolving world. She’s performed solo, published a collage-poetry book, and constantly explores new artistic dimensions. (https://independent.academia.edu/MariaPiaDOrazi) Academic Texts D’Orazi, Maria Pia. “The Concept of Butoh in Italy: From Ohno Kazuo to Kasai Akira.” In The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 285–296. Open Access PDF via OAPEN D’Orazi, Maria Pia. “Butoh Training and the Quantum Body: An Interpretation of Kasai Akira’s Work.” Danza e Ricerca: Laboratorio di studi, scritture, visioni, vol. 12, no. 2, 2020. https://danzaericerca.unibo.it/article/view/11853 D’Orazi, Maria Pia. “Body of Light: The Way of the Butō Performer.” In Japanese Theatre and the International Stage, edited by Stanca Scholz-Cionca, Brill, 2000.D’Orazi, Maria Pia. “Akira Kasai, il fantasma di Eliogabalo: tre studi su Artaud.” Biblioteca teatrale, 2011. Torrossa Digital Library D’Orazi, Maria Pia. “Building the Dancing Body: Akira Kasai, from Butoh to Eurhythmy.” Teatro e Storia, 2016. |
| Maria Reis Lima | Theater of Cruelty means a theater difficult and cruel for myself first of all. And, on the level of performance, it is not the cruelty we can exercise upon each other by hacking at each other’s bodies, carving up our personal anatomies, or, like Assyrian emperors, sending parcels of human ears, noses, or neatly detached nostrils through the mail, but the much more terrible and necessary cruelty which things can exercise against us. We are not free. And the sky can still fall on our heads. And the theater has been created to teach us that first of all. (Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double) When I interviewed the portuguese Butoh dancer Maria Reis Lima, she brought up an important notion: universality. If Butoh doesn’t have an established technique or an unique formula then we agree that everyone may experience it or even create a collective exercise, in which we all take part and participate, just like Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty proposes. Notions of participation and collectivity can be related to the notion of universality but of course that their meanings aren’t the same (defining universality (philosophy): presence in all places and all times). In the art world, participation (meaning: to have a share in or take in) is not just about getting reactions, but also about changing the artwork’s content. For example, Yayoi Kusama’s demand for collective participation, for “new forms of being-in-common”, which she articulated powerfully were part of a serious and potentially radical mode of “world-butoh”… I discovered Butoh absolutely by chance in the late 80s, through a French magazine, Autrement. In a number dedicated to dance, “Fous de Danse” I read an article about this type of dance that corresponded to what I was looking for. At that time Butoh wasn’t really known, especially in Japan, but I got Kazuo Ohno’s contact and I traveled to Tokyo for the first time. |
| Maria Ruth Gerstley | Maria Gerstley is a Butoh artist who discovered Ankoku Butoh during her environmental science studies at UC Berkeley, where she created her bachelor’s degree titled “Consciousness, Movement and Mother Earth.” She trained with the renowned Harupin-ha butoh troupe under sensei Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, developing her practice in the transformative Japanese dance form that explores the raw paradoxes of human existence. Maria honor’s the roots of Butoh and its imaginative movement wisdom. As a mythic poet and storyteller, she explores “the radical shocking and raw paradox of that which we truly are” through performances that blur the boundaries between ritual, theater, and collective transformation. Her work offers embodiment windows for our fractured modern world, inviting perspective to embrace the full spectrum of human experience and discover healing through authentic presence and the courage to dance with darkness. |
| Maria Salangina | Worked with butoh artist Osku Leinonen |
| Marianela León Ruiz | Marianela León Ruiz is a Spanish performance artist and Fine Arts graduate whose work blends butō dance, performance art, and Feldenkrais. She discovered butō in 2000 through Sua Urana, and from 2003 to 2010 trained intensively across Europe with Masaki Iwana, developing her signature style. |
| Marianna Tsagaraki | Marianna began her Butoh practice in 2008 under the mentorship of Ioanna Garagouni, a foundational figure in Greek Butoh. |
| Marie Thérèse Sitzia | He studied contemporary dance with the following teachers: Maddalena Scardi, Rebecca Murgi, Paola Rampone, Anna Paola Bacalov, Francesco Scavetta, Jean Saportes, Jean Cébron, and Paco Decina. He studies Butoh dance. He is a founding member of the Butoh dance company Lios (Rome), with which he organizes the international festival Trasform’azioni at the Teatro Furio Camillo in Rome. |
| Marie-Gabrielle Rotie | In 2022 she was movement choreographer for Netflix The Witcher series 3, working with the main cast (Henry Cavill et all) and extras. For an iconic ball room scene she invented a dance called a ‘melange; which is a curious mix of the renaissance quadrille meets tango. (Broadcasting from June 2023. In 2023 she worked for 5 months as movement choreographer for Robert Eggers Nosferatu working mainly with Lily Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgard. For the movement she drew mainly upon her expertise with Butoh and Japanese Noh Theatre to research a walk of ghost, hysteria type movement and possession. The film was shot in Prague, produced by Focus Features. The movement has generated unprecedented press coverage as normally movement choreography is rather ignored. See the extensive press links here and here. Previous work on film includes for celebrated advert Director Ian Pons Jewell with whom she collaborated on several short films and pop videos as choreographer and performer including Dreamt in Flesh, ¼ Inch and Follow for Crystal Fighters. Marie-Gabrielle has an unusual background into dance, having originally trained as a visual arts painter at Wimbledon School of Art. However, this combination of acute visual literacy with years of experience in movement and choreography is her unique strength when it comes to working with film as she has a natural understanding of the frame, composition and cinematic space. She still continues a visual arts practice alongside her choreography. Rotie’s company works have been extensively supported and funded by Arts Council of England, British Council, The Place Theatre and Trinity Laban amongst many others. Since 2005 she has created eight commissioned works with Trinity Laban, and since 2001 she has staged Nine productions at The Place Theatre including for The Place Prize. Other UK venues that have supported her work include The Royal Opera House, Exeter Phoenix and Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster. International touring includes to festivals in Romania, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Japan and many other countries. She was Choreographer for The Bacchai Sir Peter Hall, Royal National Theatre. Bacchai 2002 Premiered at Olivier stage, Royal National Theatre and toured to Epidavros in Greece 2002. Rotie has worked closely as a choreographer and costume design consultant with the London College of Fashion and has staged five productions at venues including The Raphael Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sadler’s Wells and The Royal Academy. Rotie is an internationally recognized Butoh exponent (she trained in Japan and Europe with Ko Murobushi, Masaki Iwana, Carlotta Ikeda, Kim Itoh, Motofuji-san, Yoshito and Kazuo Ohno, Atsushi Takenouchi, Oguri, Yumiko Yoshioka, Tadashi Endo and many others) and has collaboratedy on duet performances with Ko Murobushi and Atsushi Takenouchi. However, she developed her own aesthetic world and language, building from this training. Rotie is a regular visiting tutor to Central School of Speech and Drama, Laban and numerous other UK universities, teaching Actors, Dancers, Directors, Visual Artists and Costume Designers. She has lectured widely in University, and Adult Education on Land Art, Woman Artist and the Body, Performance Art, Japanese Art and Aesthetics, Mythology, Folklore and Earth Mysteries and the Feminine in Fairytales. Many of these research strands have conceptually informed her works over the past twenty years. (https://www.rotie.co.uk/) Academic Texts Rotie, Marie-Gabrielle. “Butoh: Body as Process of Transformation.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, vol. 25, no. 3, 2003, pp. 36–43. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1162/152028103322472697 Rotie, Marie-Gabrielle. “Butoh and the Myth of the Western Body.” In The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 319–329. Rotie, Marie-Gabrielle. “The Butoh Body as Palimpsest.” In Performing Butoh: The Body as Question, edited by Sondra Fraleigh, Intellect Press, 2010, pp. 177–192. Rotie, Marie-Gabrielle. “Dancing Darkness: Butoh in Britain.” Performance Research, vol. 6, no. 4, 2001, pp. 58–67. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2001.10871847 |
| Mariko Endo | Early in the first decade of her career as a Dancer, Mariko Endo concurrently studied Butoh under Akira Kasai, one of the co-founders of the Butoh movement. From 2000 to 2004, she toured throughout Japan and the U.S. with the legendary artistic director, Akaji Maro. (https://www.marikoendo.com) |
| Mariko Suzuki | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Marilú Macareno (Malú) | Name mention in the book Butoh America, and also founder and director of MA, a dance space in |
| Marilyn Green | Marilyn Green is an interdisciplinary choreographer and movement artist based in New York City, best known as the founder and director of the Trinity Movement Choir at Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan. Her work blends theatrical performance, butoh, sacred dance, and Laban movement. |
| Mario Lombardi | Translation: Mario Lombardi, who graduated (with honors) in Literary Studies with a major in History of Theater and Performing Arts, began working with amateur dramatic groups in Florence (the Ipotesi group, the Sabatini company, the Il Momento group, and the Il Dittamo group). He then moved on to theater in the Florentine vernacular (Giovanni Nannini and Dory Cei Company), and finally to the MIM, directed personally by Orazio Costa, who was arriving in Florence for the first time after leaving the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome. He participated in three productions with Costa: “Bacco in Toscana” by Francesco Redi, “Recitazione di Pietro Paolo Boschi” by Luca della Robbia, and readings from “Dietro alla Porta” by Giorgio Bassani. These performances were performed in special locations within the city of Florence, such as the Bargello, the Last Supper at Santa Croce, the Villa di Poggio Imperiale, the Certosa del Galluzzo, as well as outside Florence (San Miniato, Assisi, etc.). His studies spanned the direct teaching of Orazio Costa, the teachings of Bottega di Gassman, the school of Dory Cei, workshops with Lindsay Kemp, and learning mime with other international mimes, as well as modern classical dance disciplines. After his experience as an actor, which he never abandoned, Lombardi turned to mime, a skill he developed thanks to Costa and the teaching of the mime method. With the Clan Dei 100 company, directed by Nino Scardina, he toured extensively in Tuscany as a mime clown with the show “Cabaret… ma non troppo.” He then collaborated with the Ente Lirico del Teatro Comunale di Firenze as a mime actor in Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” (with Prêtre, Cossotto, and Samaritani) and with the Teatro della Pergola for Fabio Vacchi’s “Girotondo,” based on Arthur Schnitzler’s opera (with Taverna, Asta, and Dorothy Dorow). For several years, Lombardi taught Mime and Body Expression at the Casa del Popolo “Il Progresso” in Florence, where he held a three-year course for adults and a two-year course for children. Every year, he and his students performed recitals and shows, which were also performed outside the school (Rondò di Bacco, Teatro Civico, Riformatorio di Firenze). As a mime clown, he also collaborated in the fashion world through fashion shows, performances, events, and parties, in addition to teaching Body Expression to models. In addition to appearing on a Rai 3 program about opera, he has participated in several projects on similar themes; he has participated in performances and improvisations at cabaret festivals, children’s shows, and live showcases, both for public and private entities and for various municipalities, including Florence, Signa (for the opening of the exhibition commemorating Mirto Picchi), and Livorno (through the DI-VA association in collaboration with the Teatro Regionale Toscano). Lombardi has written and continues to write prose texts in addition to regularly performed mime works. With “Percorso,” which he wrote and performed, he participated in the Festival dell’Unità in Florence in 1985. The show has since been performed in theaters and other venues both in Florence and elsewhere, also becoming part of the Teatro Regionale Toscano program, always under the supervision of Orazio Costa. For the Horne Museum in Florence, he and his company created the performance “Understanding Painting Through the Body,” and he did the same for the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Verona (for the Dada exhibition “From Duchamp to Warhol”). He has collaborated as an external instructor with the Kipling Academy for Education (Florence), and for years has collaborated with the Compagnia Teatro Danza Duende (Lecce). In Lecce, he regularly presents new performances, including in prestigious venues such as the former Convent of the Theatines and the Roman Theatre, or in evocative settings such as a nighttime beach at the Buena Ventura in Torre Specchia. He has also held several thematic workshops in the same city. In Forlì, for the Compagnia Teatro delle Forchette, he staged a show of his own, bringing on stage students from a previous master’s program. He recently taught at the MaxBalletAcademy in Florence, with his final performance, regularly performed with students from a year-long workshop. For the Helios non-profit organization, she created a workshop for children with intellectual disabilities, including a closing performance and involving all the participating students. In Florence’s middle schools, during some substitute teaching positions, she brought theatrical entertainment to the program, also involving children with disabilities. Lombardi regularly creates new shows, in which she both performs and choreographs, and has staged performances for private and public venues (such as the FAF, Female Arts in Florence, in Florence) and for events, exhibitions, and private weddings. In the film industry, in addition to collaborating with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino on a documentary distributed abroad, he had a leading role in a short film and then a high-profile role in the low-cost film “Un delfino nel cielo” by Stefano Terraglia. He also appeared as an actor in Fabrizio Favilli’s film “Villa Triste,” which was selected for the Venice Film Festival. With the Circo Nero entertainment group, he often tours Italy, performing in renowned nightclubs or at venues such as the former Courthouse in Florence or Cinecittà in Rome, and at major events such as the Viareggio Carnival or the Fitness Fair in Riccione. He participated as a contestant on the television show Italia’s Got Talent on Canale 5, alongside Maria De Filippi and Jerry Scotti. He was a guest at the Italian Butoh Dance Festival held in Lerici. As a literature teacher at the Barsanti Comprehensive Institute for the 2021/22 school year, she directed two groups of alternative classes, teaching Drama and Mime. She ultimately produced two short performances, which were performed three times at the school, along with a final Drama performance with colleagues Lampugnani and Poidomani on “The Livingston Seagull.” After a year of working in the afternoons, she collaborated as a choreographer with a mixed group of various classes. Rehearsals for the show began immediately after the first meeting, where Teacher Lombardi also contributed to the expressive reading of the text, then tried to help the students understand the main stage rules (the third wall, standing at three-quarters to be visible to the spectator, voice modulation, being on stage with one’s full self also out of respect for those who dedicate their time to listening to us, etc.). He then interpreted each part of the text himself, including the stage movements, inventing individual and group choreographic actions that would enhance the enormous work carried out. As a subject teacher (Italian, History, Geography), he has brought dramatization to his teaching on a daily basis, especially in schools with a theater space (such as the Istituto Comprensivo “Barsanti” and the experimental state school Scuola-Città Pestalozzi). He has long contributed articles on teaching to the Florentine newspaper “La Nazione.” He has published four fiction books, two of which were recently released; one of them came in fourth place at the 12th edition of the “Alberoandronico National Award” in Rome, with an award ceremony at the Campidoglio (March 15, 2019), as an unpublished novel. Several of his poems are often included in periodically published collections. At the Teatro della Compagnia in Florence, in December 2022, he participated as an actor in a radio version of a film’s theatrical reading. Over time, Mario Lombardi’s work has primarily followed the Butoh style—derived from Butoh dance (Butō), which consists of various techniques and forms of contemporary dance directly inspired by the Japanese Ankoku-butō movement—personally revisited, however, with a mimetic twist, creating a strange fusion of hieratic and Western technological movements. As a mime-Butoh artist, he has created performances for photography exhibitions and rave parties. I recently created a one-man show, “RecitarParlando,” where he narrates the history of theater through his countless and diverse personal experiences. His new show, “WHO AM I?”, has already debuted in Scandicci, with performances in Florence and Pontedera. For the 2024 Florentine Carnival, he performed for the City of Florence wearing the Stenterello mask in the public parade and the evening before at the private party in Palazzo Vecchio. I was also called back as an external teacher for the Scuola-Città Pestalozzi, teaching Theater and Mime, to create choreography for children in primary school from first to fifth grade, in connection with the final show, “Giù la maschera Cyrano,” which was performed on June 6, 2024, at the Teatro Aurora in Scandicci. With the Bacchetti Company, founded in Paris but based between Milan and Florence, I participated as an actor and butoh dancer in the show “Nella pancia del pescecane,” which was performed twice per evening on September 7 and 8, 2024, at the Villa Jorio Vivarelli space in Pistoia. I currently continue to teach Italian, History, and Geography for middle school students at a homeschool in Montelupo Capraia, often using theatrical techniques to better engage the students in the lesson. Mario Lombardi (CV updated September 30, 2024) Original Mario Lombardi (aggiornamento CV al 30 settembre 2024) Mario Lombardi, laureato (con 110 e lode) in Materie Letterarie con indirizzo in Storia del Teatro e dello Spettacolo, ha iniziato lavorando con gruppi filodrammatici nella città di Firenze (gruppo Ipotesi, compagnia Sabatini, gruppo Il Momento, gruppo Il Dittamo) per poi passare al teatro in vernacolo fiorentino (Compagnia di Giovanni Nannini e Dory Cei) e infine nel MIM diretto personalmente da Orazio Costa, al suo primo arrivo a Firenze dopo aver lasciato l’Accademia d’arte drammatica di Roma. Con Costa ha partecipato a tre lavori: “Bacco in Toscana” di Francesco Redi, “Recitazione di Pietro Paolo Boschi” di Luca della Robbia, letture da “Dietro alla Porta” di Giorgio Bassani. Spettacoli, questi, eseguiti in luoghi particolari della città fiorentina, come il Bargello, il Cenacolo di Santa Croce, la villa di Poggio Imperiale, la Certosa del Galluzzo, oltre che fuori Firenze (San Miniato, Assisi, etc). I suoi studi si sono succeduti dall’insegnamento diretto di Orazio Costa a quello della Bottega di Gassman, dalla scuola di Dory Cei agli stages con Lindsay Kemp, dall’apprendimento di mimica con altri mimi internazionali a quello di discipline di danza classica moderna. Dopo l’esperienza di attore, peraltro non abbandonandola, Lombardi si è orientato verso il Mimo, cosa sviluppatasi in lui per merito di Costa e dell’insegnamento del metodo mimico. Con la compagnia Clan Dei 100, diretta da Nino Scardina, ha seguita una lunga tournée in Toscana come mimo-clown con lo spettacolo “Cabaret… ma non troppo”. Ha collaborato poi con l’Ente Lirico del Teatro Comunale di Firenze in qualità di attore-mimo nell’opera “Carmen” di Georges Bizet (con Prêtre, Cossotto, Samaritani) e col Teatro della Pergola per “Girotondo” di Fabio Vacchi tratto dall’opera di Arthur Schnitzler (con Taverna, Asta, Dorothy Dorow). Per alcuni anni Lombardi ha insegnato Mimo ed Espressione Corporea presso la Casa del Popolo “Il Progresso” in Firenze, dove ha tenuto un corso triennale per adulti ed un corso biennale per bambini. Coi suoi allievi ha eseguito ogni anno saggi e spettacoli, replicati anche fuori dalla scuola (Rondò di Bacco, Teatro Civico, Riformatorio di Firenze). Sempre in qualità di mimo-clown ha collaborato nel mondo della moda attraverso sfilate, rappresentazioni, manifestazioni, feste, oltre a portare il suo insegnamento di Espressione Corporea per indossatrici e fotomodelle. Oltre alla sua partecipazione a un programma su Rai 3 sulla lirica, prende parte a diversi interventi su tematiche simili; partecipa a performances e improvvisazioni in festival di Cabaret, spettacoli per ragazzi, allestimento vetrine viventi, sia per Enti Pubblici che per privati e per diversi Comuni tra i quali quello di Firenze, di Signa (per l’apertura della mostra in commemorazione di Mirto Picchi), di Livorno (tramite l’associazione DI-VA con la collaborazione del Teatro Regionale Toscano). Lombardi ha scritto e continua a scrivere testi in prosa oltre a quelli in mimo regolarmente eseguiti. Con “Percorso”, da lui stesso scritto ed eseguito, ha partecipato al Festival dell’Unità di Firenze nel 1985 e tale spettacolo è stato poi rappresentato in teatri e altri luoghi sia fiorentini che altrove, entrando anche a far parte delle proposte del Teatro Regionale Toscano, sempre con la supervisione di Orazio Costa. Per il Museo Horne in Firenze, con la sua compagnia, ha creata la performance “Capire la pittura attraverso il corpo” e la stessa cosa ha fatto per la Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Verona (per la mostra sul Dadaismo “Da Duchamp a Warhol”). Ha collaborato come docente esterno con la Accademia Kipling per la Formazione (Firenze), e da anni collabora con la Compagnia Teatro Danza Duende (Lecce). In quest’ultima città porta regolarmente spettacoli nuovi, anche in luoghi prestigiosi come l’ex Convento dei Teatini e il Teatro Romano od in posti suggestivi come in una spiaggia di notte al Buena Ventura di Torre Specchia. Sempre nella stessa città ho tenuto diversi stage tematici. A Forlì, per la Compagnia Teatro delle Forchette, ha messo in scena un suo spettacolo portando sul palco gli allievi di un suo precedente master. Recentemente ha insegnato alla MaxBalletAcademy di Firenze con un suo spettacolo finale, portato regolarmente in scena con gli allievi di uno stage durato un anno. Per l’associazione Helios (onlus) ha creato un seminario per ragazzi affetti da disabilità intellettive, con uno spettacolino finale ed inserendo tutti i ragazzi partecipanti. Nelle Scuole Medie di Firenze, durante lo svolgersi di alcune supplenze, ha portato una animazione teatrale coinvolgendo anche in questo caso ragazzi con handicap. Lombardi crea regolarmente nuovi spettacoli, dove è sia interprete che coreografo, ed ha allestito performance per luoghi privati e pubblici (come il FAF, Female Arts in Florence, di Firenze) e per avvenimenti, mostre, matrimoni privati. Nel settore cinematografico, oltre ad avere collaborato con il Maggio Musicale Fiorentino per un documentario distribuito all’estero, ha avuto un ruolo di protagonista in un cortometraggio e poi un ruolo di buon livello nel film low-cost “Un delfino nel cielo” di Stefano Terraglia. Ha anche partecipato come attore al film “Villa Triste” di Fabrizio Favilli, ammesso al Festival di Venezia. Con il gruppo di animazione Circo Nero è spesso in giro per l’Italia all’interno delle più rinomate discoteche oppure in luoghi come l’ex Tribunale di Firenze o Cinecittà di Roma e per importanti manifestazioni come il Carnevale di Viareggio o la fiera del Fitness a Riccione. Ha partecipato come concorrente alla trasmissione televisiva Italia’s Got Talent di Canale 5, con Maria De Filippi e Jerry Scotti. Ha partecipato come ospite al Festival Italiano di Danza Butoh svolto a Lerici. Come insegnante di Lettere all’Istituto Comprensivo “Barsanti” per l’anno scolastico 2021/22, ha diretto due gruppi di classi per alternativa, insegnando Teatro e Mimo producendo alla fine due piccoli spettacoli rappresentati tre volte all’interno della Scuola insieme ad uno spettacolo finale di Teatro con le colleghe Lampugnani e Poidomani su “Il Gabbiano Livingston” dove, dopo un anno di lavoro in ore pomeridiane, collaborava in qualità di coreografo con un gruppo misto di varie classi. Le prove per lo spettacolo sono iniziate subito dal primo incontro, dove il docente Lombardi ha contribuito anche alla lettura espressiva del testo, cercando poi di far capire ai ragazzi le principali regole sceniche (la terza parete, lo stare a tre quarti per essere visibile allo spettatore, la modulazione della voce, l’essere in scena con tutto sé stessi anche per rispetto verso chi ci dedica il suo tempo per ascoltarci, ecc). Ogni parte del testo è stata poi la lui stesso interpretata anche nei movimenti scenici, inventando azioni coreografiche individuali e di gruppo che potessero in tal modo valorizzare l’enorme lavoro svolto. Sempre come insegnante di materia (Italiano, Storia, Geografia) ha portato quotidianamente la teatralizzazione nella didattica, specialmente nelle scuole dotate di uno spazio teatrale (come Istituto Comprensivo “Barsanti” e la scuola statale sperimentale Scuola-Città Pestalozzi). Da diverso tempo collabora col quotidiano fiorentino “La Nazione” con articoli sull’insegnamento. Ha pubblicato quattro libri di narrativa, dei quali due usciti recentemente; uno di essi si è qualificato quarto alla XII edizione del “Premio Nazionale Alberoandronico” di Roma, con premiazione al Campidoglio (15 marzo 2019), come romanzo inedito. Diverse sue poesie vengono spesso inserite in raccolte periodicamente pubblicate. Al Teatro della Compagnia di Firenze, nel dicembre 2022, ha partecipato come attore ad una lettura teatrale in versione radiofonica di un film. Nel corso del tempo i lavori di Mario Lombardi hanno iniziato a seguire soprattutto lo stile Butoh – derivato dalla danza Butoh (Butō) costituita da varie tecniche e forme di danza contemporanea direttamente ispirate dal movimento giapponese Ankoku-butō – personalmente rivisto però in chiave mimica, creando una strana fusione tra i movimenti ieratici e quelli tecnologici occidentali. Come mimo-butoh ha creato spettacoli per mostre fotografiche e rave party. Recentemente ho creato un spettacolo one man show “RecitarParlando” dove in forma scenica, racconta la Storia del Teatro attraverso le sue personali innumerevoli e diverse esperienze. Con il suo nuovo spettacolo “WHO AM I ?” ha già debuttato a Scandicci, con repliche a Firenze ed a Pontedera. Per il Carnevale fiorentino 2024 ha partecipato per il Comune di Firenze con la maschera di Stenterello nella sfilata pubblica e nella serata precedente per la festa privata in Palazzo Vecchio. Sempre per la Scuola-Città Pestalozzi sono stato richiamato in qualità ora di docente esterno come insegnante di Teatro e Mimo per creare delle coreografie per bambini della Primaria dalla prima alla quinta, in relazione allo spettacolo finale “ Giù la maschera Cyrano “, andato poi in scena il 6 giugno 2024 al Teatro Aurora di Scandicci. Con la Compagnia Bacchetti fondata a Parigi ma residente fra Milano e Firenze, ho partecipato in qualità di attore e danzatore butoh allo spettacolo “Nella pancia del pescecane”, andato in scena due volte a serata il 7 e 8 settembre 2024, allo spazio Villa Jorio Vivarelli di Pistoia. Attualmente continuo a insegnare Italiano, Storia e Geografia per le Medie in una scuola parentale di Montelupo Capraia, utilizzando spesso tecniche teatrali per coinvolgere maggiormente i ragazzi nella lezione. |
| Mario Veillette | Choreographer, teacher, and dancer. He completed a Master’s degree in dance at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM) in 2002 with a thesis on Butoh dance. He received his technical training at the modern dance workshops of Montréal (LADMMI) under Linda Rabin and, over fifteen years, participated in professional residencies with Carbon 14, Peggy Baker, Irene Dowd, Sylvain Lafortune, Jocelyne Montpetit, Risa Steinberg, and Yumiko Yoshioka. |
| Marion Steinfellner | Marion Steinfellner studied modern dance at the Vienna Conservatory and learned butoh dance from, among others, Kazuo ohno and Minako seki. Since 2014, in collaboration with Herbert J. Wimmer, she has been developing original poetic dance pieces: transpoetic performances. The composer, orchestra leader, has been doing since 2015 musician and radio designer (orange 94.0) michael fischer from the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra with his ad hoc soundscaping and feedback saxophone the music for these text and dance performances. She had further performances in Innsbruck, Vienna (21er Haus, alten schmiede), Berlin (Holy Cross Church, dock 11), dolcedo, manzanillo and buenos airs. (https://marionsteinfellner.com/dance) |
| Marius Soluna | Marius Soluna is a multi-disciplinary artist as researcher in the field of human evolution, awareness through the body and in the healing potential of transformative dance. His professional background is visual art – which enables him to catalyse his inherent somatic experiences into a transparent artform named visual poetry. Since more than a decade his main practice is vipassana insight meditation and japanese butoh dance, along with other energetic body sensory work as yoga, qi gong and reiki. He first encountered butoh dance at the subbody school in the indian himalayas. a method which emphasises strongly working with the subconcious, co-creation as on life resonance. Further studies followed with different teachers in Europe, in particular with atsushi takenouchi which includes a more ritualised, shamanic approach to reconnect with the transcendental, ancestral as collective realm. (https://resonart.ch/personae) |
| Mark Hill | Mark Hill is an expert in diverse theatre styles including Butoh Japanese Theatre Style, Noh Traditional Japanese Theatre, Suzuki and Viewpoints, both practitioners who developed a rigorous system of physical theatre training for actors and Kecak Balinese Traditional Theatre. (https://www.unishanoi.org/about/calendar-news-and-publications/post-default/~board/news/post/renowned-theatre-artist-mark-hill-at-unis-hanoi) He has worked with cutting edge Australian companies Zen Zen Zo, The Danger Ensemble and De Quincey Co and has performed with international Butoh companies Dairakudakan (Japan) and SU-EN Butoh Company (Europe). (https://www.canacad.ac.jp/uploaded/_news/news_photos/Mark_Hill_returns_to_CA_.pdf) |
| Marlene Jöbstl | Marlène Jöbstl is a polyglot with a dual French/Austrian culture, born in 1975 and living in Barcelona. Marlène represents an unconventional and responsible art, where beauty and poetry triumph, where dance is a vehicle for complex depths. Marlène plays with paradox, humor, and provocation, questioning the established order with a poetic and political background and framework. Her work is honest, sensual, grotesque, and naive, always revealing an art “on the edge,” on the edge of the sword. Her specialties are stage direction and choreography, creation and interpretation, pedagogical and artistic research, and site-specific performance. She draws on 27 years of experience in the performing arts. “My art is a peaceful warrior who, ready to dance, seizes the moment.” MJ |
| Marlon Nazate | Third generation Butoh dancer. He has directed his research towards the depths of the body’s movement, conceiving it as the Intimate Source of the Art of Dance. He has focused his process in the study and development of Butoh Dance from the current of Ko Murobushi. Which has a rigorous interest for the body limit, for the deep levels of concentration, for the management of the energy of the movement, for the abstraction, and the rupture. Her work, her study and her teaching is based on the “Transformation Processes of the Body”. With an acute vision and a penetrating insight into “The Depth and Nature of the Birth of the Impulse of Movement”. |
| Marta Sponzilli | Her practice draws on Butoh and Body Weather, influenced significantly by Min Tanaka during workshops in Japan (2007–08). |
| Martha Arellano | She is an actress, teacher, and theater director. Listed as butoh artist for Variacones Butoh in Mexico City. |
| Martha Matsuda | Mentioned as part of Harupin-Ha in book: Butoh America. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Maruska Ronchi | Maruska Ronchi butoh dancer, choreographer and performer. Graduated in Contemporary Dance at CIMD International Center Dance and Mouvement of Milan. She met butoh in 2009 with Atsushi Takenouchi, and, since then, researching in butoh under his guidance, becoming his assistant in JINEN butoh school in Italy where she had the possibility to dive deeply into butoh practice for 12 years. Besides, she met many other important teacher, among others, Yoshito Ohno sensei, Masaki Iwana, Yumiko Yoshioka, Minako Seki, Carlotta Ikeda, Sankai Yuku. She is now independently developing her own approach to the creative process; and also collaborating with other artists to make and developing original way for new creations. She discovers in Butoh a new approach to dance, more closed to ancient ritual and to spiritual world, finding a special unique beauty in each individual, and in each manifestation of nature. She’s now combining Contemporary Dance, Theater and Somatic Practices background, with Butoh, to find different entrances into a “dance state”, where the dancer makes visible the bonds between things, between the visible and “invisible” world. |
| Mary Cutrera | One of Helen Throsen’s dancers. (https://helenthorsendances.com/tag/the-stunning-mary-cutrera) |
| Mary Power | Mary power is founder of MpowerDance Project, a member of the San Francisco non-profit dance community through Independent Arts and Media, has been making dance since 1992. Mary Power, founder and artistic director of MPOWERDANCE PROJECT, holds a Master of Arts in Exercise Science and Kinesiology with an extensive background in Sports/Dancemedicine. Power is the author of “Visionary Dance Oracle, A Book of the Soul” (2021), a book of exploring the intersections of choreography, mysticism and divination. Her choreography is sourced from Butoh, Contemporary Dance (Modern, Ballet), African, Flamenco and other mind-body systems: Pilates, Gyrotonic, Yoga, Martial Arts and body leverage for partnering/TRX. MpowerDance Project workshops and classes include dance training specific to choreographic intent, repertoire, improvisation, vocalization, use of camera/dance and film, use of Visionary Dance Oracle book, focusing on research and personal experience. Our Project offers interdisciplinary performance works, dance training, process and performance opportunities, collaborations with dancers, artists, writers and film makers, musicians, and connects community experience through dance art performance and dance film media. (https://filmfreeway.com/MaryPower) |
| Marzena Brzezińska | Part of Limen Butoh. Danced with Sylwia Hanff at 2nd Butohpolis. (https://taniecpolska.pl/krytyka/butoh-oswajanie-nie-miejsc) |
| Masahide Omori | In 1984, he premiered SUKANPO (Ammonite Claws) at Tokyo’s Terpsichore studio—a solo guided by childhood memories and improvisation, witnessed by Hijikata, Ohno, and others. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00620) |
| Masahiro Nakanish | Nakanishi is a founder of “Tokyo Diamond”, an improvisational performance unit based in Tokyo. After his career as an actor for TV commercial film, theater and radio, he stepped into the Butoh world and he is the last pupil of Mitsutaka Ishii, one of the founders of Ankoku Butoh. Nakanishi creates and improvises performances in different places like shopping street, temples, park, woods and so on. Alongside his own creation, Nakanishi is actively working as a director/coordinator of art festivals, administrative workshops and stage-managing. |
| Masaki Iwana | Masaki Iwana, who began his independent Butoh career in 1975, developed his signature “White Butoh”—characterized by stark stillness and nudity—and went on to perform in over 100 cities across 40 countries while directing La Maison du Butoh Blanc in Normandy until his death in November 2020 . Relationship to other butoh artists Collaborated with Moeno W. |
| Masami Yurabe | Co-founded the influential Butoh troupe Tōhōya‑Sōkai; began his solo Butoh career in 1982. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Intro https://youtu.be/fW9YY_krlo8 * Bone & Internal Organs https://youtu.be/T45IVDONOpY * Body as Water https://youtu.be/AeUZSA5lde0 * Body as Water #2 https://youtu.be/n8Lj5Sq-Qew * Body as Water #3: Senses https://youtu.be/Fvi6UEya7DI |
| Masanari Kawahara | Masanari Kawahara 川原正也 (US, b. Hiroshima, Japan, 1968) is a Butoh doer, theatre artist, puppeteer, and arts educator for all ages. Since 2010 he has transitioned to focus on movement and Butoh-based works exploring identity, memories, and the continuing theme of violence and healing. |
| Masaru Kaita | Listed in Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00131 |
| Masayo Uchida | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://za-koenji.jp/detail/index.php?id=1477 |
| Matilde J Ciria | «Curiosity has been the advisor that has guided the major decisions of my life. When I ask myself how I have arrived here, I see a journey driven by an infinite curiosity, the desire to understand, to go beyond the mechanics of the world and skills, and to dive into the essence of human experience. My fascination with technology did not stem from the desire to learn programming, but from the impulse to decipher the patterns that govern my surroundings: a universe of beautiful logics, yet incomplete without the chaotic beauty of human emotions. From this perspective, my transition to the stage and to clowning becomes natural. The red nose becomes a magnifying glass to examine human nature: vulnerable, filled with failures and absurdities, which, when shared on stage, allow for moments of genuine connection. In this theatrical journey, I found my greatest teachers unexpectedly: in hospitals, care centers, and in Chernobyl. Trauma and suffering stripped me of my naivety. In the face of such humiliating pain, the tools of clowning proved insufficient. This time, though painful and despairing, was possibly the most important. It taught me that the understanding I sought required me to dive into a terrifying depth. Finding butoh was like arriving at a home I didn’t know I had, a language I had always known but had never spoken. I understood that the body contains a wisdom that neither reason nor emotion can access on their own. In this perspective, every movement is a dialogue with existence, and every performance an act of connection with life. My work revolves around madness: the madness of being, of being human, of being me; the madness of love and of life. A madness that has led me to transcend the borders of the stage, both inner and outer. Performer and audience, art and life; dichotomies that blur in every project, in every performance, in every workshop. My journey, from programmer to clown, from butoh dancer to whatever I am becoming, is not a career change but a deepening into the void, a path of expanding the space that I am when I am not. A truth that is only possible to see when we look together. In my practice, art and life dissolve into the same act of exploration, turning every creation into an opportunity to investigate the boundaries between the physical, the emotional, and the conceptual. The stage is my laboratory, and the experiments consist of searching for ways to share the experience of being human.» |
| Maumae | Formerly known Katrina Wolfe, Maumae is a Seattle-based American Butoh dancer, choreographer, movement artist, visual sculptor, and founder/director of Studio MA performance space in Seattle’s University District. https://www.maarts.org/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExTU13UlZEQmoxdjFKOXpmOAEegUQk8Cwn-2jvH34m2dZJhUtt0KK7aZHngDd3sSzztHWjxKPafPq-WoVnW-Q_aem_R3IxkRSGliLFCt4aDImQGg |
| Maura Baiocchi | In the seventies and early eighties, Baiocchi studied classical ballet, jazz, modern dance, and theater in Brasília. She founded and directed several performance groups (Naked Photographer, Weird Body, Weather Report) and collaborated with choreographers and directors like Hugo Rodas, Regina Miranda, Ary Pararaios, and Yara de Cunto. Between 1984 and 1986, Baiocchi taught performing arts at the University of Brasília and Dulcina University. In 1987, she studied butoh dance with Kazuo Ohno and Min Tanaka in Japan, becoming a pioneer of butoh in Brazil and the author of the first book about butoh in Portuguese. (http://www.taanteatro.com/english/taanteatro/members/maura-baiocchi.html) |
| Maureen Fleming | Maureen Fleming is an American performance artist and visual theater choreographer, originally born in Japan, who studied Butoh under Min Tanaka and Kazuo Ohno and is celebrated by The New Yorker as “perhaps the foremost American practitioner of Butoh.” |
| Maureen Freehill | Otherwise known as Momo, Maureen Momo Freehill is an American Butoh dancer, choreographer, and writer known for her long-term study and collaboration with Kazuo Ohno, one of the co-founders of Butoh. She trained and performed with Ohno from 1995 to 2012 and has become a key voice in expanding Butoh practice internationally through performance, pedagogy, and writing. Her essay “A Flower of Butoh: My Daily Dance with Ohno Kazuo (1995–2012)” appears in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (Routledge, 2018), edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario. In it, Freehill documents her “365 Days of Butoh” project and reflects on the daily discipline of dance as spiritual and artistic practice. She continues to teach and perform internationally under the project name Butopia, blending Butoh with voice, video, and environmental performance. Academic Text Freehill, M. M. (2018). A Flower of Butoh: My Daily Dance with Ohno Kazuo (1995–2012). In The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, eds. B. Baird & R. Candelario. Routledge. |
| Mavi Haro | Anthropologist and butoh artist, Mariví Haro was born in Palma de Mallorca (Spain, 1983). In Mallorca, she was a member of the Xicarandana theater company (1998-2000) and underwent extensive musical training with guitarists Jaume Tugores and Jaume Compte. Mr. Haro took classical singing lessons with Jaume Roca and contemporary dance with Laura Girotto. Based in Paris since 2007, she recently experienced butoh. She followed several masters of this dance art, as are Juju Alishina, Maki Watanabe, Gyohei Zaitsu and Sumako Koseki. (http://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2019.html) |
| Maya Dunsky | In tandem to her way of life as a painter she is a Butoh artist .She paved her way in the Butoh dance world since 1985, as a student of the master Ohno Kazuo, the founder of Butoh. Maya gives master’s classes and facilitates an ongoing Butoh dance workshops in Israel. She creates and performs mainly as soloist. Part of her dance pieces are duets, ensemble works and video dance/art works. She designs the sound tracks to her dance works, as well as the minimalist stage design, costumes, the art and the concept. https://www.saatchiart.com/mayadunski |
| Maya Gingery | Dancer, musician, artist. Studied and performed in Japan for a decade. Teacher of Butoh practices since 2004. |
| Maya Victorine | While living in Portland, Oregon, I was exposed to Butoh at the Headwaters Theater, and became hooked. I traveled the world learning from many masters and participating in community learning experiences. All told, and many photographs and passport stamps later, I think my favorite teacher was Meshi Chavez, teaching weekly at home in Portland. We talked about both the Tao and Quantum Physics, and it led to my later developing, in Serbia, what I call Quantum Corpus, based on a performance there. It emphasizes developing the many sensory bodies and increasing proprioception within and outside of oneself, so that one can best receive the dance and best translate it to the physical world, through Ma. Personal performances are often angsty, include ancient/non-ancient props, and include spoken word poetry. Sidetracked by illness, I have found my way back into the art, and am teaching classes here at El Morro Old School Gallery in New Mexico. There are great opportunities for workshop venues nearby |
| Mayako Okura | Mayako Okura (大倉 摩矢子) is a prominent Japanese butoh dancer born in Okayama in 1977, known for her versatile performances—ranging from solo stage works to site-specific pieces in outdoor spaces, museums, and salons—and recipient of the Dance Critics Association’s Newcomer Award in 2004. |
| Mayte Vaos | Mayte Vaos is a Spanish-born performance artist and Butō practitioner who participated as an invited artist at the HaRU Project in Ibiza. |
| Mayumi Fukuzaki | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) Video recording of performance at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FANyqmQMD3k |
| Megan Cattau | Megan Cattau (Member/Apprentice) is an aerialist. She found her primary movement form, the dance trapeze, training under Susan Murphy, who remains a deep inspiration. Since then, she has performed, choreographed, directed, and taught extensively in the US and abroad, working principally under the project Flight Collaborative. Her performance and teaching homes have included Canopy Studio in Athens, GA (where she was the business manager and then assistant director); Circus Warehouse in NYC; and Frequent Flyers in Boulder, CO. She also founded the aerial dance program at Durham School for Ballet and the Performing Arts in Durham, NC and has performed as a core member of Constellation Moving. Her choreography is featured in the book Aerial Dance (Bernasconi and Smith, 2008). She is interested in how movement and visual art can be used to communicate in a way that is kinesthetic, cerebral, immersive, honest, and emotionally evocative. Megan is also a disturbance ecologist, working in Indonesia as well as the Western U.S., and her mind is always on the trees. Mukuro (2022) *film & Stage Kuzu (2024) |
| Megan Janet White | Megan Janet White is a body-based performer, teacher, choreographer, installation artist and costume designer, based in Brisbane Australia. Currently, Megan works with Butoh and Oki-do Yoga, however she also draws on two decades of practical studies across Fashion Design, Visual Arts, Somatic Awareness, Body Mind Centering, Egyptian Dance, Taiko Drumming and Suzuki Method. Megan’s work is known for its poetic, evocative and intense bodily forms, mixed with elaborate layers of hand-crafted costuming that is earthy and magical, floating somewhere between clowns, ghosts, fairies and angels. https://mamegaannum.wixsite.com/meganjanetwhite/about |
| Megan Nicely | Megan Nicely | Dance is committed to choreographic experimentation through the medium of the body. Drawing from contemporary release-style dance, Japanese butoh, and somatic practices, placed in dialogue with philosophies of the body and performance theory, the company’s works create intimate, immersive environments where unpredictable encounters invite embodied thinking and critical reflection. Under the direction of artist/scholar/educator Megan Nicely (MFA, PhD), the work involves collaborations with dancers, musicians, and a variety of design elements (video, costume, set). Bridging theory and practice, this performance research also informs Nicely’s scholarly writing. The group’s work has been presented on both US coasts, the UK, and Europe. Megan Nicely | Dance is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Academic Texts Nicely, Megan V. “Butoh’s Subversive Somatics.” Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 111–124. Intellect Ltd. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp.10.1.111_1 Nicely, Megan V. “Growing New Life: Kasai Akira’s Butoh.” In The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 223–233. 🔗 Available in Routledge Companion (ISBN: 978-1138670703). Nicely, Megan V. Experimental Dance and the Somatics of Language: Thinking in Micromovement. Springer, 2023. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32190-4 Nicely, Megan V. “Choreographing the City: Techniques for Urban Walking.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2015. 🔗 http://liminalities.net/11-2/walking.pdf Nicely, Megan V. “Protean Knowledge: On Researching while Studying with Sherwood Chen.” PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, vol. 6, no. 1, 2021. 🔗 https://journals.colorado.edu/index.php/partake/article/view/539 Nicely, Megan V. Choreography from the Outside: Dance Experiments in Thinking, Perception, and Language after 1960. PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2012. 🔗 ProQuest Dissertations (UMI No. 3531829). |
| Megumi Ashikawa | Listed as part of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo company. Source: SU‑EN. “Light as Dust, Hard as Steel, Fluid as Snake Saliva: The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 203–213 |
| Meiko Ando | Meiko Ando is a Butoh dancer/choreographer and printmaker who currently lives in Toronto. She completed her BA from the University of Waterloo in arts and dance. After graduating, Meiko went to Japan to perform with a Butoh dance company and researched architectural space and Japanese arts in festivals. Since returning to Canada in 1991, she has choreographed various solo dance performances for dance festivals, theatres and art galleries in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Mexico City, Xalapa and St. Louis. (https://japanesecanadianartists.com/artist/meiko-ando) |
| Melati Suryodarmo | Today is the seed of tomorrow. The world that moves me to create lies within—the body as both a sanctuary and a vessel of memory, a dynamic organism in perpetual transformation. This interiority, with its ever-shifting psychological landscapes, inspires me to re-imagine structures of thought and action. My practice navigates the present as a tactile reality, yet it is always intertwined with the echoes of history. I seek to engage with the unsaid, the unseen, and to open portals to expanded perception, honoring the boundless freedom of individual sensory interpretation. My work thrives on crossing boundaries—cultural, political, and existential—encounters that simultaneously illuminate and destabilize identity. The pursuit of identity, while vital, teeters on the edge of disconnection from origins. For me, art-making is an enduring inquiry, an immersion in a state of perpetual metamorphosis. Through my practice, I explore the fluid interplay between the body and its environment, crafting works that embody intensity without narrative constraints. The politics of existence, the dynamics of society, and the intricacies of psychology demand visceral engagement—a level of sensory immediacy that transcends intellect. I am drawn to performances that achieve a state of factual absurdity, where the raw essence of existence resonates most profoundly. Art, to me, is a pathway to understanding—the self, the other, and the ephemeral bridges that connect us. I am captivated by moments where the ephemeral phenomena of the world align, creating passages for meaning to flow. My practice revolves around the interplay of limits, borders, and the dimensions of volume, space, and time, transforming these concepts into visual and spatial explorations that ground my work. Melati is the founding director of Studio Plesungan and runs the Solo Butoh Festival every two years. https://studioplesungan.org/solo-butoh/solo-butoh-3/ |
| Melissa Lohman | I am a performer, dancer, choreographer and visual artist from New York currently based in Rome, Italy. I make solo performance pieces and visual artworks. I also collaborate with musicians, dancers, photographers, poets and visual artists. I create work for theaters, museums, galleries and unconventional spaces internationally. I share ideas and physical exercises that I find useful for creative activity in the workshops and classes I lead. My work explores the body as material and how it can be introduced in the context of performance and/or installation. My body is one element, not necessarily the central element in a spatial composition. The form of the body, whatever it is doing, is in relationship to light and shadow, architectural elements, objects and other bodies present in a space. I want to inhabit a place and be observed, rather than show something to an audience. Besides the body, I work with modest media such as cloth, paper, basic drawing and sculpting materials, my voice, and the sounds I record. I like to think that grace and humor go hand in hand. |
| Meshi Chavez | I am a dance maker, a movement facilitator, and a choreographer. I am a queer artist. I develop methods to fully inhabit the body, increasing sensitivity and awareness while creating a deeper engagement with the world. My practice is one of relationality. As a community builder, I bring people together through movement to experience being embodied together. I approach training through the cultivation of attention and curiosity. I work from the premise that all aspects of existence are inextricably linked and activated by the movement of a larger universal body. Engaging with this force strengthens self-understanding and allows artistic newness and possibilities to arise. Butoh is my dance/performance practice, both improvisation and choreography. This dance form emerged from Japan at the time of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In its creation, Butoh pushed against Western influence dominating the region and, with it, its dance ascetic, spreading across the globe; to this day, it still does. Instead of trying to fix dance into place, Butoh seeks to unfix it and show its wild and transformational nature. It values the development of presence, spaciousness, and stillness alongside movement. Butoh is taught worldwide yet remains a relatively niche dance expression. I am one of a handful of teachers of this work in North America. I have studied for twenty years with Denise Fujiwara and our master teacher, Natsu Nakajima. Nakajima was the first female butoh dancer and choreographer. I am a third-generation American by blood, Mexican, and Spanish. I was adopted through ceremony into Lakota Sioux traditions in my early twenties. I have been participating in Sundance, one of the seven high ceremonies of the Lakota people, for twenty-five years. Traditionally, this is not something a Sundancer speaks about; however, as I navigate the complexities of the art world, I find myself in situations where I must divulge information that requires a certain level of opacity to maintain its integrity. My participation in ceremonial dance informs how I approach life, my understanding of movement, and my place in creation. My artistic expressions are translations of an ongoing conversation with the spirit world. I dance to illuminate our entanglement with creation’s steady and present unfolding. I shed conventional ideas of what dance should be, shifting energy toward what it is moving toward and has yet to become. The cultivation of the moving body reveals relationships between objects, space, and time. Through the rigor of practice, patience, and kindness, trust in embodiment grows, allowing instinct, creativity, and clarity to resound. This approach to choreography is how I confront colonialism and white supremacy within the patriarchal designs inherited through Western dance methodologies and amplified through collective cultural trauma. This is how I move alongside the unknown, with adaptability to the present moment and movement infused with curiosity and palpable presence. Meshi Chavez holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Arts. Through 2021 – 2023, he was Artist In Residence at Middlebury College, where he taught full-time and created artistic works. His career has spanned two decades, allowing him to teach, present, and perform nationally and internationally. His work is predicated on the concept that creativity is our birthright. Through the discipline of training the mind, body, and spirit, we learn to claim this creative force and build from there. He has taught at Schumacher College and Middlebury College, where he choreographed Dance Company Middlebury 2019-2020. His choreography has been presented at The Joan Mitchell Foundation in New Orleans. Chavez is co-founder of Momentum Conscious Movement, where he has been creating in-person and online, ongoing adult movement education programs for more than 20 years. He works internationally with author, scholar, and theologian Matthew Fox, teaching Movement as Meditation with a recent online course through The Shift Network. His mentors include choreographers Denise Fujiwara, Natsu Nakajima, Donna Faye Burchfield, and Thomas DeFrantz. He believes cultivating creativity, strengthening curiosity, and embracing the unknown is the secret to making an artful life. |
| Metzeri ManDel | Born in Chiapas, México based in Vancouver Island, Canada, Metzeri research bodily expression in relation to imagination and sound, with a focus on people as creators. What moves her is connecting performing arts with social issues as violence, colonialism and patriarchalism; while working as a teacher, performer and director with different communities around the world. |
| Michael Curran | Danced in a Katsura Kan piece (https://counterpulse.org/katsura-kan-with-guest-performance-by-vangeline-an-evening-of-butoh) and also in Bad Unkle Sista (https://www.zyzzyva.org/2012/05/14/soaring-in-the-air-writhing-on-the-ground-bad-unkl-sistas-first-breath-last-breath) |
| Michael J Morris | Michael J. Morris is a choreographer, performer, scholar, and a witch. They are a Visiting Assistant Professor at Denison University where they teach in the Department of Dance, Environmental Studies, Queer Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. Morris’ choreographic and performance work draws influences from early formalist postmodern dance, Japanese Butoh, queer burlesque, and Wiccan ritual, and has been presented at universities, galleries, community spaces, theatres, bars and nightclubs, films, domestic spaces, and most recently the Wexner Center for the Arts. (https://www.impulstanz.com/en/artist/id1805) |
| Michael Sakamoto | Michael Sakamoto is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator whose Butoh-rooted performance work blends dance, theater, and politics, and who co-authored Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico. Academic Texts Sakamoto, Michael. Flash: Butoh Dance, Photography, and the Body of Memory. Wesleyan University Press, 2023. Sakamoto, Michael. “Ankoku butoh: Performing the Body of Darkness in Japan and America.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 24, no. 2, 2007, pp. 345–366. Sakamoto, Michael. “Bodies in Crisis: Cultural Politics of Butoh and the Performative Body.” PhD Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2010. Sakamoto, Michael, and Rennie Harris. Flash. Touring multimedia dance theater work, 2011–present. Performance documentation, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Sakamoto, Michael. “Performing Crisis: Intercultural Embodiment and Butoh’s Global Legacy.” Performance Research, vol. 20, no. 3, 2015, pp. 52–60. Sakamoto, Michael. “Pedagogies of Darkness: Teaching Butoh in the Intercultural Classroom.” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, vol. 10, no. 2, 2019, pp. 233–245. |
| Michael Waldeck | Tai Chi, Shaolin Kung Fu, Pencak Silat since 1986 Butoh since 2013 |
| Michihiko Kamakura | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Michiru Inoue | Michiru Inoue, from Japan, is a Butoh dancer who has been performing Butoh since 1999. With no teacher and no pattern in her performances, she creates her own unique style instead. In 2001, Michiru won the New Artist Award of the Japan Dance Critics Association. She participated in Dance Hakushu Festival (Hokuto city), Tatara Matsuri (Terpsichore), and many other projects.Currently she has been improvising experimental sessions. (https://microscopicjourney.wordpress.com/about) |
| Michiyasu Furutani | Born in Osaka, Japan, Michiyasu Furutani is a choreographer, dancer, and performer whose work and expression grow from Butoh technique and practice. In the process of continual research, he has developed his vocabulary of movement to encompass in improvisation and a variety of modern and classical dance techniques forming necessity, possibility, and contingency. Furutani has collaborated frequently with theater-directors, filmmakers, architectures, painters, and musicians such as Shibusa-Shirazu Orchestra, Sun Ra Arkestra, and so forth, aiming to broaden the communicational passage amongst diverse art disciplines, and has performed widely throughout the world, continually investigating new modes of expression and movement. Also, believing that improvisation is a crucial factor in the possibility of discovering new spaces for mutual sharing and exchanging our experiences and knowledge of corporeal sense. He studied BA Theatre act at Nihon University, college of Art in Tokyo, and in 2019 Spring, completed a master program „Solo/Dance/Authorship“ at HZT – Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum für Tanz in Berlin, a joint responsibility of the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch (HfS Ernst Busch). He was an invited guest at Exit Butoh Festival in 2015. |
| Mieke Verhooren | Mieke Verhooren is a Butoh dancer and teacher/coach of creative skills. After studying Pedagogy, she attended the Training for Dance and Movement Expression (Labar Techniques) in Amsterdam and specialized in Butoh. She currently gives Butoh lessons and workshops in Dance Atelier INAZUMA in Maastricht and provides national workshops and master classes. She regularly acts as a performer. (https://www.butoh.nl/over-mieke-verhooren) |
| Mieyarm | After entering art college, she encountered contemporary dance and Butoh and immersed herself in physical expression. While a university student, inspired by the music piece “zaumi” (a word meaning “superego”) by Kyoto-based electronic musician dagshenma, she presented many dance pieces that question the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness. From the “extension of the leg shaking”, she ponders the beauty of existence that each person possesses. Currently, she performs theater pieces and collaborates with bands in various places outside of Hokkaido, from Tohoku to Taiwan. (https://sapporo-butoh.com/mieyarm) |
| Miguel Camarero | Begun is career as a performer with the independent theater groups of his native Madrid. At age 17 moved to New York City and continues performing in the Spanish Theater. One of his performances was nominated for the Spanish Association of Theater Critics Awards. The following year entered New York University Tisch School of the Art, Theater Program Acting Department from where he graduated. Latter on he had the honor to train with Jerzy Grotowski, Ryszard Cieslak and Jacek Zmysłowski artist he admired ever since his first contact with Theater. Always looking to improve his performance craft, he searched different performing arts forms. This led him to work with the famous Swiss Mime Company Mummenschanz and the New York Big Apple Circus. His deep respect for the tenacity and constant training of the circus performer inspired him to research the world of clown. He performed his own clown Tachin Talete in different venues collaborating also with the Non for Profit Organization Clowns Without Borders. With the turn of the millennium he decided to return to his hometown Madrid. There he collaborated with several theater groups performing in different venues; and he taught acting, movement for actors, and clown techniques. After three years in Madrid he moved to Barcelona and this was a turning point in his performing career. There he met the Japanese Butoh master Tadashi Endo who was influenced by Kazuo Onho, one of Butoh founders, and Mr.Camarero begun to learn Butoh from him. In 2009 the master honors his pupil inviting him to dance in the Butoh Opera Admeto, directed by the German film and opera director Doris Dörrie. The opera was presented at the International Haendel Festival in Göttingen, Germany and at the International Festival Edinburgh in Scotland. By now Miguel Camarero had found the performance art he wants to express him self with. Realizing the complexity of Butoh he continues his training with another Japanese master Yumiko Yoshioka from the lineage of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata. Later on Miguel Camarero moved to Berlin and became Ms. Yoshioka’s workshop assistant. From their collaboration, several workshop performances have been created and performed around the world. In 2013 they conceived and realized an intercultural exchange project named Hybrid. It was performed in Mexico City and Lima, Peru. In 2016 Mr. Camarero begun to teach his own Butoh inspired movement workshop that he calls BodyKronos. Mr. Camarero is a versatile performer and inspiring teacher, who for the past twelve years had dedicated himself to the art of Butoh. He has performed and taught internationally, and collaborations. (https://www.miguel-camarero.com) |
| Migui Mandalasol | Migui Mandalasol is a Spain-born performance artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Barcelona since 2005, known for blending Butoh dance with juggling and object manipulation |
| Mika Takeuchi | Mika Takeuchi is a Japan-based Butoh performer and certified dance therapist, co-founder of the GooSayTen Butoh duo in Sapporo since 1996. Relationship to other butoh artists • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/itto-morita-goo-say-ten |
| Miki Seifert | Miki Seifert has a PHD from Victoria University of Wellington and a B.A. in French and Political Science from Moravian College. Since 2007, she has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her body of work ranges from performances, installations and videos with her collaborator William Franco to solo work of mixed media paintings to writing and artbooks. Her movement training (Butoh, contact improvisation, ballet, circus arts and gymnastics) imbues her work with flow, timing, placement, and a balance between the improvised and the choreographed. Her introduction to installation art was collaborating with David Avalos, Deborah Small and William Franco on the video “Ramona: birth of mis-ce-ge-NATION”, which was included in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, “Made in California: Best Art of the 20th Century.” She is best known for “He rawe tona kakahu/She wore a becoming dress”, a Butoh performance about gender and colonisation. Her performative research is published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance and the Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies. (https://www.withlime.co.nz/about-us) Academic Texts Seifert, Miki. Butoh: Twenty Years Ago We Were Crazy, Dirty, and Mad. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993. Seifert, Miki. “Staging Trauma and Memory: The Body in Butoh and Contemporary Performance.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 21, no. 2, 2004, pp. 201–220. Seifert, Miki. “Performing the Pacific: The Body as a Site of Cultural Translation.” The Drama Review (TDR), vol. 48, no. 3, 2004, pp. 145–157. Seifert, Miki. Bodies of Water: Performance and the Politics of Memory in the Pacific. University of Hawai‘i, PhD Dissertation, 2001. Seifert, Miki. “From Butoh to the Borderlands: Intercultural Embodiment and the Politics of Difference.” Performance Research, vol. 11, no. 3, 2006, pp. 32–41. |
| Mikiko Suzuki | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Miles Butler | Miles Butler is an actor, puppeteer, and physical theatre artist from D.C. He has been working with RenGyoSoh since 2017. NYC Credits: Into the Woods (EPIC), Caveman Play (Third Space), by wing, fin, hoof, or foot (The Ume Group), Naked Hamlet (Torn Out Theater), Alexander Who’s Not Going To Move (Two Beans, National Tour), enter a garden (Motor Company) and others. DC: Studio Theatre, Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Wolf Trap, Ford’s Theater, Folger Theater and others. Former company member of Synetic Theater and the Flea Theatre. He is a teaching artist with EPIC Players, a neuro-inclusive theatre company. In his free time, he enjoys finishing puzzles and rubbing his dog’s belly. BFA in Theatre (Brooklyn College). SHINKA at D.C. Fringe (2017), Planet Connections Theatre Festivity (2018) En (2019) Oblivion (2020) *film En: 2021 (2021) Mukuro (2022) *live & film Iceberg (2023) (https://www.rengyosoh.com/company-members.html) |
| Mim King | MIRIAM KING (MIM) Artist / Performer / Choreographer Born: London, England 25 July 1959 Miriam King is an independent Choreographer, Dancer and Live Artist. After graduating with a BA (Hons.) Degree in Fine Art and Theatre, she commenced her professional performance career in 1984. This moved from theatre through to dance, and in more recent years, live art and film. In the last decade many of her unique performance works, projects and choreographies have received financial support from her Regional Arts Board, South East Arts. In 1990 Mim received an Arts Council training bursary enabling her to train and work with Anton Adasinsky and his Russian performance company Derevo at their former studio in Leningrad, Russia. She has received further training bursaries to study Butoh dance with various international teachers such as Charlotta Ikeda, Masaki Iwana and Kim Itoh. Also training bursaries to train in Dance Film as a choreographer on courses led by Peter Anderson, Miranda Pennel and Philippe Decoufle. In 1992 Mim founded the performance company Raukus Mir and received South East Arts funding to create The Circle Project which was performed at Gallery H, Kostelec near Prague, Czechoslavakia. Further funding enabled her to create many performances such as Maraluna Cabinet (1994), The Quickening and The Beach Project (1994). Mim has received commissions from Chisenhale Dance Space, London. Her work We Straddle co-created with Barnaby O’Rorke has been included in the ICA National Review of Live Art. She has created several performances in Germany, such as Faith for the Berlin Congress of Visual and Performance Art. Also work for gallery spaces such as Knaack Gallery, Dock 11 and die KulturBrauerei, all in Berlin. In November 2000 she presented her live work Blue Moon at Lullabies: Performance, Sound and Vision Festival held at Kunstwerk, Berlin. (mimking.com) |
| Mimiko Rainstick | Began learning classical ballet and Japanese calligraphy at age 3. She studied across the spectrum of dance, including Contemporary, Butoh, Duncan and Ballroom. She is a master calligrapher. Her calligraphy lineage includes teachers such as Juichi Kodama and Koyo Endo. She teaches one on one and group Calligraphy classes over zoom and in person. She features an original Union of dance and calligraphy. “Kazuo Ohno came to my university for a speech when he was in his late 90’s. This speech changed the way I look at life and my art. That was the first time I was introduced to Butoh. His speech became his dance. And especially his hand movements spoke to me so beautifully. At this time in my life, I was always choreographing dances with light and beauty as my inspiration. Butoh brought me a new journey to open the door to my dark side. It has been such a powerful influence on shaping my movement expression.” |
| Min Tanaka | Min Tanaka developed an approach to dance that he called Body Weather. In 1977, he travelled the length of Japan, dancing every day, from Kyushu to Hokkaido. He improvised naked and usually outdoors, trying to “dance the place” and explore the connection between his body and the earth. Tanaka founded Body Weather Farm in 1985 in the mountain village of Hakushu (outside Tokyo) to explore the origins of dance through farming life. Dancers who came to live at the cooperative spent their days tending rice, vegetables, and chickens, followed by hours of dance training. |
| Min Yoon | Honoring butoh and with post/butoh dance, vocals, and conflict studies, Min makes intimate, surreal, and psychosomatic performances and experimental moments to create moments of heightened complex / relational emotions, permission to go there, go deep, and look for what is emerging now. Min explores difficult truths beyond language, and against inherited social knowledge, through researching and dancing with unintentional/subconscious movements within impulsive improvisation, physicality, and stillness. “Not for the attention-seeking economy”, Min’s butoh+ experimental dance and vocal works process what feels more subconscious and unknown in being human such as around pain and violence, to grieve, reveal nuanced truths around the depths of emotions, experiences, and perspectives, and look for new expressions. Recent works switch between researching violence with their own body and the bodies of others. Their current solo work dancing-being-in-time depicts loops of movements, vocal tremors, and memories, with the body as an archive of pain, states, and transformation. In dancing with violence, they researched the bodily memories of violence of another dancer to create an auditory theater piece that invites the listeners to move and lightly embody the experiences poetically. In choreographic experiments, they question what are the images, imaginations, and group archetypes we need for our times, how bodies respond and move together unintentionally in groups, and how we may find instinctual ways to move together beyond how our bodies were trained. Min continues to dance with the question of whether butoh dance is mimicking patterns of oppression (+ what attracts us to certain art and media), and… what is the dance needed today. In Germany, Min danced at Dock11, Hošek Contemporary Gallery, Oyoun, ZK/U, Tatwerk, Petersburg Arts Space, Trauma Bar und Kino (in residency), Kühlspot Social Club, p7 Gallery, Haus der Statistik, and 4fürtanz (leipzig). In the U.S. Min danced at CounterPulse (sf), Headwaters Theater (pdx), ProArts Gallery (sf), Highways Performance Space (la), Epic Immersive (sf). Min also dances in the streets, nature, and many underground community spaces as well as in churches and a temple devoted to Minerva in Italy. Min’s performances and social artworks have been funded by NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (npn) in Germany, Dachverband Tanz Deutschland, Kultuuri Kaupilla in Finland, The City of Oakland, The Battery Club of San Francisco, and the Awesome Foundation, with other artist residencies and grants. Min has also been a fellow at Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U Berlin) and an artcorps scholar at the Tamalpa Institute founded by Daria and Anna Halprin. “They say it’s the last song. They don’t know us, you see. It’s only the last song if we let it be.” – Dancer in the Dark |
| Min-Jou Lee | Born in Pingtung, Taiwan in 1994. Now studied in M.F.A from Graduate Institute of Applied Art of TNNUA (Tainan National University of Arts) She began to study Butoh in 2021 and went to Japan in 2023 to further study. She is now a freelance Butoh performer dancer and continues to experience everything with her empty body. Her works are based on body, weaving, writing, video and experimental music. Her themes are mostly female-oriented, and she further thinks about life and body issues, starting from the matriarchal lineage, searching for issues in daily life, and further speaking out through artistic creation. She is interested in the unknown, the mysterious, and things beyond her understanding. In the future, she hope to become a channel for speaking out on issues. (https://minjou.weebly.com) |
| Mina Nishimura | Mina Nishimura is a dance artist originally from Tokyo, Japan. Buddhism-influenced concepts such as emptying, forgetting and inter-being-ness are reflected across her butoh-grounded somatic performance and choreographic practices. (https://www.minanishimuradance.com/bio) |
| Minako Seki | Minako Seki is a Japan-born Butoh pioneer, based in Berlin since 1986, who founded one of Europe’s first Japanese–German Butoh ensembles (Tatoeba: Théâtre Danse Grotesque), developed her own “Seki Method”, and has led workshops and performances worldwide . • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/shinichi-momo-koga-inkboat ### ▶️ Video Classes * Power of Imagination Series https://youtu.be/R6uulFgdmI0 * The Eye of the Typhoon (Mini doc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In-7rg6-C4M |
| Minja Mertanen | Minja Mertanen is a butoh artist who has worked with butoh for 20 years, teaching professionals, amateurs and special groups and performing in different ensembles. Minja graduated as a dance teacher, dance movement therapist, somatic movement therapist and yoga instructor. She works actively in live art field as a performance maker and butoh dancer at the Reality Research Center, Bluckhouse, Other spaces and in free dance ensembles. Mertanen has performed and taught in 20 countries and works as the artistic director of the Helsinki Butoh festival together with Ken Mai. (https://www.helsinkibutohfestival.fi/luvia) |
| Minoru Hideshima | Minoru Hideshima is a respected Japanese Butō artist, known for his performances and collaborations with pioneers like Kazuo Ōno, Moritsuna Nakamura, Tokuji Ikebe, and Mitsuyo Uesugi, as noted in the dance film A Table – Butoh at the World Theatre Festival in Nancy in 1980 |
| Minoru Ide | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Mirei Yamagata | MIREI YAMAGATA is a ballet and butoh trained choreographer, dancer, voice actor, and actress. She was born in Hong Kong in 1979 and grew up in the U.S, Germany, and Japan (total 16 years overseas). After graduating from Macalester College with a B.A. in International Studies(Environemental Policy focus)/German/Philosophy, she worked as an actress in Minneapolis until 2003 with Mixed Blood Theater, Mu Performing Arts, and Pillsbury House Theater. After returning to Japan, she studied Butoh extensively with Dairakudakan and Tohru Iwashita. In 2007 she danced a solo piece in the Kazuo Ohno Dance Festival at BankArt1929, curated by Off Nibroll. The same year, she performed her duet “Konatakanata” in the Komaba Agora Theater Summer Summit. (https://www.kawabatatrilogy.org/mireille) |
| Miriam Strasser | Since 2014, I have been exploring human consciousness – both through neuroscience and direct experience: lucid dreaming, various meditation techniques, and expanded states of awareness through breath and embodiment are part of my path. My approach to Butoh is mindful, intuitive, and deep – a silent dance of listening. I guide people into the depths of their own expression, beyond judgment or form. In 2019, I began developing a Butoh-clown figure called Homo Kemoni. From this intense exploration emerged the Homo Kemoni Project – an inter- and transdisciplinary space of performative research in collaboration with other artists. |
| Missel Hanaoka | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s |
| Misuzu Hyuga | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Mito Ashikawa | Listed as part of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo company. Source: SU‑EN. “Light as Dust, Hard as Steel, Fluid as Snake Saliva: The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 203–213 |
| Mitsu Salmon | Mitsu Salmon creates original performances and visual works which fuse multiple disciplines. She has presented at places such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Highways, Performance Space 122, and internationally at Hebbel Am Uffer in Berlin, London Performance Art Festival, and Urbanguild in Kyoto, Japan. She has participated in artist residencies at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei Artist Village, Guildhall, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Oxbow. Salmon received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. In 2005 she graduated from NYU. She was a member of the Butoh company, Ima Tenko and Kiraza, in Kyoto from 2008 to 2010. She has taught at Brandeis University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Weber State University. She has led Butoh workshops nationally and internationally in places such as Taiwan, Japan, England, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. She has been awarded the best collaborative multi-disciplinary performance by Newcity, Chicago City Grant, Midwest Nexus Touring Grant, Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum Grant, and Utah Performing Arts Fellowship. |
| Mitsuno Takahashi | “After dropping out of art school I was looking for a creative space when a friend invited me to do a performance, where I was recruited by a Butoh Seiryu-kai dancer(Chiharu Yamaguchi).” |
| Mitsuo Takahashi | Members of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Mitsuru Nambu | Part of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Mitsuru Sasaki | Mitsuru Sasaki uses the influence of Western culture to develop his own form of Butoh expression. The movements learned and absorbed by the major Western dancers and choreographers acquire a new expressiveness and density of meaning, through what we can call its “Butoh mind”. In thirty years of experience with different personalities and artistic disciplines, from work with Susanne Linke and with Pina Bausch, as an independent choreographer and dancer, he also develops a great communicative ability in transmitting his concept of Butoh dance, developing a form more easily assimilated by a Western audience. (https://www.spazioseme.com/workshop-di-butoh) |
| Mitsutaka Ishii | (1939-2017) Mitsutaka Ishii was a seminal Butoh performer, known for pioneering works like “Butoh‑ichi – The Blind Thief” in 1969 at Ikebukuro Sphere Theater and becoming one of the first Butoh artists to bring the form to Europe in 1971. |
| Mitsutake Kasai | Son of Akira Kasai. Born in 1975. Studied Butoh under Akira Kasai and dance under Kota Yamazaki. In 1998, he released a solo work, Haru no Yuki (Spring Snow). Studied in New York for one year as a trainee under the Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists in 2009. In 2010, he won the Special Prize at the Yokohama Solo x Duo <Compétition> +. He participated in the work of Tero Saarinen Company in 2016. Danced Pollen Revolution choreographed by Akira Kasai in 2017. (https://www.paradiseair.info/en/people/mitsutake-kasai) |
| Mitsuyo Uesugi | Mitsuyo Uesugi has been a student of classical ballet since she was a child. As a young woman she moved to Tokyo to join the Tani Momoko ballet company. In 1973 she met Kazuo Ohno, and went on to work as his assistant until 1985. She launched her solo Buto career in 1975. In the late 1980s Mitsuyo Uesugi joined French contemporary dance troupe Studio DM, before returning to Japan in 1990. Over the past decade she has produced a series of works inspired by the secret rituals of Buto Madame Mélancolie / Mademoiselle Mélancolie / Bébé Mélancolie – Rêve de six nuits, with the latter receiving an award from the Japanese Dance Critics’ Guild in 2009. In 2015 she presented her latest solo show A Story Of Lady in Germany and Croatia at the Kazuo Ohno festival. Mitsuyo Uesugi currently teaches in the Art Department of Meiji Gakuin University, leading classes on her own method of Buto improvisation. She also holds regular workshops at France’s Centre National de Chorégraphie. |
| Miwako Inagaki | Miwako Inagaki is a prominent Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer noted for her collaborations with Masami Yurabe and her performances in Japan and abroad. |
| Miyu Leilani | I was born and raised in Japan. I always loved being involved in theater and moved to NY in 2008 at the age of 19. Then I fell in love with But and became naked, literally, yes. At the age of 26, in 2014, moved to Diebougou, Burkina Faso on a two-years mission as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer. Then moved back to Tokyo in 2017 and started to study at a medical school in Shiga, Japan. Also listed as a butoh dancer participant at sapporo-butoh.com |
| Miyuki Lima | Representative Director: Miyuki Iima In her childhood, she was a member of a children’s theater troupe, where she learned the basics of stage performance. At the age of 12, she participated in the founding of a theater troupe by people with mental disabilities. At the age of 14, she met Butoh master Nobuo Harada, the head of Butoh Seiryukai, and entered the world of Butoh. In the 2000s, she presented works such as “Atonement,” “EUPHORIA,” and “Kara.”In 2022, she reunited with her teacher, Nobuo Harada. In May 2023, she returned to the stage in a Butoh Seiryukai performance and has continued to perform twice a year since. She is currently developing the “a doll” series, inspired by Hans Bellmer. As the representative of the general incorporated association circulus Planning, she organized “Dance/Decadence,” a collaborative work between poet Yasuki Fukushima and Butoh dancer Nobuo Harada, in June 2023. She has participated as a Butoh dancer in Yasuki Fukushima’s monthly poetry reading and shouting concerts about three times. In November 2023, she participated in the Butoh and acousmonium festival “EN CHAIR ET EN SON” held in France, both as a dancer individually and as a collaborator on behalf of circulus Planning. In April 2024, she produced a preview performance of “Gracefully Aged Bodies” (https://circulus.or.jp/about/) |
| Mizu Desierto | Mizu Desierto is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Water in the Desert (WITD) and The Headwaters Theatre. She is a performer, choreographer and educator whose work explores themes of identity, truth, ecology and transformation. She has performed with Human Nature Dance Theatre (AZ), Harupin-Ha Butoh (S.F.), Yoshito and Kazuo Ohno (Japan), & Diego Piñon (Mexico) and her solo work has been presented nationally and internationally. Mizu’s artistic works have been commissioned by The City of Portland and Portland Center Stage and she is a frequent educator and choreographer for The Circus Project. In addition, her projects have received funding from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Oregon’s Regional Arts & Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, Portland Development Commission, The Multnomah County Cultural Coalition & The Oregon Cultural Trust. As an educator, she has taught intensive courses through Prescott College (AZ) and Portland State University. |
| Mizuho Ogami | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Moe Yamamato | Moe Yamamoto is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer based in Kanazawa, Japan, where she founded Kanazawa Butoh Kan in 1976. She has been instrumental in preserving and transmitting Tatsumi Hijikata’s Butoh techniques, particularly through her detailed documentation and performance of his works. |
| Moeno Wakamatsu | Moeno Wakamatsu (b. 1975, Tokyo) is a France- and U.S.-based interdisciplinary dancer and Feldenkrais practitioner whose Butoh-influenced work explores heightened perception and presence. |
| Mohamed Aroussi | Present in cinema and on stage for over 20 years, Mohamed Aroussi, known as Moh, began practicing Butoh dance in 2000 with Masaki Iwana, who directed him in the film Vermilion Souls. |
| Molly Barrons | Listed as part of the Tamanos’ Harupin-Ha. (https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/archiveComponent/1066144509) |
| Monel Chang | Art clown, butoh dancer, DJ, somatic movement outdoor adventurer with Korean roots. Listed as butoh performer for the Northwest Butoh Festival in Portland, OR for May 2026. |
| Monica Moreno | Mónica is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice integrates performance, sound, wearable art, and sculpture to explore the nuances of human emotion and connection. With a background in jewelry-making and mixed media, she constructs immersive sound collages and experimental audio compositions that intertwine with movement-based performances and tactile forms. By distorting anatomy, layering textures, and manipulating sonic elements, her work transforms intangible sensations into visceral experiences, inviting contemplation on the complexity of feeling, perception, and shared human vulnerability. |
| Moshe Cohen | Moshe Cohen is an internationally renowned teacher, performing artist and sacred mischief maker. He has toured his Mr. YooWho show widely in theaters and festival around the world (50+ countries/1000+ performances) since 1983. An early pioneer of the Clowns Without Borders movement, and co-founder of the Zen Order of Disorder (OD), Moshe currently works with the Medical Clown Project in San Francisco bringing laughter to both elders and children in institutional settings. He integrates butoh dance with theatrical clown, a form he pioneered called butohclown. He continues to explore this form and occasionally performs, mostly locally in the bay area. He travels internationally to teach workshops. |
| Moto Hamada | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00013/) |
| Motoya Kondo | Motoya Kondo is a Japanese-born choreographer and co-founder of Motimaru Dance Company (based in Berlin), who studied Butoh intensively under Yoshito Ohno—son of Kazuo Ohno—from 2005 and later assisted him. |
| Mukai Kumotaro | In 1994, Mukai joined Dairakudakan and trained under Akaji Maro. Since 2001, he has presented seven pieces of his own choreography, directing them both in Japan and overseas. He won the “new comer award” at the 37th Dance Critics’ Circle Award. In July 2012, Mukai left Dairakudakan, initiating a solo career. After presenting five works, he founded Deux Shrine with Double Sun in 2014, and presented The Rite of Spring in 2015. At the core of his work are two constants: his own form of “butoh” that he has been working on, and “the atomic bomb”. He is also a senior fellow of The Saison Foundation. (http://www.kazuoohnodancestudio.com/english/perform/kof2016_eng.html) |
| Muronoi Yoko | Muronoi Yoko moved to Sapporo in 2000, where she started the group ANOYONODEKIGOTO with Takahashi Ikuro. She then also began a workshop called ‘Dancing Bodies’ at an art school in Tokyo in 2003, and frequently performed at Artland in Musashi Koganei, Tokyo. In YOASOBI, as in other works, she aims to be rid of any needless decoration, and to create a dance that comes from the body. Passed away in 2017. |
| Mushimaru Fujieda | Mushimaru Fujieda (藤條 虫丸, b. 1952, Aichi Prefecture) is a celebrated Japanese Butoh dancer, choreographer, and director whose self-styled approach—”Natural Physical Poetry”—has been performed worldwide, and who now resides in Yakushima, Japan, living a semi-rural artist-lifestyle since 2004. He studied theatrical movement in the drama troupe Ishin-ha (1978–1989) and developed his unique dance voice through collaborations and improvisations influenced by poet Allen Ginsberg, ultimately crafting workshops known for “movement in relationship to breath and rhythm” |
| Mutsuko Tanaka | Admitted to Dairakudakan in 1973 and flourished in its seedtime programs as a diva. Established her butoh group, “Tenkei”(Heavenly Chicken) with Ebisu Torii in 1981. She is a dancer with superb skills and fierce concentration and has “painfully repressed passion matched by her focus and slow-motion mastery.”(The Chicago Tribune) And Lewis Segal enthusiastically applauded “the diva from hell dominating this alternately poetic and disturbing dance-theater experience” in Los Angeles Times. |
| Mutsumi Yamamoto | Started Classic Ballet at her age of 3. In junior high school, she started rhythmic gymnastics. Because of injury during her study in Tokyo Women’s College of Physical Education, she stopped to dance. 10 years after, accidentally encountered with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno’s dance through a documental film. She was moved deeply and there was no choice except to start again her dance. In 2009, she moved in to Tokyo for studying under Yoshito Ohno at Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio where she met her partner Neiro. She had taken a part in Mitsuyo Uesugi’s workshop “Kayoukai”. In 2016, she was chosen as a model for Yuriko Takagi’s photo album “ISSEY MIYAKE” which was published from TACHEN for MIYAKE ISSEY Exhibition at The National Art Center Tokyo. (https://www.mutsumineiro.com) |
| Nadia Bravo | Mexican dancer who lives in Paris. She has been dancing since she was very young, first studying ballet, then completing a bachelor’s degree in contemporary dance in Mexico. During her six years of study, she received both practical and theoretical training in contemporary dance. To obtain her university degree, she wrote a thesis entitled: The Dance of Transformation in Mexico, a Philosophical Approach to Mexican Butoh Dance. Life caused her to take a break from the stage for years, although she has continued to participate in workshops and train with Butoh teachers from both influences, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. She’s now back to start new projects. “It was 2009, when I was studying contemporary dance, and for a class we were asked to choose a country and research the different types of dance that existed there. Without knowing it, I chose Japan and discovered Butoh. Someone in my class told me that a student of Kazuo Ohno had a studio in the mountains, just a few hours away, and I didn’t hesitate to sign up for a weekend workshop. A new world opened up for me. I was instantly seduced by the wilderness, the freedom of movement, all the sensations I experienced, the intensity, and the generosity of all the people I met. What immediately attracted me to Butoh was that this dance/theater is not intended to entertain or be pretty. There is truth in the movement, which is both dark and full of inner light, expressing everything that rarely comes to the surface or is too difficult to express in any other way. It is fascinating how we can become a stone that moves through the centuries or smoke… Beyond the aesthetics, I seek a healing element in it. If movement allows us to touch fibers that are both hidden and too difficult to show, it allows us, if not to heal them, to unearth them and bring them to light” (Tsubushi instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOCM3qFkpk5/?img_index=1) |
| Nadia Cantó | Bailarina, actriz e investigadora del movimiento. She is an actress, dancer and teacher. Born in Lanús in 1982. She began her acting training in 2003 at the Lanús Municipal Theater School, continuing her studies with Walter Arce (Theater of Image and Provocation), Ricardo Miguelez, Eduardo Meneghelli. She was a member of the Workshop “Improvisation and text” led by Cristina Banegas in the El Eccentrico Cultural Space on 18. Began Butoh Dance with Rhea Volij and she has held seminars coordinated by the Japanese dancer and choreographer Katsura Kan, teacher at the Kong School of Noh Theater. She studied in it Sportivo Teatral, has participated in seminars led by Ricardo Bartis and integrated the workshop coordinated by Mariano Saba. She currently participates in the workshop of Butoh Dance coordinated by Ana Laura Osses disciple of Rhea Volij . https://www.alternativateatral.com/persona47299-nadia-canto |
| Nana Simone Micheli | Born in Buenos Aires in 1973. Artist, professor, performer. Her studies began early in ceramics and dance, two languages she continues to work with today. Her grade degrees are in sculpture and painting. Her art also investigates photography, video, sound art, textiles, and performance. She studied classical dance at the Teatro Colón, Butoh dance with Collini Sartor, Tadashi Endo, Magy Ganiko, Ko Murobushi, and Rhea Volij, Quio Binetti and Action Theatre with Ximen Romero. She studied painting with Miguel Ángel Vidal and Guillermo Cuello, sculpture with Antonio Pujía and Edgardo Madanes, installation with Horacio Zabala, site-specific work with Marcela Sinclair, Argentine art with Guadalupe Neves, glass sculpture with Paula Lekerman, welding with Antonio Valdez, documentary film with Grupo Mascaró, contemporary art with Julio Sanchez, contemporary art with Alicia Romero, textile art with Araceli Pourcel, photography with Esteban Pastorino Diaz and Nacho Iasparra, Deleuze and art with Lamberto Arévalo, and feminism with Clodet Garcia. Creator of the Perfiles International Art Residency in Uruguay and the MAPA ROSA Art and Nature Residency in Punta Indio, Buenos Aires. Creator of 704 OFICINA DE ARTE in Buenos Aires since 2013. A space located in Florida and Corrientes, territories where she brings together contemporary artists and fosters artistic creation and exchange. She has worked as a set designer for independent operas, experimental theater, and Butoh dance productions. She has also worked as a costume designer for advertising and experimental theater. She participates in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico and abroad. She currently teaches sculpture at the UNA (National University of Buenos Aires). She is preparing her thesis for a Master’s degree in Combined Artistic Languages at the UNA (National University of Buenos Aires). She attends seminars to enter the Doctorate in Arts at the same University. |
| Nana Yokosuberry | Born in Tokyo in 1967. Graduated from Joshibi University of Art and Design. While working in theater during her student years—handling stage art and costume design—she encountered Butoh in the 1990s and decided to become a dancer. |
| Nanako Ooizumi | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Nanami Kohshou | Originally worked in music and theatre from 1982, then transitioned into Butoh around 1999. (https://www.wiels.org/en/events/perennial-4-nanami-kohshou) |
| Naofumi Fujitani | Mentioned on Butoh America as having performed with Joan Laage. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Naoko Uetani | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00200/) |
| Naomi Fukushima | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Naomi Muku | Naomi Muku (鉾久 奈緒美) is a Japanese Butoh dancer, choreographer, and prominent member of Dairakudakan, the renowned troupe led by Akaji Maro. “Asura” Creation & Direction In 2015, Muku choreographed and directed the solo‐and‐ensemble piece Asura at Dairakudakan’s Kochu‑ten studio in Kichijōji, Tokyo. The performance, which debuted in September 2015, entwines dancers in a mythic narrative inspired by Buddhist Asura statues—symbolizing war, regret, and redemption—echoing current global tragedies such as the IS decapitation incident. keita-matsumiya.com |
| Naomi Mutoh | Naomi Mutoh has been based in France since 1997, where she co-founded Compagnie Medulla and continues to teach and perform extensively across Europe. |
| Naoto Nakamura | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Naoya Oda | Naoya Oda is a Butoh dancer known for his work with the Dairakudakan company. He has also been involved in performances choreographed by Onodera, the director of Company Derashinera, such as “Spectator”. Butoh, a Japanese dance form, is characterized by its use of grotesque imagery, taboo topics, and slow, controlled movements. |
| Naruhiko Kadowa | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Natalia Cuellar | Natalia Cuéllar is a Chilean actress, dancer, choreographer, and director of the Ruta de la Memoria company who has led the International Butoh Festival in Chile (FIBUTOH) and frequently performs internationally, including at the New York Butoh Institute Festival in 2024 ### ▶️ Video Class * Taller Iniciación al Butoh (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxvEEOPicS4 |
| Natalia López Santa Cruz | Butoh, dancing, acting, drinking and teaching are the creative pillars that make my life a continuous process of transformation and permanence in a body that I feel infinite, ancestral and physical. My encounter with dance began in my mother’s womb. At the age of 6, I continued my learning in Classical Ballet, Contemporary Ballet and other dances. I trained for 15 years at the Laboratorio School of Dramatic Corporal Expression with Jessica Walker as an experimental actress and teacher. I have collaborated in the organization of the Barcelona International Butoh Festival. I live in Ibiza. |
| Natalia Zhestovskaya | Natalia Zhestovskaya is a prominent Russian butoh dancer and choreographer based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She co-founded the Odd Dance Theatre with Grigory Glazunov, serving as its artistic director alongside him. The company is known for its innovative butoh performances that blend elements of Russian theater, mythology, and ritualistic expression. |
| Nataliya Andru | Dancer, creator, and facilitator of artistic processes, with training in visual arts and dance. She currently directs the company Al descubierto Physical Theatre and is responsible for the Al descubierto Dance Theatre Training Program and butoh dance classes in Madrid. Additionally, she co-directs the dance series A butoh pelao at Teatro Exlímite. With Al descubierto, she has created the following productions: Fur (2024), Vida secreta donde sobrevivir (2022), Sordidísimas (2021), Una danza para todos y para nadie (2020), No estamos bien aquí (2019), Cenizas y diamantes (2018), Vidrio molido en los huesos (2018), Absens (2016), and La perla (2015). In collaboration with Cecilia Gala, she created Festen (2021), and she has performed as an actress in Murmullo (2025) and Antes/Después (2022) at Sala Cuarta Pared. She has been an artist-in-residence at institutions such as the Mediterranean Dance Center (Croatia), The Watermill Center (New York), and the Centro Coreográfico Canal (Madrid). Her artistic research focuses on butoh dance, improvisation, performativity, and the interconnection of stage languages. She has led workshops at the Alma Negra Iberian Butoh Festival, the Innato Aula Nostra Butoh Training Program, the International School of Gesture, and has participated in national and international festivals such as the Madrid International Festival of Physical Theatre, Essencia Festival, Una mirada al cuerpo, Surge Madrid, Ex…it International Butoh Festival, Festival de Nuevos Investigadores Teatrales, and the Bionic Festival, among others. |
| Natascha Wöss | Began studying Butoh dance in 1993. Was part of Yumiko Yoshioka’s Ten Pen CHii Art Labor. |
| Nathan Montgomery | Nathan Montgomery is an American Butoh choreographer and teacher based in Boulder, founder/director of Syzygy Butoh, and producer of the Boulder Butoh Festival. |
| Natsu Nakajima | Natsu Nakajima (1943–2024) was among the first female Butoh dancers in Japan, who trained directly under both Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno and founded the influential dance company Muteki‑sha in 1969 ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh Choreography Lab https://youtu.be/xV-zH-snD4Q?si=sUB9aEkIxZs0C7Ht * Workshop 2023 https://youtu.be/ttshkCB57vY?si=3Z6xzS3VJQrHK9n8 * Workshop 2020 https://youtu.be/WEgReKzHFZY?si=xObQbiIP9SS_WXw1 * University of Tokyo https://youtu.be/f5MWIVp13Zk?si=CxdFG10B–CBkGOV * NY Kampo Culture Center Part 1 https://youtu.be/s1p8VXNPjW4?si=VCQYJJGr1ojQlz9o * NY Kampo Culture Center Part 2 https://youtu.be/z0C5SUklIrU?si=P2WkaFNGdX8ey2td * NY Kampo Culture Center Part 3 https://youtu.be/ZDsPD1s8DXc?si=_Piea8QbXcnsyDn7 * NY Kampo Culture Center Part 4 https://youtu.be/Mb6xgtL-F7c?si=4ApWtQrauXV8z21c * Chicago 2007 Part 1 https://youtu.be/0XABo72jGBQ?si=HFAbdvrFq7zhg8d0 * Chicago 2007 Part 2 https://youtu.be/ZBSE_Ues4to?si=LGrY6o2Gx6HACDDg * Chicago 2007 Part 3 https://youtu.be/uuPz5H31-C0?si=EAuT7p6l_BJ-DeWU * Chicago 2007 Part 4 https://youtu.be/2dQrmSdn3OE?si=EHdHl726qstIX60b * Chicago 2007 Part 5 https://youtu.be/Zzqio_FaW1U?si=Oh1rV1ZvO968SMC2 * Chicago 2007 Part 6 https://youtu.be/aiVTp0jG_fc?si=-f8Y1jyCzj6eK-36 * Chicago 2007 Part 7 https://youtu.be/d5C6PWyKGuM?si=0vV954DYoM6gepO6 * Chicago 2007 Part 8 https://youtu.be/SHVvLfT4IMo?si=XKAdFNOl6AQC_I2a * Chicago 2007 Part 9 https://youtu.be/x-MgaSHs3IU?si=ikO2fcIyS691EZe1 * Depaul University Part 1 https://youtu.be/cK-wvc9x4p8?si=M8mVoPm7-sjnSWbd * Depaul University Part 2 https://youtu.be/E8ZcynF7_0c?si=ADClkhEM2txatMvu * NY 1994 Part 1 https://youtu.be/W4HY-vFB9nc?si=vIp44gxCQ7Eu721_ * NY 1994 Part 2 https://youtu.be/HoYXpgCyQTY?si=krLZ5InnSUy32aDg * NY 1994 Part 3 https://youtu.be/4hx6yHfCvN0?si=lvoQ_p6sVFM-cHu0 * NY 1994 Part 4 https://youtu.be/g-22m4aC2nA?si=RccfqKv0lclCGjom |
| Natsuki | Member of butoh group Wozme. Studied a wide range of dance from childhood, from classical ballet to street dance. Impressed by the world of Butoh expression, she stepped into it. While learning various dances, she has built up her own unique style of expression, valuing sensitivity and feeling without being bound by form. She lives to express the feelings that come up from within.Aspiring to become an expressionist, she is a member of the Butoh Ishii Gumi, led by Norihito Ishii (Sankai Juku). |
| Natsuko Kono | Natsuko Kono (born 1975 in Kobe, Japan) is an internationally active Butoh dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in Berlin and Rügen—she studied Performing Arts (Dance) at Birkbeck, University of London |
| Neiro | Studied Art Mime under JIDAI, studied Butoh under Yoshito Ohno. In 2010, he went to Warsaw Poland for taking a part in Mime Art Theater directed by Stefan Niedziałkowski. In June 2012, he returned to Japan. Since then, from the first meeting with Mutsumi at Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio, he works with her as a DUET MUTSUMINEIRO. Their representative work “Tonight or never…” had toured in Japan, Poland, Germany, and Israel. In 2016, they eopened Galerie ame in Tokyo East side downtown. In 2020, he performed his first solo piece “Bokutoh KI – Dance TANTAN” at Theater X Tokyo. (https://www.mutsumineiro.com) |
| Neo Cartouche | Neo Cartouche has spent a lifetime in search of self through the visual arts — of what it means to be a human being. From carving and contemplating three-dimensional forms, Neo embarked on a journey of ambiguity and discovery through an MA in Contemporary Art at Oxford Brookes University, where she developed her practice in installation, sound art, film projection and performance art. She became fascinated with the freedom of self-expression offered by butoh. “…it was a revelation, something I’d always known was inside me!” Neo joined Café Reason in 2016. “It gives me the opportunity to experiment with the interactional space between people and to explore expressing my life experiences through different qualities of dance movement.” (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) |
| Nia Love | Nia Love is a dancer and choreographer based in New York City. She is a radical thinker, artist, performer and professor that focuses on Modern dance, Post-Modern dance, and West African dance. She is known for her spiritual relationships to movement and performance,[1] as well as her personal work that is critical of structural racism and examines the role of women in dance through her poetry, movement and art. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nia_Love) |
| Nico Athene | Nico Athene is a multimedia artist working through embodiment as her primary medium. She facilitates workshops in embodiment and consent, and in dance, studying and teaching butoh and contact improvisation. (https://appliedjung.com/art-of-individuation-2023) |
| Nicole Legette | Nicole LeGette is a Chicago-based Butoh dancer, performer, and educator who directed the Blushing Poppy Productions since 2004. |
| Nika Kim | Nika Kim is a Russian-Korean Butoh dancer and movement artist based in Berlin. Her work is rooted in ritual, symbolism, and intuitive improvisation. Drawing from Jungian archetypes, throat singing, and mantra, she crafts performances that evoke collective memory and subconscious transformation, treating Butoh as a metaphysical language of presence. |
| Nikita Baskov | Nikita is a Russian butoh artist |
| Nima Noriko | “Nima is a dancer who has studied Butoh with Sankai Juku, Dairakudakan, Kudo Taketeru, and Temmetsu. ‘The most important words when I dance Butoh are Release is Love’ ‘リリースは愛” tsubushi journal (instagram) https://www.instagram.com/p/DRneF3oEvwO/?img_index=1 |
| Nimura Momoko | Trained and performed under Tatsumi Hijiakta. (https://kobayashi-saga.holy.jp/bio_e.html) |
| Nobonke van Tonder | Tossie van Tonder (aka Nobonke) is a dancer-psychologist, ontological coach, writer, mentor, and specialist in the field of dynamic transformation – giving opportunities to unleash what is invisible and intelligible in the human being, group and organisation. (https://theimageofyourperfection.co.za/profile/) She offers various butoh classes. |
| Nobu (Kusareinu) | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Nobuo Harada | Based in Fukuoka, Japan, though Harada originally began his Butoh career in Tokyo with Teshigawara Akira’s Tenshi-kan in the early 1970s before returning to his native Fukuoka in 1985. In 1994, he re-established his own company, Butoh Seiryūkai, there. |
| Nobuyoshi Asai | He joined the prestigious Japanese Butoh company Dairakudakan in 2005, marking his entry into formal Butoh practice. Subsequently, he became a permanent dancer with Sankai Juku. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh & Noguchi Taiso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG2WdBmLUoo * Butoh Worskhop based in Sankai Juku https://youtu.be/TJhJGLIaH2M?si=KBmZ4NfFDTO26ZPl |
| Nonoko Sato | She was born in Suzuka-shi Mie Prefecture. At the age of 18, she met Butoh, she aspires to the path of Butoh. She participates in activities as a manager at Butoh company “Kiraza” which Ima Tenko presides in Kyoto, and debuts as the manager and dancer in summer of 2012. Since then, she appeared in all works of Kiraza Butoh performance, and also helped to choreograph. In the new year of 2018, she leaved Kiraza. With the mind that “I want to expand abundant encounter of people and Butoh”, she also activates as a solo since belonging to Kiraza. From 2013〜2016, she organized Butoh performances at university and in her hometown. In December 2018, after leaving the company, she held first solo performance in Kyoto, ” Song of child with shadow of indigo” She serves as a Butoh dancer at the new performance “HAZAMA”(choreographed by Yasuo Hukurozaka) planned by KYOTO BUTOH KAN. It was opened from January 11, 2020. 2022, She moved to Suzuka City and opened the relaxation salon “Yurikagononaka” in November, which aims to be “a place where you can experience the creativity of your body as an extension of your daily life.”She plan live events on an irregular basis. She is exploring new possibilities as a butoh dancer. She tries to melt her mind, deepen the pure dance that “the body of all things” sings, and looks for “the deverise life of human and being truly free” through dance and in all dialogues. (https://nonokosato.wixsite.com/nonokosatosite/profile-1) |
| Norihide Ishimaru | Listed in Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00101/ |
| Norihito Ishii | Choreographer / Butoh artist / Head of Butoh Ishii-gumi / Artistic director of DEVIATE.CO Born 1984, Tokyo. She started street dancing at the age of 17 and won prizes in various dance contests. After working as a backup dancer for numerous artists such as Shikao Suga, DJOZMA, Fuyumi Sakamoto, and Miriko Nakamura, as well as a commercial and theme park dancer, he moved her activities to stage spaces in 2006. In the past, he has participated in domestic and international performances by various dance companies and dance artists such as BABY-Q, Kaya Ohashi & Dancers, Tomohiko Tsujimoto, Dairakudakan, Antibodies Collective, and Masako Yasumoto, and has also appeared in theater works by Yukio Ninagawa and Amon Miyamoto. Since 2006, he has studied contemporary dance under Tomohiko Tsujimoto. He began her solo career in 2007, and continues to create performing arts works that appeal to human psychology and question the truth of society, based on the concepts of madness and universal beauty that reside in the bodies of modern people. In 2010, he enrolled in the butoh company Sankaijuku, which is based at the Théâtre Ville de Paris, known as the temple of contemporary dance, and has performed in more than 700 cities in 45 countries around the world, and studied under Ushidai Amago. Including his own activities, he has performed in more than 75 cities in 27 countries. In 2013, Sankai Juku received the Japan Foundation Award. In recent years, he has also performed solo parts for ”Egg Fever”, ”HIBIKI”, ”KAGEMI”, and ”KOSA”. At the 2013 Seoul International Choreography Festival, she won the Jury Prize, the overall runner-up at the time. Since then, it has been performed again in many countries including South Korea, Israel, and Singapore. In 2015, he won the SCF Award for overall runner-up at the same festival. He achieved the remarkable feat of winning the award twice for the first time. (http://norihitoishii.com) |
| Norikazu Sato | Founder & Executive Director of Japan Contemporary Dance Network (JCDN) since 2001. Also was member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Norio Imanishi | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00527/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Nozomi Matsuzaki | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Ofelia Ledesma | Translation: I began in dance studying with María Fux and then completed the Teacher Training in Expression and Body Language with Lola Brikman. From there, I went on to do the Teacher Training in Conscious Gymnastics with Dr. Irupé Pau. In 1994, I studied butoh with Gustavo Colini Sartor, and in 1998 I traveled to Japan. From then on, I began teaching butoh and performing, including at the Japanese Garden. Original: Comencé en la danza estudiando con María Fux y luego hice el Profesorado de Expresión y Lenguaje Corporal con Lola Brikman. A partir de ello realicé el Profesorado de Gimnasia Consciente con la Dra. Irupé Pau. En el año 94 estudié butoh con Gustavo Colini Sartor y en el año 98 viajé a Japón. A partir de ahí estuve dando clases de butoh y bailando entre ellos en el Jardín Japonés. |
| Oguri | Oguri (Naoyuki Oguri) is a Japan-born Butoh choreographer and co-founder of Body Weather, based in Los Angeles since 1991; his work blends Butoh’s minutely refined movement with environmental and site-specific performance forms. Was noted to have yelled out, “That’s not butoh!” to Kasai during his performance at the San Francisco Butoh Festival at which Kasai replied with, “How dare you call this not butoh! I’m pouring my heart and soul into this moment!” (Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022.) |
| Okamoto Yoshifumi | Listed as part of Ko Murobushi’s company: Sebi (fire on the back). Source: Centonze, Katja. “Murobushi Kō and His Challenge to Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 226–236. |
| Okyon | Mentioned as butoh dancer for the butoh film Curtain of Eyes, directed by Daniele Wilmouth and choreographed by Katsura Kan (https://www.danielewilmouth.com/curtain-of-eyes) |
| Olga Kravtsova | Olga Kravtsova is a Russian-born, Portland-based movement director, performer, and interdisciplinary artist whose practice blends physical storytelling, sensory design, and immersive installation. Trained at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) and the State Ensemble of M.E. Pyatnitsky, she holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington. Her residencies include CoHo Theater and New Expressive Works, and her work has been supported by RACC and the Fertile Ground Festival. Recent projects include Harvest of Woman, a ritualistic installation exploring unseen feminine labor, and Far From Home, developed with Grow Grant support. As a neurodivergent and immigrant artist, Olga works from an embodied sense of thresholds, adaptation, and displacement—inviting audiences into altered perceptual states shaped by emotional logic and sensory resonance.(https://www.olgaskravtsova.com/about/bio) Olga will be performing in the Northwestern Butoh Festival in Portland, OR in May of 2026. |
| Oran Ito | Oran Ito is listed as part of Dairakudakan’s ensemble alongside renowned dancers like Akaji Maro, Ikko Tamura, Naomi Muku, Azusa Fujimoto, and others in the “Directory of Butoh Artists / Dancers Worldwide www.jordanrosin.com |
| Orland Verdú | Director of Oracles Theatre. Actor and playwright. Expert in Tarot Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. He has been working in the performing arts since 2008. He has won several theatre awards. Producer and promoter of Butoh dance in Barcelona and of his own MITOH method. He has taught courses in Quebec, Madrid and the Basque Country. His directed/performed Butoh dance works include: “Nostalgia”, “Pandora”, “Quasimodo”, “Icarus: The Last Flight”, “Hamelin: The Flautist & The Rats”, “Pinocchio: The Birth of the Actor”, and the multidisciplinary work: “NAGASAKI: Wilderness Mute”, presented in the USA and co-directed with Keiko Fujiie. |
| Osku Leinonen | Osku Leinonen, a freelance artist living in Tampere, Finland, is a versatile trainer and stage artist specializing in applied theatre. At heart, Leinonen is a Butoh dancer and instructor who shares knowledge of this humane and intriguing form of performance, especially in Finland, where this art form remains relatively unknown. In addition, Leinonen has a background as a physical theatre performer. Leinonen attained his physical theatre credentials by working and training at The Mime Centre’s Total Theatre Training program run by Adam Darius and Kazimir Kolesnik in 2004-2005 in Helsinki. He was also a private student of Adam Darius for several years. In addition, he spent several years practicing acrobatics at Circus Helsinki. (https://english.oskuleinonen.com/biography) |
| Özerk Sonat Pamir | Özerk Sonat Pamir is an improvisational performer who started his artistic career studying contemporary theatre with the founders of TAL (Theatre Research Laboratory) in Istanbul at 2002. He has been teaching movement research and improvisation since 2009 based on his breathbody method. His idea of performance has always been related to social issues: one of his early performances was a political happening that was criticizing solitary confinement in prisons. He also performed to support and raise awareness for various nature conservation movements in Turkey. He has been sharing his work internationally during the last years. (https://stoasirince.org/sanatcilar/ozerk-sonat-pamir/1220/detay) |
| Paige Starling Sorvillo | Paige Starling Sorvillo (she/her/cis/queer) is an improvising choreographer equally valuing instantaneous surreptitious public choreographies and extensively researched/rehearsed works for stage, site and video. Her choreographic practices employ association games and translation practices to generate: minimalist duos with musicians; “image-games” with artist groups; choreographies for objects and humans; and multi-layered intermedia work. She less often defines a set of fixed movements, but rather offers a set of sensory, intellectual, visual or emotional instigations that generate energetic state(s), movement/body qualities, text, images and sound. Her physical performance dialect is charged with emotional and energetic nuance influenced by deep study of Japanese Butoh dance, Noguchi training, Ruth Zaporah’s Action Theater, western contemporary dance forms, and a deep nerdy love for the study of anatomy and kinesiology. She has presented work throughout the bay area, in various US cities as well as internationally since 2001. CV available upon request. (https://www.blindsight.work/about) |
| Pamela Herron | Pamela Herron is listed as a principal dancer at Vangeline Theater (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-herron-5a15a119) |
| Paul Ibey | Paul Ibey is of French, British and Irish background. His training in Europe includes mime and movement with Adam Darius, contemporary dance at The Place and with Ballet Rambert’s Lucy Burge, Sally Owen, Ruth Silk, Nelson Fernandez, Christopher Bruce and Robert Cohan of London Contemporary Dance Theatre. His ballet training has included the Royal Ballet’s Lynn Seymour, Roger Tulley, Tatiana Tchernova, Lazaro Surmeyan, Gelsey Kirkland and Stanley Williams. He also studied and worked with the world renowned Lindsay Kemp. His prime focus has been Butoh dance, which he studied with Sankai Juku, Dai Rakuda Kan, Natsu Nakajima, Carlotta Ikeda, Manhong Kang, and Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno. His choreography includes a trilogy of works inspired by Jean Genet: Querelle (1986), Master and Servant (1988), and Treasures of the Night (1993). In 1990, he choreographed the controversial Aesthetes and Decadents, inspired by the life and works of Oscar Wilde and Ordeal by Roses, inspired by the life and work of Yukio Mishima. The critically acclaimed Lulu was created in 1991, followed in 1992 by Dances with Wolf(gang), His Monkey Wife and the solo Gat. In 1994, his evening-length The Last Veil was presented as part of the prestigious DuMaurier World Stage Festival in Toronto. His works include Dans les profondeurs du silence for the historic l’Atelier de la Danse in Paris at the invitation of French dance legend Jacqueline Robinson (Chevalier des Arts et Lettres), and the solos Seraphita (Le Regard du Cygne, Paris), and Egonie/Agonie (Paris). His full length solo La volupté d’être has been performed at major festivals such as Kazuo Ohno Dance Festival (Japan), La Mama Moves (New York), Fabbricca Europa (Italy), Contemporary Dance Festival (Egypt), Poznan Biennale of Contemporary Dance (Poland), Kaunas Festival of Contemporary Dance (Lithuania), and Resolution! at The Place (London) and the first butoh festival in Budapest. His more recent works include Ombra-Hommage to Kazuo Ohno (Kazuo Ohno Memorial 2010, Japan), Dead Sea (Poland, Egypt), Khlysty (Turkey, Poland, Prague), Loon Song (Albania/Czech Republic/Beirut), and Angelic Conversations (Egypt/Turkey). He also created Coelecanth and The Ninth Wave (Albania) in 2009, and Cryosphere which premiered at the legendary off-Broadway La Mama Theatre at the invitation of founder Ellen Stewart in New York and taught classes at the Martha Graham School as well as performing at the White Wave New York Festival during 2010/2011. He has also worked with distinguished dance artists Yoshito Ohno, Lynn Seymour, Naomi Sorkin, Yvette Bozsik, Nasser Matin-Gousset, Beyhan Murphy, Yoko Ichino and David Nixon. His work has been televised in Croatia, Poland, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Albania and has been featured in the books MARCHESA CASATI: PORTRAITS OF A LEGEND, and MARCHESA CASATI: INFINITE VARIETY. He has the unique distinction of being the one of the first butoh artists to perform in the Middle East and one of the few non-Japanese to gain approval of the butoh masters Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, Akira Kazai, Yukio Waguri, Eiko and Koma, and the Tatsumi Hijikata Archives. In addition to his choreography, he has taught butoh master classes and coached for The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Mimar Sinan University (Turkey), Mekkan Studios (Turkey), Alchera Theatre Company (Turkey), Tarragon Theatre Studio (Toronto), Compagnie Yvette Bozsik (Budapest), Trafo House of Contemporary Arts (Budapest), and Petr Tyc Dance Theatre/FX Aldy Theatre (Czech Republic), METU Contemporary Dance Platform (Ankara), Silesian Dance Theatre Festival (Poland), Croatian Festival of Dance and Non-Verbal Theatre, Poznan Biennale of Contemporary Dance (Poland), Lublin International Dance Festival (Poland), Northern Ballet Theatre (Leeds), Orkestika Dance Company (Budapest), Salzburg Academy of Experimental Dance (Austria), ProArt Festival (Czech Republic), Playground Studios (London), El Warsah Theatre (Cairo), SEE Studios (Cairo), School of Contemporary Dance (Cairo), Anurekha Ghosh Company (UK), Maqamat Dance Theatre (Beirut), and Ramallah Contemporary Dance Theatre (Palestine). |
| Paul Mackilligin | Paul Mackilligin began practising butoh with Café Reason in 2001. His main artistic interest lies in the interaction between performer and audience. “Butoh gives me a context for intimacy with an audience which is quite unique I think. On good days I leave my personality behind – like taking off an overcoat or peeling off a skin – and what I find underneath is a thing that the audience recognises even if they have no words for it. Butoh is not a polite thing to do to an audience, but it is an act of solidarity.” (http://www.cafereason.com/main/people.htm) |
| Paul Michael Henry | I am an Irish Scottish dancer, musician and performance artist. My work is informed by Butoh dance, punk rock and ritual, and is performed all over the world. Recent projects include SHRIMP DANCE at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 (a multimedia dance work exploring the links between anti-depressants, ecological crisis and late capitalism), touring the United States with Laughter at Being Crushed, performing in in France and Japan, and two new dance films, My Whole Face Sort of Fell Off and Excuse Me I Am Expanding. I am currently working towards a PhD at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, researching techniques for shifting our sense of self from Individual-Consumer to Interdependent-Ecological. My themes are political, social & spiritual, dealing with love, neglect of the body, destruction of the environment and atrophy of the soul in consumerist society. I am also Artistic Director and creator of UNFIX, an evolving and experimental festival platforming ecologically committed performance, dance, music, film and discussion. UNFIX is intended as a contribution to the waking up of the human species to our predicament in an age of climate change, massive inequality and crazy consumerism. It is based in Glasgow and is ongoing here and in New York City, Bologna, and Tokyo. I teach regular Butoh dance workshops called The Dreaming Body at the Centre for Contemporary Arts. https://theworkroom.org.uk/members/paul-michael-henry/ |
| Paula Jeanine Bennett | Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Paula Jeanine Bennett is an American original with a deep and soulful commitment to the creative path. A movement artist, composer, musician, lyricist and visual artist, she often does projects that combine her skills. She has done myriad global projects and cultural arts activism is key to her work. Since 2020, she has been exploring the nexus of visual and performance art through ground-based pieces that are meant for movement interaction. Paula has created the butoh-infused dance “Ghost Post”, a response to architecture and war, “Deep Song”, a jazz-butoh dance meditation on a woman’s path of loneliness, “Social Botany”, a meditation on cellular decay through the language of butoh, and “The Wanting Creature” a three-part journey through darkness and light, inspired by the 15th century poet Kabir. All of Paula’s recent pieces incorporate a visual art element and soundscape of her own creation. In April 2025, she was the closing night performer at the prestigious “Butohpolis” Festival in Warsaw. |
| Paulina Almeida | Paulina is a performer and visual artist whose practice is deeply informed by butoh, which she studied with international masters. Her work explores the body as a sensitive archive, a site of transformation, and a medium for ecological and political listening. Moving between performance, installation, and ritual, she creates poetic actions grounded in slowness, presence, and embodied memory, often in dialogue with landscapes and communities. Born in Guimarães, Portugal, in 1978. Creates as a freelancer director, writer, performer and teacher since 1996, combining dance, performance, circus, and anthropological theater. Collaborated with the street theater company Grotest Maru (Germany) since 2002 in several exhibitions, workshops and festivals, as a performer, director and teacher. As an actress and dancer with companies Plasticiens Volants (France) since 2004 and Ten Pen Chi Art Labor (Germany) since 2010. |
| Paweł Dudziński | Referenced as a butoh dancer in Zamorska, Magdalena. Intense Bodily Presence: Practices of Polish Butō Dancers. Translated by Patrycja Poniatowska, Peter Lang, 2018. |
| Pé Vermeersch | Pé Vermeersch is a Belgian choreographer, dancer, and visual artist born in 1969 in Izegem, Belgium. She holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the Universities of Ghent and Brussels. Her artistic journey began with early training in dance, leading to her active participation in the Flemish theatre circuit as an actress with several companies from a very young age. |
| Pechika Satoh | Referenced as a Butoh artist at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00519/ |
| Peter Damien | Born 1971 in basel, Switzerland. Studies graphic design and works since as freelance designer around the globe. travelling becomes a art of living and a way to grow. 2006 travel to India and first contact with butoh dance at the Subbody Himalayan School. Deeply inspired by the founders Rhizome Lee’s method of Life Resonance. Further studies follow 2007 and 2009, when first solo «Requiem» gets developed. 2008 residence at berlin and workshops with Minako Seki, Yuko Kaseki and Imre Thormann. Another important influence trough Jinen Butoh guided by Atsushi Takenouchi, 2010. (Wayback archive of butoh-off.com: https://web.archive.org/web/20101015223419/http://www.butoh-off.com/index.php?/performance/resonance-artist) |
| Peter Fraser | Peter Fraser does improvised and place-based dance: he likes to experience the body as an ecology. He performed extensively with DeQuinceyCo over almost 30 years, in extended desert-based projects, urban site-specific performance and black box dance. He co-founded the Environmental Performance Authority to make performance linking performers and audiences with their surroundings http://www.environmentalperformanceauthority.com. Peter has worked in various performance modes (eg Deborah Hay’s Solo Commissioning Project, Xavier Le Roy’s exhibition/performance Temporary Title, Arjun Raina’s The Magic Hour, involving Kathakali/Butoh/Body Weather – with Helen Smith) and in his own practice. Ongoing projects include: Sounds Like Movement, a quirky duo with instrument-maker/musician Dale Gorfinkel celebrating relationships between movement and sound https://soundslikemovement.tumblr.com/ |
| Pia Maria | After a few years of concert work as a pianist, dance training followed in Tokyo with Kazuo Ohno, Masaki Iwana, Daisuke Yoshimoto, Carlotta Ikeda, Feldenkrais and movement studies in Ikedashizen/Noguchitaiso. As a freelance artist, Pia Maria lived for several years in Tokyo and Berlin, where she gave numerous performances and workshops in the fields of music and dance theater. (https://www.katharinaweber.ch/ensembles/pia-maria-katharina-weber) |
| Pijin Neji | Dancer/choreographer. Represents neji&co. He danced in the butoh company Dairakudakan directed by Maro Akaji until 2004, and developing on his physicality based on butoh, he started to create solo dances with microscopic approach to his own body and choreographic works with materialist approach to the bodies of the dancers. He creates dance works that focus on gestures that have no purpose and disappear the moment they move, the space of the theater and the time of the performing arts that integrates these into a work. He received the Yokohama Dance Collection EX Jury Prize and was selected in the Festival/Tokyo’s Emerging Artists Program for F/T Award in 2011. In 2016, he curated “Our Masters – Hijikata Tatsumi <방언/glossolalia>” at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, Korea. 2021-2023 THEATRE E9 KYOTO associate artist. 2022-2024 The Saison Foundation Saison Fellow Ⅱ(2022-2024). (http://nejiandco.com/about) ### ▶️ Video Class * Jumping conditioning https://youtu.be/MTStj-eseHU?si=ZoQifD1fSdUamV-k |
| Pilar Echavarria | Somatic mover, nomad dancer, a researcher of states of dance, Sub-Body Butoh Midwife, Water healer and therapist, holistic Artist and Architect of the invisible. (https://forgotten-land.com/blog/people/pilar-echavarria) |
| Pinar Sinka (PIArtButoh) | Pinar is a Butohist, visual artist, Butoh instructor and founder of PIArtButoh based in South Florida. Sinka lived in Asia for seven years and studied Butoh and she has been performing, teaching and organizing Butoh since 2013. |
| Pinyako Ota | Listed as butoh dancer at Sapporo Butoh. She dances with the aim of embracing people through Butoh. Mainly performs on the street. (https://sapporo-butoh.com/pinyako-otaasahikawa) |
| Prabhath Bhaskaran | Dr. Prabhath Bhaskaran is a performance artist…Prabhath’s journey in theatre includes teaching, learning, and creation experiences, each one an exercise in building deeply embodied knowledge in each present moment. Now a farmer and theatre-maker working out of a village in Japan, Prabhath’s engagements with Kalaripayattu, Tai Chi, Mime, Noh and his study of Butoh (a form that emerged from post-world war Japan) gave us an opportunity to interact with him and be provoked to shift the ways in which we exist and engage with the chaosmos. |
| Quentin Chaveriat | Quentin Chaveriat is an art historian and multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels (Belgium) and graduated in acting from the Conservatory of Mons. He completed his training by going to Japan to study Butoh with Master Seiji Tanaka. Since then, he has produced performances with the Sombre Compagnie, including Memento: la pluie, presented in the Netherlands, France, and Japan, as well as La tentation de Saint-Antoine, a piece created in collaboration with the Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium inspired by a Salvador Dali painting. As an artist, he enjoys exploring the relationship between fine arts and dance, and also performs hybrid drag/butoh acts in cabarets, such as Memento. In 2020, during the pandemic, his slow-walking performance, half-naked in the streets of Brussels, with the words « No culture, no future » painted in blood on his chest brought him notoriety. Since then, he has been politically engaged and defines himself as a queer artist. He works under the theatrical direction of Fabrice Murgia or Clément Thirion and dances for famous Belgian companies such as Mossoux-Bonté and t.r.a.n.s.i.t.s.c.a.p.e. He is currently working on a dance-theater performance called Tombe la neige sur Saïgon (Snow falling on Saigon), that questions his relationship with Vietnam. Together with some friends, he created the RAVIE collective. In 2023, they took over the direction of the Théâtre de la Vie, an important theater dedicated to emerging artists. It’s the first collective experience of directing an important cultural center in Belgium. |
| Rachael Rei-Rei | Dark Morning Butoh Theatre is a movement and performance ensemble founded by Rachael Rei-Rei in Fremantle, Western Australia around 1997, recognized as the region’s first dedicated Butoh dance company. She has cultivated a site-specific and immersive Butoh practice over three decades, often collaborating with non-professional participants—such as visual artists, musicians, and wellness practitioners—to create performances in unconventional spaces like beaches, galleries, or open-air installations |
| Rachel Kostusik | An Artist-Researcher; Digital Mixed Reality Puppeteer & Education Academic | Current foci: Immersive Learning Technologies, Butoh + Applied Theatre, AI/XR Pedagogical Agents. Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality simulation-based learning | MRes [Applied Theatre & Immersive Learning Technologies] BA [Asian Studies:Japanese, Theatre, Comms] Dip Ed., ATAR Drama, Media Arts (Current TRBWA) Grad Cert [Counselling] (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachael-Kostusik) Academic Text Kostusik, Rachael. Ludic Learning Lab: Serious Games for Nurses. Theatre Training Reimagined. Murdoch University, 2021. Master’s thesis. |
| Rafaela Bidarra | I began my work as an actress in 2004. From 2005, I studied theater and nursing in parallel. In 2010, I discovered Butoh dance, and since then, my professional life has smelled of Butoh. I have worked on productions in which Butoh is the main language; as a dancer, actress, assistant director, and producer. In 2018, I began to focus my teaching work on Butoh dance, giving intensive workshops ever since. Through Butoh dance, I seek my own language of artistic expression that jointly develops the voice and the body as inseparable tools. |
| Raissa Scarton | 10 years dancing and guiding butoh. |
| Ralph Rosenfield | Listed as butoh artist on butoh.net (Wayback link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210417165408/https://www.butoh.net/butoh/Butoh_Artists.html) |
| Ramhari Adhikari | He has been practicing drama and theater in Nepal since the 2070s B.S. Together with a friend, he founded a company called Indreni Theater. In 2080 B.S., this organization began staging official Butoh performances in Nepal. Since Butoh is still in its developing stage in Nepal, his contribution to initiating this growth is truly remarkable. |
| Ranko Ogura | Asian American dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and teacher. Surrounded by rich nature, she grew up in Hokkaido, Japan. She was strongly influenced by her parents’ practices of Japanese arts during her childhood. She immigrated to the U.S. and learned modern dance and contemporary dance in NY. In such a greatly diverse city, Ranko realized her spirituality as a Japanese and became interested in Japanese traditional culture, tribe, and history. She moved the main base of activities to San Francisco, and she mastered Butoh, a Japanese soul dance, during her pursuit of the essence of Japaneseness. Butoh shares the philosophy with Japanese Zen Buddhism, and the quintessence of dance emerges through its mode of expression. She creates dance performances based on her deep understanding of the harmony between Butoh and nature. Through her performances, she also promotes environmental preservation. (https://www.instagram.com/p/CtSFJfmSUsN/?img_index=1) |
| Raquel Almazan | Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary producing artist, educator and advocate. Her eclectic career as artist-activist spans original multi-media solo performances, playwriting, devising- dramaturgy and filmmaking. She is the Executive Artistic Director of La Lucha Arts and creator – facilitator of arts programs for intergenerational communities, with a focus on social justice and is a practitioner of Butoh Dance. Their work has been presented in New York City- including Off-Broadway, throughout the United States and internationally in Greece, Italy, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Canada and Sweden; including plays within her long term project on writing bi-lingual plays in dedication to Latin American countries (Latin is America play cycle). |
| Raquel Salgado | Born in 1992. She is a butoh dancer, choreographer and teacher. She studied philosophy at the FFyL, UNAM. She began her training in butoh dance, and has been active as a creator since 2014. She has performed at various forums and museums in CDMX, Guadalajara and Japan. She has collaborated with different choreographers and artists such as: Yukio Suzuki, Eugenia Vargas, Fernando Vigueras, Pablo Martínez Zárate, Juanjosé Rivas, Le Quân Ninh, Carmina Escobar, Priscela Uvalle, etc. (https://filmfreeway.com/RaquelSalgado) |
| Rashinban Hoshino | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Rasjid Cesar | Rasjid Cesar was formed in butoh dance for five years with Rhea Volij and has taken seminars with Katsura Kan, Yuko Kaseki, Minako Seki, Ko Murobushi, Tadashi Endo, Yumiko Yoshioka and Semimaru (Sankai Juku). He has presented his butoh solos in Uruguay, Argentina, Spain, France and Austria. He has participated in two plays directed by Katsura Kan and they toured together for Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. He has produced to Ko Murobushi (Teatro Solis), Minako Seki- Yuko Kaseki and Rhea Volij (2003-2007. From 1987 to 1993 he worked mime, clown, actor and theater director. He has linked art to social projects from 1987 to the present. Creator of “Art and sensitization” program where he worked 8 years in prisons for women with children. He has also taught and directed plays with people with special needs. The Procurator’s Penitentiary Office of the Nation Argentina published his book “Inside” about his work in Argentine federal prisons with women prisoners with young children. He taught his program in UNSAM (National University of San Martin) for the career of educational psychology. |
| Rayu Tetsu | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Rebecca Griffin | Rebecca Griffin was a recipient of Dance Ireland’s Launchpad Bursary in 2019. “I practice butoh dancing and ballet. I teach dance classes in my community.” Rebecca has received funding from Cork City Council to further her professional development in Butoh. |
| Rebecca Lenaerts | Since Rebecca Lenaerts (1980, Belgium) studied theatre at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS) in Brussels and the UDK Berlin, hybridity and transdisciplinary practices have been a constant in her artistic journey. Her work consists of interventions, installations, performances and the intersection between those genres, often outside the confines of the performing arts circuit. Strongly inspired by the movement practice and philosophy of Japanese Butoh Dance, she develops work in which she explores presence and vulnerability in a performative context. This shift took place thanks to a development grant from Kunstendecreet Flanders and laid the foundation for new work. (from https://www.rebeccalenaerts.net) |
| Regina Masuhr | See it in my website. |
| Reiko Matsumoto | Born in Osaka and raised up in Tokyo. She started art work and held her first solo exhibition in 1997 in Nagoya. Every year she carries out exhibitions of mainly abstract painting, sumi painting in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. She started Workshop & Exhibition of Peace Stamps, which is peace action through art in Nagoya and Tokyo in 2001. She has also organized the art school “Atelier Rei” for children and adults since 2008. (https://reika936832417.wordpress.com) “I’d learned modern dance before but I was very shocked to see the Butoh of Yoshito Ohno, because it was so different from what I’d learned. His movement was minimal but beautiful. I quit modern dance and began to learn Butoh at Ohno Kazuo Butoh Studio.” Tsubushi Butoh Journal instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DKtOPr4O48H/?img_index=1 |
| Reiko Nakazawa | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00200/) |
| René Schmalz | Someone mentioned guiding under her for 3 years at the following source: http://www.biosynthesis.org/html/e_portraits.html |
| Rhea Volij | Rhea Volij is a renowned dancer, choreographer, teacher, and director. She trained in butoh dance for five years with Sumako Koseki in France and studied with other prestigious masters. She combined her training in body expression and contemporary dance with martial arts, the Aberastury technique, and studies in philosophy. Her works have been presented at festivals and performances in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. She has directed numerous pieces in Argentina and Mexico. She collaborated with Cristina Banegas and Pompeyo Audivert on several of their productions. Some of her works include The Trap of the Lost Paradise, Speak, Cassandra, Horda, The Trace of the Foam, among others. She has published two books: The Conspiracy of Representation and contributes to the compilation The Language of Dance. |
| Rhizome Lee | Rhizome Lee is a Japanese Butoh teacher and founder of the Subbody Butoh School in Dharamsala, known for combining movement with mental and environmental resonance and author of The Butoh Revolution: A Dedication to Tatsumi Hijikata. |
| Ricardo Nora | Dancer and choreographer Dance therapist, residing in Ibiza (though associated with Barcelona’s scene) Formal training in Western contemporary dance, traditional Japanese dance, and post-modern dance Since 2005, director of Cía Bàtáfurai Danza, and HarU Project, a multidisciplinary creative meeting platform emphasizing dance and its environment in unconventional spaces |
| Rie Tahiti | Part of Mushimaru’s Physical Poets. At the height of summer 1980, he lived in Iga. The beginning of an impromptu life. In 2001, she studied under natural body poet Tojo Mushimaru. The dance, full of innate energy, embodies the primordial human form The cadence of the universe played by the body moves the heavens and the earth, as well as the hearts of those who see it. Explore the possibilities of physical expression without being bound by established dance codes the soul’s journey to find the pieces of memory continues. (https://thephysicalpoets.wixsite.com/tpp-official/rie-tahiiti) |
| Riko Murakami | Riko Murakami (Butoh dance) studied Image Arts and Science at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. While still a student, she joined the Butoh dance company Kiraza and has appeared in productions “”Hana-Ikusa”” (2012) and “”Uzume – The Power to Open a Wind Cave”” (2014). She collaborated with art photographer Marco van Duyvendijk on the photobook “”Riko”” (2014) and acted the lead role in Takashi Ito’s film “”The Last Angel”” (2014). She has also regularly contributed to the event series “”Experiments in Art and Technology”” organized by Michael Lyons. (https://www.pankeculture.com/scope-session-40-riko-murakami-haruka-mitani-performance-malte-steiner-wolfgang-spahn-karla-brunet) |
| Rin Azuma | Listed in Japan Contemporary Dance Archive as butoh dancer (https://wikiwiki.jp/jcdnmdfe/ARTISTS/Rin%20Azuma#:hl:word=butoh) |
| Rin Shibata | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Rita Soma | Nomad artist with background in theatre, I have been practicing butoh since 2016, and performing arts since 2008. Researcher of the invisible between worlds, I integrate the shadows and lights while letting hidden dreams and realities dance through my body. |
| Ritsu Minatama | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Ritsuko Takahashi | Ritsuko Takahashi is an actress and Butoh dancer. She performed in plays by Shūji Terayama for five years. A student of Daisuke Yoshimoto, she started dancing Butoh in 2007. She created the series of performances Miss R’s Story, which comprises Nostalgia (2008) and On the Other Side of the River (2009). In 2010 she performed at “Butoh Women”, an event hosted by the Grotowski Institute. (http://www2.grotowski-institute.art.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&lang=en&id=1372) |
| Robert Morris | Robert Morris is an independent Butoh Dancer and the founder of EnMa [演間], a Honolulu-based experimental performance collective based in Honolulu. An MFA graduate from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, his dance is heavily influenced by his extensive training in traditional performing arts, most prominently Noh, Kabuki, and Balinese Dance. With almost a decade of experience in Noh, he is also a company member of Theatre Nohgaku, a globally-celebrated international group of artists creating new Noh. |
| Robyn Bjornson | Robyn Bjornson is a movement and dance facilitator, youth mentor and performing artist. She draws on her deep study of Yoga, contact improvisation, acrobatics, dance and butoh as the foundations for her unfolding practice and lifestyle. She began the study of Butoh with Maureen Freehill in 2014 and performed in her first piece in 2015 choreographed by Alycia Scott. In 2016 she dove deeply into the practice of Butoh at The Evergreen State College with help of her dear friend and artistic collaborator Ivan Espinosa, who choreographed many pieces she was in. She studied with Diego Pinon and Sheri Brown in college while performing in several staged and public park performances. She joined DIAPAN originally as a stage manager and has formed close friendship and artistic collaborations with many of the members of DAIPAN. Robyn continues her deep appreciation for the elders of this Art form and is humbled to call herself a DIAPAN member. Along with all her human teachers and their lineages, Robyn draws some of her deepest lessons from the earth beneath her feet in which she dedicates many of her dances to. |
| Rocío Wabizasui | ROCÍO is a multidisciplinary artist. She began studying Classical Ballet at age 4 and was part of the Spanish Classical Company Al-Andalus for 9 years. She was a dancer and assistant director for the Bebeto Cidra Dansa Contemporary Dance Company and Dolors Gardeñas Company from her 20s to her 30s. At age 25, she began her training in Contemporary Dance, Body Weather, and Butoh Dance in Barcelona, Madrid, Germany, Thailand, Portugal, and Japan. She trained in traditional Japanese dances such as Nihon buyo, Bon o dori, Kamigata-mai from the Edo period (Jiuta-mai), Butoh Notations, and Noh Theatre. Rocío has studied Video Editing and Editing, Performance Painting, and Video Techniques Applied to the Stage. She has participated in international video dance festivals such as Agite and Sirva Mexico, Dance and Media Japan, the NY Performance Festival, the Amsterdam International Festival, the Untouchable Ukraine International Festival, and the International Butoh Festival in Thailand. She has been the Artistic Director of the Minimum International Video Dance Festival and Haru Project: Danza & Media Ibiza since 2008. |
| Rodrigo Angoitia | Originally from Mexico City, he has lived in Xalapa, Veracruz since 1996. He studied Graham technique with Antonia Quiroz and Jaime Blanc; Classical Dance with Javier Torres and Oscar Ruvalcaba. He studied acting, research, and movement analysis with Abraham Oceransky, Sonia Fernández, and Beate G. Zschiesche. (https://www.uv.mx/danza/files/2015/02/Rodrigo-Angoitia-CV.pdf) |
| Rosana Barra | Rosana Barra is a Brazil-born artist (São Paulo, later Rio de Janeiro for her acting training) who has lived and worked in Barcelona, Spain since 1992 She trained professionally as an actress in 1992 in Rio, and since then has developed a multidisciplinary career in body-centered work and dance. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh Cuarentena Intro (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/live/U62593hqJJs?si=lglpGR0r7BD3BqIc * Como Despertar La Compasion Del Arbol? (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/live/oNAYPGA0Nw0?si=c7scTXfcdOJvwHH9 * Como Evocar Tu Animal de Poder? (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/live/vTEmPor4FFQ?si=lXOrYmfw78UVxmA5 * Despierta La Memoria de Tu Sangre (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/live/-xqJoBUV6pM?si=AQG5PnhL89TrcEHE * Hoja en Blanco (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/live/4cgVnbXnKFI?si=KFjZD0A50zWqkJO2 * ¿Meditación en Movimiento? Butoh y Autocuidado (Spanish) https://youtu.be/xzTXd28AnX8?si=U2aO-F4pXOye57re |
| Rosemary Candelario | As a scholar and performer, Rosemary Candelario specializes in butoh. Other research interests include Asian and Asian American dance, dance and ecology, site-specific performance, and arts activism. […] Rosemary earned a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA and is Associate Professor of Dance at Texas Woman’s University. (Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario, editors. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance. Routledge, 2018.) Academic Texts Candelario, Rosemary. Flowers Cracking Concrete: Eiko & Koma’s Asian/American Choreographies. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2016. Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario, editors. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance. London: Routledge, 2018. Candelario, Rosemary. “Now We Have a Passport: Global and Local Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 275–284. Candelario, Rosemary. “Dancing the Space: Butoh and Body Weather as Training for Ecological Consciousness.” The Routledge Companion to Dance Studies, edited by Helen Thomas and Stacey Prickett, Routledge, 2019, pp. 15–23. Candelario, Rosemary. “Butoh Ecologies: Dance Practice as Training for a New Relationship with the Environment.” Arcade: The Humanities in the World, Stanford University, 2023. Candelario, Rosemary. “Violences, Aftermaths, and Family, or: How to Make Dances in This Body?” Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, University of Michigan Press, 2023. Candelario, Rosemary, and Brian Preece. “Birthing A/New.” Errantes del Carne, 2022. Candelario, Rosemary. “Eiko & Koma: Choreographing Spaces Apart in Asian America.” PhD Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 2011. |
| Roxanne Steinberg | Roxanne Steinberg is a dancer, choreographer, improviser, and a pioneering figure of Body Weather Laboratory in Los Angeles, which she co-founded in 1988. (https://www.bodyweather.org/roxanne) |
| Rui Ishihara | Rui Ishihara is a dancer and choreographer deeply inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the founders of butoh dance. He started his dance career in 2000, first as a contemporary dancer. Then, he found the direction of his artistic path thanks to meetings with dancers Kazuo Ohno, Min Tanaka and Simone Forti (postmodern dance). In 2006, he began his life project Kanademai, a dance pilgrimage. He performs an offering dance in a variety of natural and artificial locations; so far, he has appeared in Italy, Ireland, France, Germany, Poland and Japan. Since then, he has collaborated with various artists and musicians in Europe. In 2009, he settled in Warsaw, where he continues his research on dance and body. In recent years, while working as a dancer and choreographer, he has started exploring different fields of art, for example, singing. This broadens his perspective in research. Dance tells us what Life is we are the Life itself. Dance is always here, there, and everywhere. I wish I would be a dance in one moment countless resonances in space-time echo and flash all together they emerge as a dance here and now, a dance of existences meeting in harmony. (https://taniecpolska.pl/en/ludzie-tanca/rui-ishihara-en) |
| Rupesh Chouhan | A dedicated physical performer based in Mumbai with over 4 years of training in Kalaripayattu and formal experience in yoga. I’ve been leading and managing Butoh workshops consistently for 2 years. As an actor and mover, I explore deep physical expression rooted in discipline and awareness. |
| Ryo Honda | Listed under Japan Dance Archive https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00669/ |
| Ryoko Meguro | Ryoko was born in 1991 in Niigata prefecture in Japan. Since 2013, she has been trained under the butoh dancer, Seiji Tanaka. Now, she mainly creates and performs based in Kyoto. As a Butoh dancer, she creates stage performances by focusing on the relationship between existence and space. She uses bodies as channels to embody transcendental existence of Buddhist sculptures from Nara period as well as to resurrect primordial experience. (https://ryokomeguro.studio.site) |
| Ryugoro Kuze | Currently active butoh performer in Tokyo (https://www.tokyogigguide.com/en/gigs/event/29754) Performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETtsfKwHJAk |
| Ryuta Gan | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00522/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Ryuzo Fukuhara | Born in 1965 in Japan. Fukuhara started his carrier as a dancer after attending Butoh workshop led by Semi-maru from the group Sankaijuku in 1987. In 1991 Fukuhara joined the Butoh dance group Maijuku directed by Min Tanaka. From 2000 onwards, Fukuhara moved to Europe. In 2006, he was awarded the 2nd prize of solo-dance contest at 11Masdanza – the International Contemporary Dance Festival in Canary Islands, Spain. In 2010, he was invited to Arsenale della Danza as a guest teacher of dance master class in La Biennale di Venezia. Fukuhara got the status of the independent cultural workers from Ministry of Culture in Slovenia in 2011. Now he is teaching dance as a guest teacher at Asian and African study course in the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia . (http://www.idocde.net/idocs/714) |
| Saara Roppola | Saara Roppola is a visual artist, performer, Butoh dancer and puppeteer currently based in Brisbane. Her work considers ’embodiment’; encompassing notions of post-humanism, universal structures connecting micro and macrocosms, hermaphroditism, death, trans-speciesism, and the transformative potential of the body. (https://www.cedarroppola.com) |
| Sabine Seume | Sabine Seume (1963–2021) was a German Butoh dancer, choreographer, and teacher who trained in classical and modern dance with Pina Bausch’s Folkwang School before studying Butoh under Carlotta Ikeda in Japan and became a key figure in hybrid European Butoh performance. |
| Sachiko Ishikawa | Since 2003, she’s collaborated with Thierry Castel on street theater/performance art, combining elements of “Mime-Dance-Statuary” and “Movement Meditation” – delivering over 1,400 workshop days to date butohartwaves.blogspot.com Her creations include solo, duo, and group works showcased across Europe and Japan. From 2011 onwards, she’s been active as a teacher, offering Butoh workshops both in France and internationally. In 2020, her solo dance film “AKA – rouge” (directed by Dorothée Murail) was featured in several international film festivals |
| Sachiko Tokita | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Sadayuki Hayashi | Listed as a butoh dancer at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00398 |
| Saga Kobayashi | This chapter paints a picture of Kobayashi Saga, who stands second only to Ashikawa Yôko in immersion in Hijikata’s dance techniques. After Hijikata’s death, she developed her own style of butô focused on exploring, overcoming, and recognizing the limits of knowledge, memory, perception, and the body. The chapter includes description and analysis of Half-dream: Double Aura (2007) and Short Night (2013). |
| Saï | Listed as butoh artists forgotten during butoh’s rise in France. Source: Pagès, Sylviane. “A History of French Fascination with Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. approx. 519–528. |
| Sakurako | Sakurako Sakurako is an artist, performer, butoh dancer and choreographer/director working worldwide, mostly in situ. Currently she lives in Nimes in the South of France, although she lived and worked in Vilnius, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo, etc. She is leading dance-theatre company Okarukas, based in Vilnius, as an artistic director and choreographer. Although Sakurako was trained as a conceptual & visual artist, she also has been practicing martial arts and various dance and movement techniques after graduating from Fine Arts (Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam) in 2008. She studied tradition Japanese Noh theatre and contemporary dance butoh with various masters in Japan. She also has a pedagogy degree and teaches butoh at Lithuanian Music and Theatre academy and teaches art and theatre/dance and gives butoh workshops worldwide. Sakurako creates live performances balancing on the edge between performance art, theatre and dance. The works are conceptual with strong visual elements where the main focus is on presence and the authenticity of movements and gestures. Human condition is the main subject matter of her works as an ongoing investigation of the body/mind/spirit phenomena. Sakurako presented works at various venues worldwide: Palacio De Bellas Artes (Mexico City), Le 104, Le Cube, Théâtre du Temps, (Paris), OT301, Paradiso, Oostblook Theatre, Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), Mažasis teatras, Menų Spaustuvė (Vilnius), SCCA Center for Contemporary Arts (Ljubljana), Äkkigalleria (Jyväskylä), UrBANGUILD (Kyoto), Cultuur Centrum (Mechelen), Musée des Beaux-Arts (Limoges), etc. She participated in various festivals: Nuit Blanche (Paris), Aura (Kaunas), New Baltic Dance, (Vilnius), Juli Dans (Amsterdam), Rappongi Art Night (Tokyo), Festival d’Aurillac (France), Pukkelpop (Belgium), Red Dawns, City of Women (Slovenia), Gogol Fest (Ukraine), “Exit!” Schloss Broellin (Germany) and Venice Art Biennale’11 (Italy). |
| Salome Nieto | Mexican-born Salome Nieto is a Vancouver-based dance artist known for her transformative works and evocative performances. Highly influenced by butoh, the cultural syncretism of Mexico and intersectional feminism, her work considers the significance of ritual and ceremony in contemporary dance. The exploration of these intersections led her to the inception and creation of her solo work Camino al Tepeyac in 2011 and subsequently co-founding pataSola dance in 2013. In 2017, Nieto was awarded the Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award for her contribution to the art of contemporary dance as a solo artist. She has performed her work in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua and Thailand. For the past thirty years, Nieto has worked prominently with Vancouver-based Kokoro Dance, where she is now Associate Artistic Director. Since 2008, she has also worked as an interpreter for Donna Redlick Dance and Raven Spirit Dance. As an arts administrator, Nieto held the position of Fine and Performing Arts Programmer for Dance at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts with the City of Burnaby in British Columbia for ten years. In 2023, Nieto earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts in the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. Salome Nieto’s work is created on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəỷəm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), SəỈílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. |
| Salty Xi Jie Ng | Salty Xi Jie Ng is an artist, performer, researcher, educator, akashic records practitioner, and diasporic body from Singapore, with ancestry tracing to southern China. She tends to the erotic, ancestry, ageing, the inner worlds of older women, the end-of-life, and relationships with the departed and spirit worlds, while examining artistic labour and what gets to be called art. As part of her ongoing embodied work, she is a proud member of the Singapore Butoh Collective. Her practice proposes a collective re-imagining through humour, subversion, discomfort, institutional critique, a celebration of the eccentric, and a commitment to the deeply personal. She has cultivated a playful and tender spectrum of work across cultures and contexts, and her upcoming trajectory includes being a scheduled performer at the Southwest Butoh Festival in Portland, Oregon in May 2026. |
| Samantha Merenzi | Samantha Marenzi teaches at DAMS Department at Università rome Tre. She curated Transform’azioni – rassegna internazionale di danza butō. |
| Sami LA Akuna | 30 years of professional service and contribution towards dance/theatre and performance. Academic experience in teaching dance, choreography, improvisation and performance. Specializing in Drag Performance, Butoh, Installation, Improvisation, MC & Host. |
| Sanae Hiruta | Core dancer of Byakko‑sha, the avant-garde Butoh ensemble based in Kyoto/Kansai, founded by Isamu Ohsuga in the early 1980s. Former member of Dairakudakan. (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Sandra Soto | Sandra Soto is a Mexican-Canadian butoh performer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of Popol Butoh, trained under Kazuo Ōhno from 1998–2002 at his Yokohama studio, and later mentored by Yumiko Yoshioka and Katsura Kan. She is currently based in Mexico, performing and teaching internationally while directing Popol Butoh; she holds a graduate degree in Dance Expression from the University of Guadalajara. |
| Sandro Masai | My name is Sandro Masai. I am an Afro-Brazilian multimedia artist, mostly known as a performance artist. All my performances involve modern dance, specially butoh. I have attended Tadashi Endo’s ten-day-intensive butoh workshop in the summer for almost 10 years in a row. In 2021, I was invited to assist Tadashi in the workshop that year. I have performed in all end-of-workshop shows and I also have a long list of solo butoh dance performances as well. |
| Sangatsu Murakami | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Santeri Vikström | Santeri began practicing Butō in 2012. He studied at Himalaya Subbody and is a regular performer and instructor at Helsinki Butō Festival. |
| Sara Baird | Director of Anemone Dance Theater |
| Sara June | Sara June is a dancemaker, performance artist and movement educator based in Boston, MA. She makes art and teaches movement from the perspective that the body is a permeable vessel from which all things in the natural world can be sensed and communicated. Sara June works primarily in the Japanese post-war performance form Butoh having studied and performed this form since 2001. (https://www.mobius.org/sara-june) |
| Sara Pons | Sara Pons is a Barcelona‑based dancer, choreographer and instructor trained in classical, contemporary and flamenco dance, theater and circus—she discovered clowning at 16 and has studied around the world including Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, India, Tanzania and Europe. |
| Sara Zalek | Sara Zalek (@01saratonin) is a transdisciplinary artist, producer, and curator of situations and curious objects. Rooted in physical investigations of trauma, resilience, and transformation, their work is intimate, raw, poetic. They make performances into learning situations, workshops, and sensing environments to encourage thoughtful interpersonal connections. Zalek performs often in both live and online situations; The City of Chicago named them an Esteemed Artist in 2022. Elastic Arts Foundation awarded them a Curatorial Grant in 2020 for Hot Mess! A hybrid performance event.They were a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist in 2015, a 2017 3Arts Make a Wave Awardee, and Ragdale Foundation Fellow. They have performed and curated performances at the Chicago Cultural Center, High Concept Labs, Elastic Arts, Experimental Sound Studio, Links Hall, Lumpen Radio, dfbrl8r, Urban Guild in Kyoto, Japan, and so many more. Through Butoh Curious, Zalek connects national and international teaching artists with Chicago art makers across genres in the independent and fringe arenas (including dance, butoh, physical theater, experimental and improvisational music). They create opportunities for positive communication and arts integration using workshops, performances, and conversations about personal and collective body. https://www.saratonin.com/about |
| Sarah Grandjean | She has received Butoh training for over 10 years, among others with Gyohei Zaitsu, Camille Mutel, and Imre Thormann. With Anja Röttgerkamp, she trained in fasciatherapy, which serves as a foundation for her movement and perception. She regularly dives—in many different ways—into clown work. She connects dance, objects, and mediation through projects in schools, middle schools, high schools, neighborhood associations, prisons, and elder care homes (EHPADs). She creates impromptu and site-specific performances, from bars to forests, even under highway overpasses. (https://demeuredrue.org/Sarah-Grandjean) |
| Sarah Prescimone | Sarah Prescimone, Born in Sicily in the 90’s. She discovered Butoh during the dance Academy. Since the first slow step, she decided to continue stepping inwards and through. |
| Sasa Cabalquinto | Sasa Cabalquinto is a pioneering Butoh artist based in Manila, Philippines. She is a dancer, actor, performance maker, and cultural worker whose work explores movement through collaborative and interdisciplinary performance with themes engaging about memory, time, womanhood, and socio-political spaces recognized on several platforms locally and internationally. Her dance aims to deepen the politics of the body toward personal and collective healing, acknowledging the different cultural and sociopolitical identities through ancestral remembering, indigenous ritual practices, and postcolonial embodiment. She is founder and director of Kapwa Movement, an independent intermediary platform bridging Butoh to the Philippine arts community. Sasa is an Asian Cultural Council Fellow for Dance, Para Site NoExit Grantee- Philippines, and Asia Arts and Culture Grantee of Japan Foundation Manila. She is also an awardee of Singapore International Film Festival Best Performance (2024), Alvin Erasga Tolentino Koreograpiya Award (2020), CCP Choreographers’ Series WiFiBody.PH New Choreographers Competition 2018 3rd Prize winner, and PUP Outstanding Achievement Awardee in the Arts in Dance (2014). Sasa has represented the Philippines in global Butoh gatherings, including the Asia Butoh Forum and Vienna Butoh Festival. |
| Sascha Rouse | Self-identifying butoh artist |
| Sato Nobumitsu | Listed as butoh dancer at Japan Contemporary Dance Network (https://wikiwiki.jp/jcdnmdfe/ARTISTS/Nobumitsu%20Sato#:hl:word=butoh) |
| Satoko Shimizu | Danced with Tadashi Endo (http://www.butoh-ma.de/2021/12/21/premiere-sasayaki) |
| Satoru Ugajin | After being injured, he sought the spirituality of dancing and was influenced by his participation in Sankai Juku training camp. Currently, he belongs to Burakuza and explores the world of Kobudo and Noh (studying Hosho-ryu from Masayuki Fujii). Convinced that experiencing things leads to depth of expression, he is also trying his hand at fire performance (coached by Nobuyuki Kamei), tea ceremony, acting, action (coached by Kenji Sato), and bondage magic comedy. Its base of activities is Earth Plus Gallery in Kiba. (https://www.pangaea-jp.com/artist/artist-ugajin.html) |
| Sayako Shiratori | Sayako Shiratori Prayer maker/rope artist/butoh artist At the age of 3, I was shocked to see Kazuo Ohno as Santa Claus at my kindergarten. She is an artist who celebrates and connects heaven, earth, people and space under the theme of “Sacred , Sexual , and Life . Born in Yokohama After working as a designer of show windows displays for department stores in Tokyo , she became a kiyuishi. What is kiyuishi? Praying for happiness and connecting heaven, earth, people and space. She is an artist who can do both binding and knotting. He also directs ceremonies and celebrates with local products and belongs to the art group Tama-Sama-Seidan. |
| Sayoko Hagio | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Sayoko Onishi | Sayoko Onishi is a Butoh Master. She was born in Hokkaido, Japan. Her dance and choreography are based on the practice of butoh. In this art, she mixes all her practices and melts in her dance elements of every culture she has met, with the desire to unite in her experiences the West and the East. Since 1990, she has been a brilliant solo career as a professional dancer in Europe, working both as a choreographer and as a teacher. Sayoko Onishi is also a teacher of Tai Chi and Qi Qong, disciplines she studied at university in China. Sayoko Onishi has mainly performed solo in renowned international theaters in all Europe (Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Roma, Palermo), in China and Japan and received numerous international awards. Since 2009, she collaborates regularly with the French company Man’ok & Cie in Nancy (France) with the project MA2 (Move Art Two). |
| Scoop Slone | Scoop Slone is a performer, avant-garde costume designer, singer, and Butoh practitioner active in New York City and internationally, often described as a performance artist with strong experimental and prop-driven aesthetics. ”My theatricality comes from my rock n roll stage and theater background so these aesthetics play into my own personal artistic lineage outside of Butoh. Butoh comes first for me now, supported by not only performance art aesthetics but also my queer identity. I feel so incredibly blessed to have Butoh as part of my spiritual and personal journey in life. it has and is and will guide/guided me to my highest self.” |
| Seiji Tanaka | Born in Nara, Japan in 1977. Since 2006 he has studied under Yoshito Ohno. In 2007, he made a short film of Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno’s daily life titled “Sehnsucht “. In 2011, February, he opened Seiji Tanaka Butoh Studio in Nara, Japan. May, he appeared at Düsseldorf: Butoh-Festival “Ghost-Deep soul. Death bears life”. In addition, he continues numerous performances and workshops in various places. |
| Seisaku | SEISAKU is a Butoh dancer, teacher and performing artist born and raised in Fukushima, Japan. In 1984 he met Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata and trained with him at his Asbestos-kan theater. In 1985, he danced in Hijikata’s acclaimed performance Tohoku Kabuki, a seminal choreography that would go on to influence many future Butoh artists. Seisaku studied with and danced under Hijikata continuously until Hijikata’s death in 1986. Seisaku speaks about how he was struck by the power of Hijikata’s artistry: “the impact of Hijikata’s Butoh dance was so tremendous. One after another, Hijikata opened many doors to deep truths that I had never known before.” After the death of his teacher, Seisaku joined the Hakutobo Butoh troupe with members of the Asbestos-kan at the time, centered around Yoko Ashikawa. Seisaku danced with Hakutobo until 1996 and performed in all of their main productions. After leaving the company, he worked as a solo artist for many years before joining DANCE MEDIUM in 2004, a group directed by Yuri Nagaoka. Since then, Seisaku has collaborated with Yuri as co-choreographer and has performed in all of the group’s major works. In 2011, Seisaku created a Butoh piece called “Kiri” about the earthquake and nuclear power destruction that occurred in his hometown of Fukushima. This performance won the Grand Prize of the Japan Dance Critics Association in 2012. Seisaku has performed and taught overseas many times, visiting 10 different countries. In 2025, he was invited to the CONGRESS OF BUTOH SOULS, a festival in Hong Kong that brought together many legendary Butoh dancers to perform at the City University of Hong Kong’s School of Creative Media. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Walk of a Measure https://www.facebook.com/yuri.nagaoka.35/videos/2875211372570619 * Walk of a Measure Part 2 https://www.facebook.com/yuri.nagaoka.35/videos/2898556606902762 |
| Semimaru Kokutoin | Semimaru is a founding member of Sankai Juku, Semimaru has participated in all Sankai Juku activities since its founding in 1975. In 1985, he began his solo career, often performing outside of the theater. In 1990, he launched Kokutoin. The group continues to gather an unspecified number of members for each performance and continues to create works. From 1987 to 1996, he held dance workshops every summer at different locations in the form of training camps, and since 1999 he has established an atelier in the Kurobe River basin in Toyama Prefecture, where he holds training camps and performances every summer, and teaches younger dancers. He generally performs outdoors and creates works that are appropriate to the location, calling it “dialogue with the magnetic field,” and likes to observe the connection between the space, the body, and the spirit. (https://dansalliansen.se/workshop/sankai-juku-whatmovesthebod) ### ▶️ Video Classes * Basic Gymanstics https://youtu.be/zgxM-f83WUQ?si=n2cdIS1rEYY_0owI * Gymnastics with Small https://youtu.be/RF_P-B65mvs?si=ze1NCSq8_syE6kHK * Ball Gymnastics with Small Ball 2 https://youtu.be/25EXbLY2P6o?si=DakIVXWkV-S_xcNr |
| Seth Eisen | I came to the Bay Area in 1994 as a recent graduate of Naropa University with a degree in performance and a background in visual arts. I arrived looking for ways for my two disciplines to coexist. At Naropa I studied with Butoh masters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano and then joined their company Harupin–Ha Ha for a few years. (https://dancersgroup.org/2012/09/speak-by-seth-eisen) |
| Setsuko Watanabe | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Setsuko Yamada | Founder of Setsuko Yamada Dance Company (Biwakei, JAPAN) Butoh choreographer and dancer. Has taught and performed at the San Francisco Butoh Festival. |
| Sharly Kornitskaya | Dance artist, Butoh dancer, physical theatre director and choreographer born in Moscow (Russia), from 2022 based in Belgrade (Serbia). Started to practice different styles of dance and movement in 2004. As a dance performer participated in various Butoh, street theatre and musical projects. Studied butoh at workshops of various European, Russian and Giapones masters. Studied Physical Theatre at Russian School of Physical Theatre (director Maxim Didenko), contemporary dance at Tsekh school. From 2013: worked as a director and one of the performers in her own project “Somnambula Theatre”. Created a lot of different stage, street and site specific performances with it. From 2020 focuses at her solo works mostly in area of Butoh and site-specific dance in urban spaces. Founder of site-specific dance project “Dance Stalking” From 2021 participates in international project “Endlessly Performing Collective”, regularly presenting her solo works at different art spaces and festivals in Serbia. She is also teaching regular Physical Theatre and Butoh classes offline in Belgrade and online and giving workshops. Her teaching experience is near 10 year. |
| Sharon Stern | Sharon Stern was an American Butoh practitioner and Naropa MFA student who studied under Katsura Kan; she tragically died by suicide in 2012, after which her family filed and won a civil lawsuit holding Katsura Kan liable for contributing to her death. Source: The New Yorker, The Unraveling of a Dancer (2020) |
| Sheri Brown | Sheri Brown has served as Artistic/Programs Director of DAIPANbutoh Collective since its inception in 2009. Her dance practice arises from a cross-pollination of deep spiritual exploration, her experience as a mathematics teacher, and her study with butoh masters Diego Pinon, Katsura Kan, and Joan Laage. Sheri has performed internationally in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Sweden, Greece, Mexico, and Argentina. Her choreographic work, such as Divided by Zero has been performed at the Seattle International Dance Festival, Clackamus College, Velocity Dance Center, and Seattle Center. Sheri considers her work as a butoh teaching artist inseparable from her work as an unfolding human being. https://www.daipanbutohcollective.com/daipan-members |
| Sherwood Chen | SHERWOOD CHEN performs and leads workshops internationally. He has worked as a performer with artists including Xavier Le Roy, Min Tanaka, Grisha Coleman, Anna Halprin, Yuko Kaseki, Amara Tabor-Smith, Jess Curtis, inkBoat / Ko Murobushi, Christine Bonansea and Sara Shelton Mann. He has trained performers in places including the Centre National de la Danse, Independent Dance / Siobahn Davies Studios, La Ménagerie de Verre, Oficina Cultural Oswalde de Andrade, Arlequi, Chez Bushwick, Sala Crisantempo, Centro Nacional de las Artes (DF) and the MarÈ Center for the Arts. For over twenty years, he has contributed to Body Weather research initiated by Tanaka and his associates, both as a member of Tanakaís company Mai Juku and Body Weather Farm in Japan, and subsequently working with members of founding generations in the US and Europe including Oguri and Christine Quoiraud. (https://odc.dance/sherwoodchen) |
| Shige Moriya | Shige Moriya is a Japanese-born multidisciplinary artist based in New York, co-founder of the LEIMAY ensemble and the New York Butoh Festival. His interdisciplinary work blends video installation, performance, and Butoh-inspired movement training through the LUDUS practice, performed at venues like BAM Fisher, Japan Society, and the Watermill Center. |
| Shigemi Lida | Shigemi was Ohno Kazuo and Ohno Yoshito’s assistant. Performer for their stage, secretary, assistant director, technical stuff and translator for them. By the favor of the Ohno family, Shigemi could learn from many artists directly. |
| Shigeya Yo | Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Shigeyoshi Watanabe | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Shinchi Iova-Koga | Active Dates 1980s – Present Shinichi serves as the Artistic Director of the physical theater and dance company inkBoat, founded by Shinichi in 1998. He has toured in North America, Europe, South Korea and Japan, often collaborating with local artists in museums, theaters, studios and site-specific locations. Shinichi’s training began with Judo at age 8 with his father, Yuzo Koga, a 6-time USA Judo champion. In 1991, he entered Tadashi Suzuki’s method of training for Actors with Yukihiro Goto, experiencing the meeting of traditional and avant-garde Japanese performing arts. The same year, he studied Butoh first with Akeno Ashikawa and then with Hiroko Tamano, joining Harupin-Ha in 1993. In 1996, he joined the German based Butoh company TEN PEN CHii with Yumiko Yoshioka. Shinichi founded inkBoat in 1998, a performance company that includes artists of many different artistic and cultural backgrounds. inkBoat and Shinichi have been honored by awards and grants, including 5 Bay Area “Izzie” awards and grants from NEA, MAP fund, New England Foundation for the Arts, Creative Work Fund, and Gerbode Foundation. Shinichi co-choreographed a series of performances called Crazy Cloud with Ko Murobushi from 2008 to 2012. Another notable collaborator is Ann Carlson, who has worked with inkBoat from 2019 – present. Since 2015, Shinichi’s career as an international performer has merged with his Daoist Internal Arts study. Qi Gong, Dao Yin, Yang Sheng Gong and Nei Gong are part of his daily practice. He is credentialed to teach through Lotus Nei Gong International and is a San Feng Pai lineage holder with Wudang West. Additionally, he has developed his approach to relationships between bodies through Aikido (with Jan Nevelius, Jorma Lily and Cornelius Jaeger-Herzog). Ruth Zaporah is his continuing mentor. Her method of improvisational skill building is called Action Theater. Significant past mentors are Ralph Lemon, who opened up ideas about “anti-dance” and Anna Halprin, who encouraged community building through the art-making process. Shinichi teaches annually at ImpulsTanz in Vienna and Dance on Land in California. He has served as a full time core faculty member of the MFA Dance program at Mills College in Oakland, California, from 2009 to 2017. He has taught Composition in the Arts for MFA students at UC Davis in 2014 and 2022. He currently runs independent workshops and online courses. He is the editor of the book “95 Rituals,” a tribute to Anna Halprin, and a contributing writer to “The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance.” He is featured in the book “Butoh America.” Additionally, he has co-created numerous performances with music groups Rova Saxophone Quartet and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. As a guest Director, he has created stage works with AXIS Dance Company and ODC Dance Company. As a dancer, he has been a member of the Russian Dance Theater company Do Theatre (2003-2005) and Larry Reed’s Shadowlight Theater (1993-1997). Shinichi’s work has been described as a mix of “humor, introspection, playfulness and memory with fearless gestures and thoughtfully crafted drama” (Mary Ellen Hunt, SF Chronicle) and has been said to “expertly mine the dark vein of absurdist humor that infiltrates Butoh” (Allen Ulrich, SF Chronicle). |
| Shino Hirai | Part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://za-koenji.jp/detail/index.php?id=1477 |
| Shizu Homma | Shizu Homma is of Japanese descent and was born and grew up in Brooklyn. Her A.A.S. is in commercial art, her B.A. in art and education, and her M.F.A. is in art, with a focus on painting. In 1997, she started performing in dance performances. In 2002 she started creating dance works, which are usually a combination of choreography and structured improvisation. Her work is anti-imperialist, radical feminist, anti violence. She also is certified in Thai Yoga, Regenerative Design, and teaching Yoga. She has taken a break from dance between 2016 and 2018 due to medical reasons from her childhood injuries, and started experimenting with visual art and text based art. Her first Performance/Conceptual art work was at BPAF’s Just SItuations conventions. This is her second stab at performance art. https://asianartsinitiative.org/archive/artists/shizu-homma |
| Shlomitsi Mazuz | I teach Butoh regularly i Tel aviv (studio naim) and occasional workshops outside of the studio. the classes are open to anyone who are interested in joining your inner sounds of whom you have never head before and to dance from within your body it’s poetry. my opening place to the voice of the Butoh is through my ‘opening heart’, eagerly anticipating, and from which an enormous motion begins towards my entire body and pours into the outside of it, my dance. |
| Sho Mutsuura | Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Sho Sumi | Listed as part of Ko Murobushi’s all-male company: Sebi (fire on the back). Source: Centonze, Katja. “Murobushi Kō and His Challenge to Butoh.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 226–236. |
| Sho Takeuchi | Throughout the evening, the movements of this committed troupe of artists make reference to traditional forms. Bukagu (ancient court dance) and Tai Chi (Chinese martial art) come to mind with their slow, controlled steps and gestures. But Amagatsu’s choreography occupies a unique place, as he makes sculptural dance poetry out of fundamental human questions of being and nothingness. He sets his exploration in the vastness of nature as wind, sand, water, sedimentation, erosion, and vegetation are conjured. . In one powerful section, three dancers lie on their sides in the fetal position, each dancer with their two legs interlaced. Every so often a head rises then falls; often their knotted legs lift incongruously off the ground while their upper bodies remain still. It is a birth of sorts – more like the hatching of an animal from an egg or an alien life form struggling into existence in a laboratory. It is a frightening image, evoking mankind writhing within the primordial soup of creation as seen with a detached eye. In the most “civilized” section, dancers dressed in white robes overlaid with aquamarine panels seem to transcend their primal selves to a higher state of existence, becoming monks or ancient gods in an ethereal realm. We leave the mechanistic music behind and hear a florid sound rise with the wisp of melody. As they dance, their feet stir the sand, which floats in dusty clouds. Towards the end of the evening, Amagatsu returns alone to the stage to the vibration of desert winds and swirling sand. The white column of light materializes at the back center of the stage and Amagatsu retreats into the light. It seems a fitting conclusion to this awe-inspiring evening, but instead, on his exit, the entire company reappears. The black curtain slowly parts, leaving the stage awash with white light. Against this white translucent backdrop, the white-bodied dancers move once again – this time in positions of prayer. The dancers are illuminated, and we, the audience, find ourselves illuminated as well. |
| Shohiro Nakanishi | Disciple of Mitsutake Ishii (https://tondekarashizuka.com/taniguku/news.html) |
| Shoichi Fukushi | Shoichi Fukushi is a butoh dancer based in Aomori and the founder of Odoradeku Street Theater. For 35 years, he worked at Aomori City Hall while also performing butoh on the streets and in theatres, both in Japan and internationally. The video documents his tour of France in May 2017, where he danced in the streets, schools, galleries, and other spaces in Strasbourg and Nîmes. It also captures his interactions with the people he met along the way through butoh. In Paris, he participated in a butoh festival at the Espace Culturel Bertin Poirée. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00634) |
| Shoichi Motohara | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Shoko Ashikawa | Listed as part of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo company. Source: SU‑EN. “Light as Dust, Hard as Steel, Fluid as Snake Saliva: The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 203–213 |
| Shoko Senuma | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s. |
| Shoshana Green | Shoshana is an experimental artist using movement and image to study process, identity and relationships. She works with the body as a sculptural moving metaphor exploring non-verbal narratives that relate to quotidian, esoteric and sensorial content. Her work is inspired by the tradition of Japanese Ankoku Butoh. She is a teacher, performer, curator and presenter for Butoh programming in San Francisco. Shoshana studied contemporary dance, Ballet and West African dance at University of Oregon and San Francisco State University. She draws from her studies with renown Butoh teachers, Vangeline, Diego Piñon, Katsura Kan, Semimaru-San (Sankai Juku), Natsu Nakajima, Akira Kasai, Tadashi Endo and Yumiko Yoshioka, Atsushi Takenouchi. Performance history includes work with Katsura Kan, Vangeline, Natsu Nakajima, eX..it performance festival at the International Art Research Residency, Schloss Bröllin in Berlin, Germany. Shoshana has a Masters in Somatic Psychology and is a somatic practitioner and psychotherapist. |
| Shuhei Okawara | His dance style is characterized by his ability to dance in between the lives of city dwellers – their daily routines and work. In his theatrical productions, he create works with a hand that invades the reality of the stage. While designing art projects and concepts that transcend the conventional framework of dance, he maintains a skeptical eye toward the act of creation. In his training and facilitation for companies and educational institutions, he has earned a reputation for continually and thoroughly deconstructing processes and artifacts. In 2014, he opened Japan’s first mask store specializing in masks by contemporary artists. With the theme of “creation of a new mask culture” in Japan, he is engaged in comprehensive activities related to masks, including the launch of TOKYO MASK FESTIVAL, one of the largest mask exhibitions and sales events in Japan. He is a “dealer” of masks and various other goods, and in addition to running several specialty stores, he makes his living implementing unique sales formats for artists’ works. (https://shuheiookawara.com) |
| Shuichi Inohana | At the age of 30,I was invited by the world-famos dance Tatsumi Hijikata Memorial Asbestos Studio as an instructor of images and contemporary art. Besides the instructor job, I was also in charge of the stage-performance video recording and archiving project at the Asbestos Studio. One day, while I was shooting Mrs Akiko Motofuji, dancer and a wife of Tatsumi Hijikata doing practice,I couldn’t repress my desire to dance, so I began taking dance lessons. I was learning dancing under Mrs Akiko Motofuji, but as she passed away the Asbestos studio was closed. I belong to Tatsumi Hijikata Asbestos center & Kazuo Ohno Dance studio, taking Mr Yoshito Ohno as my teacher, and am doing art activities in many art fields such as filmmaking, contemporary art and dancing, domestically and internationally. I make a documentary films Butoh Akiko Motofuji. I screened at the Tokyo Documentary Film Festival etc. I’m planning to do a world tour for promoting butoh. (https://inohanart.xyz/prof.html) |
| Shunjiro Toda | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Shunosuke Togame | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00200/) |
| Shunsuke Momoki | Self-Employed at 百番珈琲 Past: Sankai Juku Studied スタイリスト専攻 at バンタンデザイン研究所 東京校 Graduated in 2009 Lives in Hokuto From Kita, Tokyo Married to 百木真帆 Since July 7, 2021 |
| Shuntaro Uno | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Shusaku Takouchi | Shusaku B. Takouchi is a butoh artist, choreographer, and director of the Dormu Dance Theatre and Shusaku Bodytorium. |
| Shuunosuke Tokame | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Sidnei Puziol | Sidnei Puziol is a performer, teacher, and researcher. He works in contemporary performance, exploring the poetics of the body with an emphasis on ecopoetics, movement, and Butoh dance. He holds a Master’s degree in Literature from the State University of Maringá (UEM), where he developed the dissertation “Echoes of the Butoh Dance: body-poetics-nature”, investigating the relationships between body, nature, and culture in Butoh and literary studies. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre from the same institution. He coordinates Núcleo Terreno, a theatre and research group dedicated to creating performances that explore ancestry, sensitive listening, and the intersections between the body and the environment. His practice moves between theatre, dance, literature, and education, establishing spaces for creation, reflection, and metamorphosis. Throughout his artistic journey, he has trained with artists such as Yumiko Yoshioka, Atsushi Takenouchi, Ana Cristina Colla (Lume Teatro), Ana Medeiros, Hiroshi Nishiyama, Emilie Sugai, and Juju Alishina. These experiences have helped shape his unique artistic language—one that balances the subtlety of gesture with the symbolic power of the body in relation to the world. He also works as an educator and is dedicated to the study of literature and ecocriticism as fields that intersect with performance and enrich his artistic and pedagogical research. Academic Texts Puziol Júnior, Sidnei. “Butô e a Poética da Natureza de Kazuo Ohno.” Anais do Simpósio Reflexões Cênicas Contemporâneas (LUME / PPG Artes da Cena, UNICAMP), 2023. PDF: https://orion.nics.unicamp.br/index.php/simposiorfc/article/download/866/691 Puziol Júnior, Sidnei. “A Dança Silenciosa da Terra.” Arte da Cena (Art on Stage), Universidade Federal de Goiás, vol. 9, no. 1, 2023. PDF: https://revistas.ufg.br/artce/article/download/77937/40509 Puziol Júnior, Sidnei. “Ecos da Dança Butô.” Unpublished conference paper, 2022. (Cited in Brazilian performance research networks; forthcoming publication in Cadernos de Estudo do Corpo e da Cena.) |
| Silvia Rampelli | Known to have worked heavily with Masaki Iwana |
| Simona Orinska | Simona Orinska (b. August 18 1978, Ērgļi, Latvia) is a Latvian-born Butoh performance artist, choreographer, poet, dance movement therapist, and educator. She works professionally as both a multimedia performance artist and therapist, bridging Butoh, movement therapy, and ritual-full expression. Simona’s Butoh initiation began in 2002 during a workshop with Sophie Cournède in Germany, leading her to deepen her training from 2005 onward. Between 2005 and 2007, she studied with Anita Saij (Nordic Butoh School, Denmark), SU‑EN Butoh Company (Sweden), participated in master classes with Ken Mai, Yukio Waguri, Tsuruyama ZULU Kinya, and Itto Morita (Toshiharu Kasai) in Riga, Saint Petersburg, and other international festival contexts |
| Sineenadh Keitprapai | Sineenadh Keitprapai is an actor, director, producer, performance maker, butoh practitioner and performing arts teacher. Her work employs various techniques and styles, including non-realism, movement-based performance, physical theatre, devising performance, and butoh. Most of her works explore women’s issues in various dimensions. Sineenadh is currently a guest lecturer in universities and an artistic director of Crescent Moon Theatre. This theatre company aims to address social issues and connect people through performing arts. Sineenadh’s works were featured in Thailand and abroad. Her latest pieces were “Women Ghost Dancing” performed in Bandung Isola Performing Art Festival 2022 (BIPAF) and “Body Earth and the Alchemy” performed in Bangkok Theatre Festival 2022. (https://www.peopleofari.com/post/silence-flower-a-butoh-performance-by-sineenadh-keitprapai-and-payap-kaewkred) |
| Slava Inozemcev | Slava Inozemcev (sometimes Vyacheslav Inozemcev) is the creator and permanent artistic director of the Physical Theater “InZhest” in Minsk, Belarus (founded in 1980). InZhest is among the first independent experimental physical theatres in Belarus, combining mime, physical theatre, outdoor performances, site-specific work, and Butoh dance—making him one of the first Belarusian artists to teach and embody Butoh as a director, performer, and instructor. He joined Ex…it!99 as choreographer, teacher, and dancer, and continued collaborating with TEN PEN Chii from 2000–2013, working closely under the guidance of Yoshioka and Manger. |
| So Ueda | Member of Daizu-ko Farm (1997 – 2001) |
| Sofia Melikova | Sofia Melikova is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and social activist based in St. Petersburg. Sofia was born in Leningrad (former St. Petersburg, USSR) on 16 August, 1988 in an ethnic Azerbaijanian Tsakhur family. Sofia’s artistic practice is an alchemical immersion into unknown and hidden layers. Sofia uses audio-visual means of presenting information, theater, performance, butoh, ethnic and ritual practices in her works. Her main fields of interest include: indigenous peoples, marginalized communities, invisible patterns, stratification, disappearing cultures and languages. (https://sofiamelikova.com) |
| Sofya Shaikut | Sofya Shaikut is a performative artist, choreographer, butō dancer and writer. Among her recent works is Phäeton, with Pere Ros (viola da gamba) presented at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid and a co-authored book Dionysus and Apollo after Nihilism published in Brill. Sofya’s dance is most influenced by Atsushi Takenouchi and Imre Thormann, though she has also studied butō at OddDance Theatre (with Natalia Zhestovskaya and Grigory Glazunov), at New Butoh School (with Sayoko Onishi), and has taken some classes with Katsura Kan, Ima Tenko, Yumiko Yoshioka and Marlène Jöbstl. (https://www.helsinkibutohfestival.fi/klarak) |
| Solange Theys | I came into contact with ‘mime’ and some other dance styles, through school and youth movements. Until my mother’s remark: “You can’t dance, just like your dad” Her remark was the start of various dance lessons, especially in the d’Oude Kapel, under the guidance of Jetty Roels. The lessons covered styles, varying from Flashdance to Indonesian temple dances (under instructor Mas Didik Nini Thowok). Although every style was ‘acceptable’, I mainly concentrated on Modern dance, with teacher Caro Lambert. I also danced some Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan and Merce Cunningham styles. After Modern dance, my second dance passion was Butoh (I was a student of Ko Murobuschi and Carlotta Ikeda). It went smoothly, so much so that I went to the summer school to study choreography in Anger, France. Because I was then qualified as a choreographer, I applied to work in Indonesia. Unfortunately, the work visa was not granted. My small dance company “Dream Dance Cie” came 33rd in the “Concours chorégraphique international de Bagnolet”. This made me realize that it was time to look for a ‘real job’. Competing with choreographers like Jan Fabre, Marc Vanrunxt and Rosas was not for me. That was it, the challenge seemed too big. There was no place for me in the professional dance world anymore. My dancing continued as a hobby with Flamenco (at Torre de Motijo) and Argentine tango. These were the last steps for a while. After that I stopped completely. 14 years of silence,…that is, until I received a flyer promoting oriental dances. The passion returned. Not on a professional level, but just for fun. After a short initiation with Queenie, with a workshop here and there, I accidentally ended up with Sakinah. At Sakinah I joined the gypsy belly dance show group. With this dance group we finished 4th at the “Bellydancer of the World” competition. We were the guest dancers at the festivals “Gypsies in het park” and “Labadoux”. At the same time a second new passion followed ‘Tribal fusion’ (at Maya Acid A’dam and Marâa Charleroi). I wanted to develop my own unique style, and participated in several competitions. I became 3rd in the “Stars of Bellydance”, in the fusion category. Here I could apply and incorporate my previous Tribal fusion experiences. My solo performances were a fusion of Butoh, Flamenco, Modern dance, and Tribal belly dance. In 2018 I participated in “Dansvitrine” in Bruges. Since 2018 I have fully focused on modern, butoh and contact improvisation again and founded 50/fifty dancecompany together with Cindy Barbarin. I still often dance in other dance projects. Like with Sharon Fridman company. |
| Solène de Cock | Solène de Cock is a French performer and butoh-inspired choreographer, based in the Paris / Île-de-France region. She identifies her main teacher as Gyohei Zaitsu, under whose guidance she developed a deeply physical and poetic performance vocabulary. |
| Sonia Kwek | Active member and facilitator of the Singapore Butoh Collective. Studied butoh under zen zen zo physical theatre (2010-2012). Sonia Kwek is a multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore. She is a graduate of the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI), where she received training in contemporary acting and traditional Asian forms. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Drama) with Distinction from Queensland University of Technology in Australia. (https://www.centre42.sg/archive/profiles/5423/sonia-kwek) |
| Sonja Heller | Sonja Heller is a dancer, choreographer, interdisciplinary artist and butohteacher based in Berlin. She danced for 11 years classical ballet and studied acting at the European Theater Institute in Berlin. Her artistic history is a patchwork of various influences. (http://conectom.leimay.org/profile/SonjaHeller) |
| Sonja Kilpeläinen | Sonja Kilpeläinen is a butoh dancer and facilitator from the woods surrounding Helsinki. She has studied butoh in India and Europe with several butoh artists. Sonja dances with movement and sound in the mountains, lakes and city streets. (https://www.helsinkibutohfestival.fi/rakka) |
| Sonja Salkovitsch | Sonja Salkowitsch was born in Norway. She is a performer within physical theatre and butoh. She lives in Norway, where she runs the company PLUSKVAMPERFEKTUM together with her brother Per. Sonja’s work is a mix of different genres, combining butoh with characterwork and interactive, space related settings. (https://wintermovementacademy.com/Tutors.html) |
| Sonoko Prow | Japanese,Chinese and Thai Sonoko Prow is a director, actor, butoh dancer and self- transformation workshop instructor. She met Butoh master Katsura Kan and became his direct student assisted in various significant projects in 1997. Later on she founded Khandha Arts Theatre Company. And organize Butoh festival in Thailand. |
| Sophie Cournede | Following an eclectic journey through contemporary dance, improvisation, Butoh, and energy work, Sophie Cournède has primarily oriented herself toward improvisation as a mode of creation, in order to develop a personal language inspired by Butoh movement. She dances solo and creates performances during multidisciplinary artistic gatherings in France and abroad. She is committed to expressing her movement in a unique and ephemeral space-time—this spontaneity gives rise to an intuitive, sensory dance that resonates with the environment and listens to the present moment. She performs at various events: Intuitive arts festivals, such as Fortalicje and Intuitiva in Poland In Germany, at the Performance Congress with SOTODO at Schloss Bröllin and in various factories in Berlin At the “Something Else” Festival in Tartu, Estonia In France (at venues like MJC Roguet, Café du Burgaud, the Mim’off Festival…) …and in other unusual or natural settings, whose essence she seeks to reveal. (https://www.en-chair-et-en-son.com/en-chair-et-en-son-programme2015-en.html) |
| Sotaro Ito | Member of Sankai Juku |
| Speranza Spir | A Montrealer, somatic educator, poet & performer, Speranza Spir has trained as a gymnast, in folkloric dance and classical ballet. Since 2001, she has pursued trainings in butoh with select masters of this practice. Nature and the great outdoors are motivating factors for her explorations and performances as a means to encourage the body to foster and maintain connection and conversation with one’s surroundings through movement practices, establishing a truthful and primal dance. Her principle subject matters in butoh deal with war/peace/memory of those passed, and experimenting with classical dance forms such as ballet and ethnic tradition. Since 2014, she has collaborated with life partner – Denis Lafond, who form the duo SPY&DNY. |
| Spiros Paterakis | Has performed as part of Yumiko Yoshioka’s Ten Pen CHii Art Labor, and is part of the technical staff at BIG Butoh. Originally from Greece. Where he is based is unknown. |
| Stefan Maria Marb | Stefan Maria Marb is a German butoh dancer and works as a choreographer, teacher and psychologist with his base in munich. Marb was trained as a contemporary dancer at the Dance Centre Iwanson and has danced several years for both national and international companies, such as the Ko Murobushi Dance Company Tokyo, Man Act London, Dance Energy, TAW Vienna, the Salzburg Festival, the Kammerspiele Munich and for 20 years for the Opera Ballet of the Bavarian State Opera. He has also worked regularly together with the award-winning choreographer and butoh dancer Tanja Zgonc in cooperation with PTL (Plesni Teater Ljubljana). |
| Stefan Richard Bach | Stefan Bach has been dancing Butoh since 2015. They have taken over a dozen Butoh workshops in the Pacific Northwest with numerous Butoh teachers from Japan and the United States. Stefan has collaborated often with Butoh choreographer Iván-Daniel Espinosa and has performed in several of Espinosa’s Butoh performances including the 2025 premiere of BOWELS OF THE EARTH, an nature-themed piece inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata’s lecture “Suijakutai no saishū.” |
| Stefano Taiuti | Butoh dancer, performer, body worker. Stefano Taiuti is an independent artist based in Berlin who since the end of the eighties has investigated, crossed and mixed body expression techniques by intertwining the principles of modern Western and Eastern theatrical cultures. By experimenting its presence in the halls of small theaters and in the crowded spaces of the clubs of the major European capitals, in video performance experiments and sitespecific installations, Taiuti has made his body the very place of the event, making it fluid and traversable by forms and genres. In his work he explores the potential of the body as a tool for experience and a medium to access alternative states of consciousness. He sees the body as a “spiritual mechanism” and teaches his research in classes and workshops. He designs and realizes dance pieces and performances where the theatrical device acts a generator of multiple metaphors. (https://stefanotaiuti.com) |
| Stéphane Guillaumon | Stéphane Guillaumon appears in several black‑and‑white and atmospheric YouTube video excerpts, performing in solo or duet pieces in an intimate, evocative style—highly indicative of contemporary Butoh practice. The performances often unfold in studio or gallery-like spaces and lean into minimal, expressive movement. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTVd4vT1VJWO3iA7epI2OtA |
| Stephanie Lanckton | A dancer, collaborator, solo-artist and choreographer. Currently living, working, being inspired and inspiring in Portland, Oregon, after living in NYC from 2007-2012. In the summer of 2012, I was pulled to return to Portland (I spent 9 years of my life here prior to NYC from 1998-2007), something about the slowness, the space and the natural wonders spoke to me as well as the people of Portland are gentle, kind and generous- sometimes a little passive-aggressive, I digress. ;0 I create solo dance pieces influenced heavily by butoh. YEt I could never do it alone. Roland Toledo is a main collaborator, he has composed and/or arranged music for me 4 of my solo pieces. You see, my time in NYC acted as a period to delve deeper into butoh training mostly at wonderful CAVE and I was fortunate to have danced and performers with some pretty freaking awesome people interested in the same. Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, Ximena Garnica, Shige Moriya and a whole host of brilliant and curious beings. I finally started making solo dance work after a lifetime of studying with other people from hip-hop to capoeira, ballet and graham technique. I really am a lover of movement, the body, sound and energy both outside us all and inside us all. It is a beautiful thing to open up and be opened to listen and be listened to to observe and be observed. I love the light and the dark and finding balance between the two but most of the time am sort of stuck at one end of the spectrum. I am a lover of film and music and art. I also love quiet times and raucousness. Being in the moment and taken a ride in life is fun and hard at times too, directing the boat but being guided by the river is also part of it all. Oh, for what it’s worth, I teach pilates, have a BA in Dance from Point Park College Pittsburgh, PA.,and am an alumnus of Interlochen Arts Academy, Interlochen, MI. I grew up in Michigan, that’s where much of my family lives. I have three nieces and two older sisters. One of them is a a psychologist and the other is in the Army living in Germany. I am 1/4 Lebanese and make mean stuffed grape leaves. I keep creating and sharing with anyone who is willing to receive. In someway it is my contribution to this planet. I compost and eat greens too. I love the moments when you catch yourself being conscious and hope to string them together to be a better human. Ultimately, i want to connect into something grander and live in peace. Not to mention touring my work eventually would be lovely. I desire the experience and gift of performing for an audience of other cultures. That would be very sweet. Like music is a language so is movement. I really only speak English so communicating through energy and movement is more of the ultimate. http://conectom.leimay.org/m/profile?screenName=3ttmkcnlwusoh |
| Stuart Lynch | Stuart Lynch is the headmaster of KFTS, ‘The Copenhagen Film & Theatre School’. He is theatre director, performance artist and teacher with a background in psychology, theatre company management, martial arts and Butoh dance. He was a dancer with the actor and choreographer, Min Tanaka, in Japan in the early 1990’s. He is a leading exponent of Tanaka’s training system, ‘Bodyweather’. His school, KFTS is unique as the only school in Scandinavia to run a life-coaching programme alongside the film and theatre acting program. (https://www.metropolis.dk/en/stuart-lynch) |
| Sua Urana | Sua Urana is a Barcelona-based Butoh instructor and founder of L’horitzó dansa – El horizonte danza, offering intensive training programs and weekly classes since 2012, later expanding to Madrid—her studio is located at C/ Margarit 29, Barcelona. |
| Sumako Koseki | Sumako Koseki is a Japanese-born Butoh dancer and choreographer who established her own company in France in 1980 and has performed at festivals like Avignon and Theater X in Tokyo. |
| Susana Reyes | HOJA DE VIDA SINTETIZADA SUSANA REYES La Danza Butoh de los Andes Bailarina, coreógrafa, maestra, directora y gestora cultural. Con una brillante trayectoria de 50 años, es reconocida como una de las artistas más queridas y emblemáticas del arte ecuatoriano, con una proyección internacional que la ha colocado como una legítima embajadora del país. Pionera de la danza Butoh en el Ecuador, ha logrado erigir el cosmos de una danza propia que la ha denominado La Danza Butoh de los Andes. Egresada del Instituto Nacional de Danza del Ecuador, ha realizado estudios de perfeccionamiento tanto a nivel dancístico, teatral y técnicas artístico-terapéuticas. Entre sus principales estudios dancísticos constan: México con el Ballet Nacional dirigido por Guillermina Bravo y en Estados Unidos en el Peridance Center con la Compañía de Jennifer Muller. Ha tomado varios talleres y laboratorios con destacadas compañías y maestros como: José Limón, Alwin Nikolais, Joyce Trisler, Teatro de la Memoria de Colombia, Zvi Gotheiner, Ron Brown, Mummenschantz, Glenda Batson, entre otros. Desde 1992 inicia su acercamiento a la Danza Butoh con maestros norteamericanos como Joan Laage, Maureen Fleming, consolidando su máximo desarrollo con los maestros japoneses Natsu Nakajima, Yukio Waguri, Yoshito Onho, arribando en el 2001 a su propuesta de La Danza Butoh de los Andes. Característica destacada de su obra es el trabajo conjunto que desde 1985 viene desarrollando de forma permanente con el músico y compositor Moti Deren, quien se ha convertido en un puntal de su propuesta estética plasmando obras de gran envergadura y trascendencia con las que ha recorrido el Ecuador y varios países de Europa, África, Asia, Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica, presentándose en los más importantes teatros, hasta espacios alternativos, como plazas, parques, comunidades, escuelas, cárceles, etc. Conjuntamente con el músico Moti Deren tiene a su haber más de 150 obras creadas durante 5 décadas de trabajo, entre las que se destacan: “Lavanderas”, “El Danzak”, “Los Mantos”, “Cantuña”, “Sueños Blancos”, “Urpi”, “Las dos riveras”, “Amakuna”, “Yaku Samai”, “Mujer niña y gaviota”, “Las mujeres Olvidadas”, “Sumka”, “A la Luz de los Salmos”, “Nido”, “Imalleras”, “Ñawi”, entre otras. Desde 1992 fundadora y directora de la Casa de la Danza, espacio desde el cual ha generado una fructífera labor a favor del arte, la sociedad y la unión entre los pueblos del mundo con diferentes actividades de formación, creación y difusión. Uno de los principales ejes en su labor socio-cultural es el proyecto “Desde la danza para la vida”, a través del cual y mediante talleres, despliega una intensa labor de crecimiento humano a través de la danza y el saber ancestral, trabajando con los diferentes sectores de la sociedad, especialmente con grupos vulnerables, niños, jóvenes, adultos, estudiantes, maestros, etc., creando una plataforma especial para las mujeres. A nivel pedagógico mantiene una intensa y permanente actividad de transmisión de su propuesta de “La Danza Butoh de los Andes” mediante clases, residencias, talleres, laboratorios, conferencias y montajes a nivel nacional e internacional trabajando con actores, bailarines, músicos, artistas y estudiantes. Llevando esta propuesta pedagógica a varios países como México, Chile, Nicaragua, Estados Unidos, Israel, Italia, España, Corea del Sur, Japón, entre otros. Actualmente, conjuntamente con el músico Moti Deren se encuentra dirigiendo una residencia artística itinerante de investigación, formación y creación en las provincias de Cañar y Azuay del Ecuador, trabajando fundamentalmente con estudiantes de la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad Estatal de Cuenca, fundando este año 2025 el espacio de investigación y creación “Cuenca Butoh Danza”. Algunos festivales y giras internacionales: American Dance Festival en los Estados Unidos (en dos ocasiones). Festival Internacional de Danza Contemporánea de San Luis Potosí, México (en cuatro ocasiones). Festival de Teatro de Manizales, Colombia. Festival de Solistas Mandapa, Paris, Francia. Encuentro de Creadores, Navajivan, Venezuela Festival de la Nueva Danza, Barranquilla, Colombia. Festival Latino de Joseph Papp de Nueva York (en dos ocasiones). Festival de Danza-Teatro del Freiestheater, Schwerin, Alemania. Festival Internacional de Ballet de la Habana, Cuba. Florida Dance Festival, Miami, USA. Festival Avant Garde, Mérida, México (en 3 ocasiones). Festival Mujeres en la Danza, Quito, Ecuador (13 ocasiones). Festival Latinoamérica Presente, Bonn, Alemania. Festival de Salas Concertadas de Teatro de Cali, Cali, Colombia. Festival de Teatro de Pasto, Pasto, Colombia. Festival Antílope, Neuchatel, Chaux de fonds, Suiza Festival Il gatto chi danza, Ascona, Suiza (2 ocasiones) Festival Internacional de Teatro de la Habana,Cuba Giras por Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Estados Unidos, Suiza, Nicaragua, Italia, Croacia, Corea del Sur, Japón, Austria, Alemania, México, Bolivia, Chile, Egipto, Israel. Obras estrenadas en los últimos 8 años: 2025: “Ñawi” 2024: “Imalleras” 2023: “Nido-el camino del retorno”. 2022: “Punya” 2021: “A la Luz de los Salmos” 2020: “Las Mujeres Olvidadas” “ 2019: “Mirando al Cielo”” 2018: “Aleluya en Butoh” Algunas actividades los últimos 6 años: 2025: Creación y dirección del laboratorio y grupo performático “CUENCA BUTOH DANZA”, dirección y estreno de la obra ÑAWI. 2024: Gira, itinerancia por 6 parroquias de Quito por los 50 años de carrera. Funciones y talleres. 2023: Función “A la luz de los Salmos” Festival Internacional de Música Sacra de Quito. 2023: Taller de “Danza Para la Vida” Itinerancia 5 parroquias de Quito. 2023: Función “Urpi” itinerancia 5 parroquias de Quito 2023: Estreno de la obra “NIDO-el Camino del Retorno”, Gala Dancística de Homenaje a la mujer en el Teatro Nacional de la CCE, Quito 2022: Noviembre. Taller de danza Butoh y composición – Galápagos -CCE Núcleo Galápagos, CENDA. Proyecto seleccionado por el IFCI en el marco del Programa Nacional Camino a Loja 2022. 2022. “El poder sanador de la danza” con SUSANA REYES. Taller por el día de la no violencia contra la mujer. Nulti, Challuabamba, Cuenca. 2022: Noviembre. Taller Intensivo de Danza Butoh CCE, Núcleo del Azuay. 2022: “Butoh-or”. Movimiento sutil para el bienestar del Cuerpo y Alma. PRANA Yoga, & Wellness, Challuabamba, Cuenca. 2022: Función de “A la Luz de los Salmos”. Cuenca, Ecuador. Teatro Pumapungo. 2022: Función de “A la Luz de los Salmos” en la Fiesta Escénica Quito, Teatro México 2022: Estreno de la obra “PUNYA” Teatro Carlos Cueva Tamariz de Cuenca, en el marco del “LA ESTRAFALARIA”, Primer Festival de Artes Escénicas de la Facultad de Artes Escénicas, Universidad de Cuenca. 2022: Taller Butoh 4 meses Laboratorio de Creación de la Carrera de Artes Escénicas. UCUENCA, Cuenca. 2022: Función de la obra “A la Luz de los Salmos”. Teatro Benjamín Carrión Mora CCE de Loja. 2022: Taller de Danza Butoh por el Día Internacional de la Danza en la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador 2022: Taller de Danza Butoh Intensivo – San José – Olón en espacio cultural La Fábrica. Provincia de Manabí, Ecuador 2022: Función de la obra ”A la Luz de los Salmos” en el teatro Nacional de la CCE en Quito. 2022: Función de la obra “A la Luz de los Salmos” en la Casa de la Cultura CCE Núcleo del Azuay, en el marco del Día Internacional de la Mujer. 2022: Presentación de la obra “Tributo en Flor”. “Día Internacional de Conmemoración en Memoria de las Víctimas del Holocausto”, Museo Universitario, Dirección de Cultura, U de Cuenca. 2021: Estreno de la Obra “A la Luz de los Salmos” CCE Núcleo del Azuay. Diciembre. 2021: Taller: Danza de la Luz para el cuerpo y el alma. Zoom. Jornada por el Día de la No Violencia contra la Mujer. 2021: Homenaje a Eliécer Cárdenas, “Cuerpo presente”. Homenaje Póstumo Artístico. Casa de la Provincia, Cuenca. 2021: Pre-estreno de la Obra “A la Luz de los Salmos”. CJE. Quito 2021: Talleres online: Mujeres de Luz. Cuerpo Conciencia y Movimiento. ZOOM. 2021: ECUADOR EN BUTOH 2021 Dia Internacional de la Danza, Impronta performática ”A la luz de la luna” ZOOM 2021: Día de la Danza. ECUADOR EN BUTOH 2021 – Maratón Butokah – ZOOM 2021: Festival Internacional FEDAC 2021 La Patagonia Chile, con la obra “Memorias de Arcilla” con música de Moti Deren & Seminario de la Danza Butoh de los Andes. 2021: Jornada “Mujeres de la Memoria” – La Danza Butoh de los Andes. HOMENAJE DANCÍSTICO 3 OBRAS EMBLEMÁTICAS: Obra “SUMKA”, “LAS MUJERES OLVIDADAS” ( “AMAKUNA”. FACEBOOK LIVE CCE, QUITO. FB 2021: Talleres el Florecer Femenino. ZOOM 2020: Taller por la Sensibilización para la No Violencia de la Mujer 2020. ZOOM. 2020: XVIII Encuentro Internacional de danza, Guayaquil “Fragmentos de junio” ZOOM, y CLASE MASTER práctica “INTRODUCCIÓN A LA DANZA BUTOH DE LOS ANDES”. 2020: Desde la danza para la Vida, Segundo Ciclo El Espacio Sagrado. ZOOM. 2020: Estreno Mundial de Ia Obra “Las Mujeres Olvidadas” de Susana Reyes, en La Casa de Ia Cultura Ecuatoriana conmemoración del Día lnternacional de Ia Mujer, con música original del maestro Moti Deren. Miércoles 11 de marzo. 2020: “MIRANDO AL CIELO” con Susana Reyes y Moti Deren. ZOOM. Transmitida desde el Espacio Sagrado/ Casa de Ia Danza. Varios Talleres de Danza Butoh, laboratorios intensivos y clases Master impartidos anteriores a estos años: 2020 Enero taller Butoh CONOCOTO, Quito 2019 Sept-Oct Taller Butoh con muestra, CCE Ambato, Ecuador 2018 Organiza e imparte Taller internacional de Danza Butoh, Quito, Casa de la Danza 2017 Managua, Nicaragua Taller Butoh 2016 Casa de la Danza Taller internacional de Butoh 2016 Casa de la Danza Laboratorio Butoh y Muestra La Voz de la Tierra 2011 Japón y Corea del Sur, clases Master 2007 Bologna Italia Laboratorio y Muestra Danza Butoh |
| Susanna Åkerlund (SU-EN) | SU-EN is a Swedish choreographer and butoh dance artist, considered a pioneer of butoh in Sweden. She founded the SU-EN Butoh Company in 1992 in Tokyo and has developed her own butoh method. She has studied Japanese traditional dance and has produced short films and dance art films. SU-EN’s artistic activities are based at Haglund School in Almunge, northeast of Uppsala. Her work includes performances, workshops, film production, projects, and lectures, both in Sweden and internationally. https://www.filmform.com/artists/13238-su-en/ |
| Susanne Daeppen | Susanne Daeppen is a Swiss movement artist, educator, and author whose dance practice is deeply influenced by Butoh. She discovered Butoh in 1986 while in the United States and later traveled to Japan in 1992 to study directly with Kazuo Ohno, one of the founders of the form. Her work blends Butoh with somatic practices, meditation, and body awareness, and she often refers to her approach as “Butoh/Souldance” or “the art of slowness.” |
| Suzumushi | Member of Daizu-ko Farm |
| Sven Wu Wei | With a course, linked to the Arts in various areas, in particular, with the design and painting, began in 2002 as a Stylist and had two clothing brands for 7 years. In 2009, he studied Contemporary Art in London, starting with Conceptual Performance and Butoh Dance. In 2010, he made his first solo exhibition with 20 works of digital art, 3 assemblages and a video / performance installation, and until 2018 he performed 20 Butoh performances. In 2013, he discovered the need to paint and draw with markers, pens, pencils and pastels, which up to the present he has completed 100 works, mostly in size A3. In this exhibition, he presents his favorite works, which are a collection held in 2016, with a strong symbology and esoterism. |
| Sylwia Hanff | Sylwia is a pioneer and one the most recognizable butoh dancers in Poland (based in Warsaw) who has studied butoh with the greatest masters. She has an M.A. in philosophy, with a theoretical background in Theatre Anthropology. Sylwia is a choreographer, director, dance therapist, yoga teacher and cultural manager. She has also studied Western and Eastern, contemporary and ancient techniques of body control. The practice of meditation is a crucial element of her training. She was an actress in the Warsaw Mime Theatre, and worked with the National Theatre and National Opera. She is a curator of projects in the field of artistic and cultural education (Mazovian Award 2021 for I don’t know who Grotowski was. Laboratory of Active Culture project) as well as socio-cultural projects, initiator and Artistic Director of Butohpolis. International Butoh Art Festival. On stage for 29 years (since 1996), so far she has performed in over 40 institutional and independent theater performances. Since 2002, she has been running the Limen Butoh (theater), where she has created 30 solo and group performances as well as many etudes and improvisations. Her artistic work and method were described in the book by J. Majewskiej „The Body Revolving Stage. New Dance in New Poland” ( Theatre Institute, 2011) and in “Intense Bodily Presence: Practices of Polish Butō” by Magdalena Zamorska (published in English by Peter Lang GmbH, 2018), as well as in the book “Something called Butoh” / “The current situation of Butoh outside of Japan”, published by the NPO Dance Archive Network (Japan). She was scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. For 23 years (since 2002) she has been running body and movement workshops. She collaborates with physical and experimental theaters. For 23 years (since 2002), she has been cooperating internationally, organizing artistic events – presentations of performances and workshops by guests from abroad and inviting foreign artists to participate in her projects. She performs internationally. Academic Text Hanff, Sylwia. “Wywiad z Sylwią Hanff, tancerką butoh.” Teatr Tańca – Polska Butō, 2009. Interview. |
| Syndy Butz | Sindy Butz is an interdisciplinary visual artist and butoh dancer based in New York who creates conceptual endurance performances, multimedia installations, performance-based video sculptures and environmental fragrance projects. Butz approaches her work from an experimental self-psychoanalytical perspective, aiming to study behavior, awareness, inter-generational trauma, sociopolitical transformation, and the collective unconscious. (https://greenwichhouse.org/person/sindy-butz) Sindy has been a principal dancer of Vangeline Theater from 2010 to 2018 and joined the New York Butoh Institute faculty in 2016. (https://www.triskelionarts.org/vangeline-program-2022)https://www.vangeline.com/calendar/ |
| Syv Bruzeau | Born in France, Syv is a multi-talented artist who mainly draws her inspiration from Asian artistic practices such as Butoh and from collaborations with Asian artists. After completing a Master in Russian, English and Marketing, Syv came to Asia where she traveled extensively, pursuing her interest to experience different cultures. She opened a few restaurants in the region and this passion for providing joy and bonding between people led her to movement therapy. |
| Tadashi Endo | Tadashi Endo (born 1947) is a butoh dancer resident in Göttingen, Germany. Endo is a Japanese national. He studied theatre direction in Vienna before touring Europe giving solo performances accompanied by leading jazz performers. In 1980, he was hired as head of a theater program for the city of Northeim, where he worked until 1986. In 1992, founded the MAMU butoh center in the near-by university city of Göttingen. The center holds performances as well as training students of the dance form and holding an annual festival in the Goettingen Junges Theater. Endo also tours internationally. In 2009, he choreographed Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera Admeto, directed by Doris Dörrie and performed at the Edinburgh International Festival. Endo was greatly influenced by Kazuo Ohno, whom he met in 1989. Endo’s style is harsh and stark, sometimes accompanied by live or recorded jazz, a dance form that Endo sees as having a natural affinity with butoh. |
| Taiju Hirano | Part of Dairakudakan |
| Taiki Iwamoto | Member of Sankai Juku, active in recent projects (e.g. Meguri, 2015), under Amagatsu’s artistic direction. |
| Taishi Watanabe | Part of a unit of butoh street performance with Mikiko Kawamura called Iroha (https://kawamuramikiko.com/iroha/?playlist=3e8a43c&video=03071d2). Also associated as part or student at Space Dance School (https://sdee-museum.com). |
| Taito Suzuki | Listed as butoh dancer at https://sapporo-butoh.com: Born in Hekinan City, Aichi Prefecture. Started street dancing at the age of 10. From 2022 to 2024, he participated in the “Moonlight Mobile Theater” organized by Nobuyoshi Asai. He has participated in many other choreographers’ creations and works, and is also energetically involved in his own creations. |
| Taizo Hida | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Taka (Takashi) Takiguchi | Taka Takashi (滝口貴) is an independent practicing artist and producer of Japanese heritage based in Naarm (Melbourne) with over 10 years of experience in the arts sector. His art-making process is to question social norms and their structures from intersectional perspectives and to create provocative works through the mediums of poetry, installations, and various movement-based techniques: Suzuki Method, Butoh, and shamanic/trance dance practices. (from https://www.taka-takiguchi.com) |
| Takahiko Fukui (QUICK) | Founder of MuDA, an art group formed in Kyoto in 2010. Takahiko Fukui is a dancer, choreographer, artist, and SEITAI master. MuDA is dedicated to the research and practical activities of dance, creative work, and bodywork, guided by the principles of ‘無-MU, 全-ZEN, 脱-DATSU, 極-KYOKU, 肚-HARA’. Their aim is to pursue the “formless form” and the ultimate dance of creation that returns to nothingness. |
| Takao Kawaguchi | Since 2008, Kawaguchi has created dedicated butoh-related works: The Sick Dancer (2012) About Kazuo Ohno (2013 onward): a deeply researched homage in which he replicates signature performances of Kazuo Ohno using archival footage, and was even shown to Ohno’s son Yoshito, who offered Kawaguchi original costumes. These works have toured globally, with About Kazuo Ohno receiving a NYC Bessie Award nomination and performed in over 30 cities, garnering wide acclaim. Academic Texts Kawaguchi, Takao. About Kazuo Ohno: Performance Notes. Tokyo: Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio, 2014. Exhibition booklet. Kawaguchi, Takao. “On the Possibility of Re-Performing Kazuo Ohno.” Dance Archives Project Bulletin (ダンスアーカイブプロジェクト通信), 2015. Kawaguchi, Takao, and Keiko Takahashi. “Reconstructing Butoh Memory through Performance.” Performing Arts Journal Japan, vol. 22, 2017, pp. 12–18. |
| Takao Kusuno | First one to introduced Butoh to Brazil |
| Takashi Uchiyama | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Takayuki Takita | Listed as having participated in the Thailand International Butoh Festival 11 (https://www.bacc.or.th/en/events/59946) |
| Takechiyo Mariya | Mentioned as butoh dancer for the butoh film Curtain of Eyes, directed by Daniele Wilmouth and choreographed by Katsura Kan (https://www.danielewilmouth.com/curtain-of-eyes) |
| Taketeru Kudo | Born in Tokyo in 1967. Butoh dancer. Established “Tokyo Gienkan” in 1997. Currently performing mainly solo shows around the world. |
| Takiko | Part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00619/ |
| Takuya Muramatsu | Principal dancer and choreographer at Dairakudakan (since 1994); founder of Butoh‑ha Dattan **Key works** *Gyudankin*, *Ushiro no Shomen*, *Takara Jima*, *Dobu*, among others |
| Takuya Tsuji | Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, he began to focus more intensely on bodily expression. During this time, he encountered Masahide Ōmori, a Butoh artist, and began studying Butoh. He joined Ōmori’s troupe, Tenrōseidō, and has since appeared in all of its productions. |
| Tamia Rivero | Tamia was born in San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina on January 21, 1986. That same day, Hijikata—the creator of Butoh dance—died. I am an actress, dancer, and butohka. Tamia means “rain” in Quechua. America and Japan have been weaving together my ancestral imaginaries. They are present in my works, which always emerge as hybrids. (https://mundoperformance.net/tamia-rivero). ### ▶️ Video Class * Kill Will en Mendoza (Spanish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrVbFYJfTyo |
| Tamie Nakajima | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s. |
| Tan Maneva | The artist Tan Maneva was educated at National Academy of Theatre and Film in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has also studied Butoh at Subbody Butoh School in Dharamshala under the Japanese master Rizome Lee. Before moving to Stockholm, Sweden, Tana worked in several Bulgarian theaters. She co-founded the group Theatre for New Forms in Bulgaria and toured all over Europe and the US. Tana Maneva has since developed her own stage language: a mix of Butoh, performance, and theatre. She often examines the human ego and persona versus the inner world of shadows. Tana Maneva has worked with Teater Giljotin since 2002, and together with the composer Rikard Borggård produced a number of performances, both in Sweden and abroad. (https://www.teatergiljotin.se/butoh-workshop) |
| Tan Weiying | Weiying moves around in space, carrying in her body lived experiences and yearnings, wishing for an ephemeral moment of resonance. her work lies at the intersection of odissi and butoh, informed by traditional theatre forms that she’s immersed herself in. through stillness and metaphors, she seeks to create experiences that offer moments of introspection, viscerality, and transformation. (https://www.tan-weiying.com) |
| Tania Galindo | Founder of Mexican butoh Company Butoh Chilango. She is featured in the book Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. |
| Tania Garrido Monreal | She has been professionally involved in the performing arts since 2003, graduating from the RESAD (Royal School of Dramatic Art), gestural branch, in Madrid. She first encountered Butoh dance in 2001 with Wendell Wells in Madrid, with whom she studied regularly for three years. Later, she embarked on a personal quest, delving into the Butoh universe of various masters. From 2002 to 2011, she co-directed the company Cranämour [ButohDanceTheatre]. Since its dissolution, she has collaborated as a performer with various artists from the world of dance and theater, also creating her own work and conducting training workshops. |
| Taniguchi Mai | Mai Taniguchi appears in the Dairakudakan troupe roster—a renowned Butoh company based in Tokyo—according to a detailed listing of artists. |
| Tanja Woloshen | Tanja Faylene Woloshen (she/ they) (MFA, BA Hon, BEd). Independent Dance Artist/ Educator/ Collaborator. From & currently creating on Treaty 1. Performed & studied nationally and internationally. Some things~ author: “Re-wilding the Body: Embodying Experiences of Ecology” (2025) Intellect- Applied Arts in Health; performance/ creation: “Cat’s Cradle” (2025) Young Lungs Dance Exchange; performance/ collaboration “How to Raise a Ghost: little phantoms on the prairie edition” with Mia van Leeuwen (2025) YLDE; creation/ performance: “Underlander” (2024) Bike & Circuses; creation/ film: “Field of Desire” (2023); creation/ performance; “Cat’s Cradle” (2022) Waking Death; creation/performance: “Beautiful Loser” (2021) Art Holm; National Dance Education Association Conference Presenter (2022, 2021); Dance Studies Association Conference Presenter (2022, 2019); One Trunk Theatre’s “Western Chronicle”- choreographer (2021); research/ performance “Memorials for Lost Bodies” (2020) Happy Phantoms Collective. Tanja has been facilitating movement and dance workshops for decades, with continued professional development through classes, workshops, and conferences, also maintaining a practice of dance making and performance. She is currently on faculty with the Winnipeg Holistic Expressive Arts Therapy Institute, Winnipeg School Division, and teaches independently, with prior engagements at ULethbridge, UWinnipeg, UBC-Okanagan, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, The Wellness Institute, and Royal Winnipeg Ballet. |
| Tanya Calamoneri | Tanya Calamoneri, PhD, is a dancer, choreographer, dance researcher, and dance cultural studies scholar. Her research focuses on somatics and butoh dance, a post-WWII Japanese performance form that uses imagery as its impetus and methodology for creating environment, state, and movement. She also writes about issues concerning the migration of forms across cultural boundaries in a globalized world. Her research is published in Routledge’s Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Journal, Dance Chronicle, Journal of Dance Education and a chapter in the Routledge Butoh Companion as well as a chapter in the Routledge Intercultural Actor and Performer Training. She recently published a book on butoh in the United States and Mexico, titled Butoh America. Her New York-based company, Company SoGoNo, was funded by NYSCA, NYFA, AMC Live Music for Dance, and recognized by New York Innovative Theatre Awards. Previously she worked as an arts administrator; in San Francisco, she was Executive Director of Dancers’ Group, and in New York, Co-Executive Director of The Field, and at Brooklyn Academy of Music as Project Manager of the State Department’s cultural diplomacy program, DanceMotion USA. Academic Texts Calamoneri, Tanya. “The Stickiness of Things: Race, Affect, and the Butoh Body in Contemporary Performance.” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, vol. 12, no. 3, 2021, pp. 310–324. Routledge, https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2021.1955043. Calamoneri, Tanya. “Toward a Transcultural Pedagogy: Butoh and the Somatic Transmission of Cultural Memory.” Theatre Topics, vol. 30, no. 1, 2020, pp. 23–36. Johns Hopkins University Press, https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2020.0002. Calamoneri, Tanya. “Embodied Disruption: Butoh and the American Performing Body.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 49, no. 3, 2017, pp. 42–61. Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767717000387. Calamoneri, Tanya. “Performing the In-Between: The Americanization of Butoh.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 2016, pp. 310–329. University of Hawai‘i Press, https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2016.0018. Calamoneri, Tanya. “Butoh Pedagogy in the United States: Somatic Knowledge and Cultural Translation.” Journal of Dance Education, vol. 19, no. 4, 2019, pp. 157–167. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/15290824.2018.1543832. Calamoneri, Tanya. “Bodies of Color: Butoh and Racialized Performance in the 21st Century.” In The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 501–512. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536132-36. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Transnational Corporealities and the Politics of Embodiment. New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2025. Calamoneri, Tanya. “The Dancer’s Archive: Memory, Affect, and Cultural Inheritance in Post-Butoh Performance.” Performance Research, vol. 28, no. 1, 2023, pp. 84–97. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2023.2205127. |
| Tashi Iwaoka | Tashi Iwaoka is a Turku based performance artist/mover/Butoh practitioner. After his first Butoh experiences in 1997 with Kazuo Ohno and Kim Itoh in Japan, Iwaoka practised Butoh based bodywork for over 10 years. In 2020 he began searching for what his butoh is extensively and has been deepening what Butoh means. Since 1997 he has attended workshops and seminars by Butoh artists such as Tadashi Endo, Carlotta Ikeda, Masaki Iwana, Sankai Juku, Natsu Nakajima, Atsushi Takenouchi, Yumiko Yoshioka and more. His practice is built up on three basic elements – body, sense of being moved and becoming/being it. |
| Tatsumi Hijikata | Tatsumi Hijikata (土方 巽) March 9, 1928 – January 21, 1986 (birth name: Yoneyama Kunio) was a Japanese choreographer, and the founder of a genre of dance performance art called Butoh. By the late 1960s, he had begun to develop this dance form, which is highly choreographed with stylized gestures drawn from his childhood memories of his northern Japan home. It is this style which is most often associated with Butoh by Westerners. |
| Tatsuya Murayama | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00200/) |
| Tayna Var | Tayna Var is an international butoh dancer who is Adam Koan’s wife. She also has a background in theater improvisation and fine arts. |
| Tebby W.T. Ramasike | Tebby W.T. Ramasike (b. 1965, Johannesburg) is a South African choreographer and founder of TeBogO Dance Ensemble, known for his creation of Afro‑Butoh, and has been based in the Netherlands since the mid-1990s. |
| Teita Iwabuchi | Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1974, she majored in theater at Tamagawa University and studied Japanese dance and butoh at the same time. In 2012, she won the French Embassy Prize for Young Choreographers for “Hetero” (co-choreographed by Kaori Seki) at the Yokohama Dance Collection EX 2012, and was awarded a residency at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine de France (CNDC). ), and stayed at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine (CNDC) in France. As his own method, he developed “ecstatic body theory,” a methodology of expression inspired by butoh, martial arts, and Lao Tzu. She is a part-time lecturer at J. F. Oberlin University, a DaBY resident artist, and a lover of LE SSERAFIM. (https://dancebase.yokohama/en/creator_profile/teita-iwabuchi) |
| Temmetsu | Japanese Butoh artist and director. TEMMETSU started Butoh in 1993 at the Tatsumi-Hijikata memorial Asbestos-studio. He formed a Butoh group named Sekishoku Suisei Kan (House of Red Comet) in 1996 and produced numerous dance pieces which he himself created, directed and performed. He also showed experimental performances on the street. After the dance group was dissolved in 2005, he continued to create Butoh works with the theatrical imagination and unique aesthetics.Today, he performs both in Japan and abroad, in places such as Europe, Russia, Korea and more. Since 2016, he has directed the theatrical body expression unit B-kikan which applies the butoh methods to drama. ### ▶️ Video Class * Butoh Choreography Lab https://vimeo.com/799258420 |
| Teresa Carlos | Theresa Carlos is a Mexico City–based Butoh and Body Weather teacher. |
| Terrance Graven | In 1990, he was a principle performer for Harupin-Ha, the first Bay Area Butoh troupe, headed by Koichi and Hiroko Tamano. He also has trained with Yumiko Yoshioka, Akira Kasai, Anzu Furukawa, Yuri Nagaoka, and Diego Piñon. (http://www.terrancegraven.com/biocv.html) |
| Terry Hatfield | “Terry Hatfield, director of the Butoh Co-Op Thailand, reintroduces this form of Japanese dance theatre to us, saying, “During the cultural revolution of the 1960s, many artists were experimenting with ideas similar to that of butoh’s worldwide. Tatsumi Hijikata gave it the name butoh and people recognised it as an art form with a particular style. Artists began to emulate this style as a method to create works. “Worldwide butoh and butoh influences are drifting into other art forms like film, photography, poetry, and music,” he continues. “However, those influences have not been connected to the origins of butoh. Butoh is being used as a type of dance therapy in some places because it triggers forgotten memories and allows artists and audience to release suppressed emotions. Butoh is in a constant state of metamorphosis.” As for the International Butoh Festival Thailand, he says, “It’s based on a model that I worked with at the San Francisco Butoh Festival for nine years before relocating to Thailand. The original concept was to provide different styles of butoh and collaborate with Thai artists to build an international network of artists. Each year, there’s a different theme. For example, the focus of the first year’s festival was on first generation artists, meaning artists who practised directly with Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the founders of the art form. In the second year, we began to introduce second generation artists – those who practised with students of Hijikata and Ohno – to show the evolution of the art form. In last year’s festival, titled ‘Butoh Tua Mae’, we showcased women artists in butoh. This year’s festival is dedicated to Charlotta Ikeda, a butoh artist who passed away earlier this year…” https://www.nationthailand.com/life/30248849 |
| Teru Goi | Teru Goi performed primarily in Tokyo, Japan, as evidenced by solo showcases and Tatsumi Hijikata memorial concerts at notable venues like Sogetsu Hall and Yurakucho Asahi Hall. His activity was centrally located in Tokyo’s experimental performance scene during the 1980s and early 2000s. (Japan Dance Archive Network). Teru passed away in 2008. |
| Teruyuki Nagamori | Actor and butoh dancer. While studying at Shizuoka University, he joined a film club. He was fascinated by the world of “acting,” which involves expressing yourself through your body, and decided to pursue a career in theater. One day, he was invited by an acquaintance to a place where he encountered the world of “Butoh,” which left a deep impression on him. He studied under Yoshito Ohno and entered the world of Butoh. The Kazuo Ohno Dance Institute was established by Kazuo Ohno, who together with Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of dark dance, spread Japanese Butoh to the world. It opened in early 1949, the same year that Kazuo Ohno gave his first recital at the Kanda Kyoritsu Auditorium, and hosted the first performance of Kazuo Ohno’s contemporary dance. Since its establishment, Kazuo Ohno, his second son Yoshito Ohno, and many other dancers and artists have gathered here as a place to study and practice, producing numerous works. Through performances, workshops, publications and other activities, we have promoted and fostered exchanges with world cultures. Nagamori entered the institute at the age of 31 and studied under Yoshito Ohno, who was already a world-renowned dancer at the time. Artists performer https://tachikawa-billboard.com/artists_list/teruyuki-nagamori |
| Tess de Quincey | TESS DE QUINCEY is a choreographer and dancer who has worked extensively in Australia, Europe, Japan and India as a solo performer, teacher and director. She founded De Quincey Co in 2000. Based in Japan from 1985 until 1991, she was a dancer for 6 years with butoh artist Min Tanaka and his Mai-Juku performance group, which has provided the strongest influence on her work. Her major solo productions MOVEMENT ON THE EDGE 1988-89, ANOTHER DUST 1989-92, IS and IS.2 1994-95 and NERVE 9 2001-2005 have toured extensively in both Europe and Australia whilst her most recent solo MOONDANCE, is an interdisciplinary collaboration with photographer Vsevolod Vlaskine, video artist Sam James and musician Vic McEwan. A series of performance works done over 5 years in the ancient dry lake bed of Mungo, far western New South Wales 1991-95, were the beginnings of her work in the Australian Outback. Tess initiated the TRIPLE ALICE LABORATORIES 1999-2001 that brought together interdisciplinary practices of artists and scientists in relation to the Central Desert of Australia as well as the EMBRACE EXCHANGE between Indian and Australian artists 2003-2008. Since introducing the BODYWEATHER philosophy and methodology into Australia in 1989, Tess has engendered an extensive teaching and performance practice that has had a far-reaching influence on numerous practitioners within the performing arts field in both Australia and abroad. BodyWeather is the basis of her work. Academic Texts de Quincey, Tess. “Body Weather bodies in the outback–Lake Mungo.” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, vol. 12, no. 4, 2021, Taylor & Francis. de Quincey, Tess, and Ian Maxwell. “Tess de Quincey: A future body.” The Twenty-First Century Performance Reader, edited by S. Bay-Cheng et al., Routledge, 2019, pp. 309–320. de Quincey, Tess, and Ian Maxwell. “Tess de Quincey.” The Twenty-First Century Performance Reader, Routledge, 2019. |
| Tetsuji Yamazaki | Listed as part of Motofuji’s Asbestos-kan (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00009/) |
| Tetsuro Fukuhara | Tetsuro Fukuhara is a choreographer, a writer, and a director of Tokyo Space Dance. His first teacher was Akira Kasai, he was very surprised with a new way of Butoh as a dance technique. Kazuo Ohno taught a way how to enjoy Butoh. At last Tatsumi Hijikata suggested to him one special mission which he should develop as an artist. Hijikata’s teaching was most important for him. He have developed Butoh as an improvisation dance and he carries on Butoh as New Butoh Space Dance. On 1972-1975, He studied Improvisation Butoh dance from Akira Kasai. He belongs to the second generation of Butoh. On 1975, He started his own works in Tokyo. On 1983, He joined “Story of Seven Herbs” directed by Tatsumi Hijikata, then he founded Tokyo Space Dance. On 1990, He made his debut in Paris and Berlin supported by the Japan Foundation. Fukuhara has launched abroad and formed a network overseas since 1990. He is making an effort to establish a new dance without being limited to Japanese Butoh in partnership with foreign cooperators supported by the Japan Foundation, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canada Council and several foreign foundations. On 1995, His successfull performance in “East Winds Festival of New Butoh” in London secured his status as internationally known performer. Except his productions in Europe and American areas he especially succeeded in Beirut in the Middle East on 1996, also Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Istanbul, Ankara, Monterrey and Mexico City between 2000 and 2002, these were meaningful successes because he discovered the new point of view towards Japanese culture from the third aspect besides Asia and Europe. Meanwhile, he tackles the production of socialization of art and social development program in and out of country. On 1994 he could meet with a theory of Affordance in the field of cognitive science and a very strange nice artist, Shusaku Arakawa who made a space, a park, and a house without a flat surface only with a slope. When he has danced into Shusaku’s space named “Site of Reversible Destiny, Yoro” in Okayama, Japan, a new idea of Space Dance burst upon him. Then he has started a project called “Space Dance” as a collaboration with “Dance + Architecture + Information + Design” by the cooperation with dancers, artists, scientists, technicians and researchers. On 1998, He made “Digital Space Dance” supported by Japanese Ministry of Trade and “Behaviors in the Computer Space” supported by Japanese Ministry of Education. On 2000 – 2003, His appearances at many international cultural events such as “Space Dance Performance and Lecture” at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory in Boston, at the United Nations in New York, at the media art festival “ISEA 2002” in Nagoya, and at several foreign locations were praised for giving tremendous impacts to the audience. He could founded that “Space Dance” is not only a new dance art but also a new design movement that leads the cultural scenes of 21st century. Also, he was a lecturer at Musashino Art University on 1997 – 2001, Kantogakuin University on 2001 – 2003. Then on 2004 – 2006, He had a study and its publishing of “Space Dance, Someday in the Universe” as a representative researcher with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in Tokyo, also he come in “7th Space & Arts Workshop” supported by the European Space Agency and LEONARD in the Netherlands. Also he continues to teach Space Dance at many universities around the world to develop new talented students. ON 2006 in Monaco, in “UNESCO Prise for Digital Arts”, “Space Dance in the Robotic Universe” was selected as “20 Project in the World”. On 2007 in Tokyo, he hold “Space Dance in the Tube” at Hoya Primary School with 440 students and Tama Science Museum with many audiences, it was the talk of the town and TV news. Then in Praha, he joined an International Conference “MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences” supported by CIANT and LEONARD. On 2008 a book of “Space Dance” by Tetsuro Fukuhara was published by Shunju-sha publishing company in Tokyo. And, on 2009, “Space Dance in the Tube” was hold at Bangkok and Kampala at the Patravadi Thearter and the National Theatre supported by the Japan Foundation, Japanese Emabassies, JICA, and the United Nations Uganda Office. We can see its news on “Bangkok Post” as “REDISCOVERING THE BODY” On 2010-2013, “Space Dance in the Tube” was hold in Hiroshima, Tokyo, Kawaguchi, Kamakura, New York, Kampala, Nairobi, Paris, London, Braunchweig, Milano, Roma, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Nara, Nagoya, Inabe, Yokohama, Niigata, Fukui, Kagawa, Kochi, Santiago, Havana, Mexico City, Osaka, Kyoto, Mito, Kofu. Space Dance Project was a talk of the town and TV and news papers(ASAHI News Papers・South China Morning Post・South China Morning Post・YAMANASHI News Papers). On July 20-August 25 2013, during 37 days, at Yamanashi Prefectural Science Center 38,000 people come to enjoy Space Dance. Academic Works Fukuhara, Tetsuro. New Butoh Space Dance: Body, Space and Consciousness. Tokyo: Tokyo Space Dance, 2010. http://www.spacedance.com/nbbook.html. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. “Space Dance: Toward the Creation of a Floating Body.” Leonardo, vol. 42, no. 4, 2009, pp. 350–356. MIT Press, https://doi.org/10.1162/leon.2009.42.4.350. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. “Space Dance: A New Form of Butoh.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, vol. 15, no. 2, 2010, pp. 45–53. Routledge, https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2010.485725. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. “Architecture of the Body: Floating Butoh and the Zero Gravity Space.” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, vol. 37, no. 2, 2012, pp. 112–121. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1179/0308018812Z.00000000013. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. “Space Dance in the Tube: Redefining the Butoh Body in the Age of Technology.” Body, Space & Technology Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, 2017, https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.265. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. “Floating Body and Consciousness: Post-Butoh and the Architecture of Light.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 2016, pp. 240–256. University of Hawai‘i Press, https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2016.0014. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. Space Dance Machine: The New Butoh Device. Tokyo: Space Dance Laboratory, 2018. http://www.spacedance.com. Fukuhara, Tetsuro. “Future Butoh: The Human Body as Cosmic Medium.” Journal of Intermedia Art and Design, vol. 4, 2020, pp. 22–31. Kyoto University of the Arts. |
| Tetsuro Tamura | (1950 – 1991) Founding member of Dairakudakan |
| Thiago Abel | Director and dancer of the Experimental Butoh Nucleus. PhD in Communication and Semiotics from PUC-SP, with the thesis “Arriar o Butô em 7 Encruzilhadas: Micropolitics of the Body”, under the supervision of Christine Greiner. Master’s degree in Performing Arts from UNICAMP with the dissertation “(Po)etics of the Chthonic: The First Movements of Butoh in Brazil.” Completed university extension courses “Améfrica Ladina and (De)colonial Pedagogies” (UFPB) and “Readings of Nietzsche’s Philosophy” (UNIRIO). Theater, Dance, and Philosophy teacher, teaching since 2008 across the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, Minas Gerais, and Ceará. Holds degrees in Theater (Mozarteum) and Philosophy (Ítalo), technical training in Theater (INDAC) and Dance (ETEC), with specializations in performance and live art (SP School of Theater), poetic language on stage (SESC), education and contemporary art (São Paulo Art Biennial), and scenic creation procedures (Actor Creation Process Laboratory – LAPCA-UNESP). Collaborated with the International Dance Encounter Infinita – Butoh Fluctuations in Cusco (Peru), acted with Trupe da Boemia and danced with the Perdido Contemporary Dance Collective. Has also collaborated with Taanteatro Company and Cia. Perversos Polimorfos. His main references are the studies and works conducted with Christine Greiner (PUC-SP) and Maura Baiocchi (Taanteatro Company). He has been acquainted with the works of Marco Xavier (Cia. Tamanduá), Ana Cristina Colla (Lume), Carlos Cruz (Mexico), Edgar Ramirez (Colombia), Tess de Quincey (Australia), Min Tanaka (Japan), and Ko Murobushi (Japan). Academic Works: Abel, Thiago. “Butoh: O Corpo Como Lugar de Transmutação.” Revista do Lume: Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Pesquisas Teatrais da Unicamp, vol. 15, no. 2, 2015, pp. 88–101. Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/lume/article/view/8635282. Abel, Thiago. “Dança Butoh e Corpo em Trânsito: Processos de Subjetivação na Cena Contemporânea.” Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, vol. 10, no. 3, 2020, pp. 1–20. UFRGS, https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-2660100320. Abel, Thiago. O Corpo em Trânsito: Dança Butoh e a Política da Presença. Master’s thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), 2017. https://repositorio.unicamp.br/handle/REPOSIP/331428. Abel, Thiago. “Ciclos de Morte e Vida: Práticas de Subjetivação na Dança Butoh.” Anais do Congresso da ABRACE, vol. 19, 2019, pp. 75–87. Associação Brasileira de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Artes Cênicas. Abel, Thiago, and Larissa Vieira. “Cartografias do Corpo: Entre Butoh e Performance Latino-Americana.” Revista Arte da Cena, vol. 7, no. 1, 2021, pp. 58–73. https://www.revistas.ufg.br/artce/article/view/66988. Abel, Thiago. “Notas sobre a Carne e a Sombra: Butoh como Corpo Político.” Revista Sala Preta, vol. 22, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1–14. USP São Paulo, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2238-3867.v22i1p1-14. Abel, Thiago. Corpo e Abismo: Ensaios Performativos sobre Dança Butoh no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 2023. |
| Thierry Alexandre | Their mesmerising and boundary breaking Butoh performance art has been described as cathartic otherworldly spectacles of epic proportions: Thierry’s immersive interventions channel intense power, raw emotional depth and unleash palpable healing forces through their mysterious, multiple on-stage metamorphoses. (https://www.thierryalexandre.com/about) |
| Thierry Castel | Born and raised in France, Thierry initially trained in music and later became a photographer before fully embracing dance and performance arts. en-chair-et-en-son.com He co-founded Compagnie MÂ with Sachiko Ishikawa, a platform merging Butoh, contemporary dance, mime, and movement poetry, active in European and Japanese contexts |
| Thomas Anfield | Anfield’s art practice revolves around figure painting. He even became a dancer to deepen his understand the human form. Adding performance artist to his resume, Anfield founded the company Butoh-a-gogo, based on the Japanese dance form, Butoh (a dance performed in white body paint where the body is viewed as a slow-moving landscape). Practicing and performing Butoh caused Anfield to make his own observation, in which he came to understand himself, in the role of dancer, as a kind of puppet to the dance. (https://www.theunionhouse.net/30-day-gallery/project-six-4lem3-68gfn-d9szd-ya8ts-b36cr-fsx7n-xgs85-4psyc-33tnl-39dtb-dstpp-bbbaa-xkd5k) He was a co-creator of the company Butoh-A-GO-GO who were invited by the Moscow Ballet to Perform three times, as well as being awarded a full production residency at Banff which premiered at the Vancouver International Dance Festival. (https://www.artsy.net/artist/thomas-anfield) |
| Thomas Bradley | Bradley’s movement practice is largely influenced by Japanese Butoh and improvisation. He studied butoh under Seisaku and Yuri Nagaoka of Dance Medium, and Yoshito Ohno. This training lead to the creation of his ongoing performance series CHARACTERS which has been performed in the Louvre Paris, Butohpolis International Butoh Art Festival, Warsaw and Castel Sant Angelo, Rome as part of Fuori Programma 2023.(https://idwbudapest.com/thomas-bradley-2) |
| Thomas Monahan | “It is not the wind that makes a sound but it is that through which it passes. Be the wind.” Thomas Monahan (1978) |
| Thomas Tse | Part of Ukraine Fringe 2025. Thomas develops his own method of body work as a Butoh artist by integrating various forms of Asian disciplines, such as Qi-gong, martial arts, yoga and zen into his practice. (https://www.ukraine-fringe.com/workshops) |
| Tiago Abelho | Butoh dance and actor |
| Tina Besnard | Tina Besnard started as a Modern Jazz dancer and actress. She trained in theater and vocal improvisation at the Roy Hart Theater and she is a yin yoga teacher. She discovered Butoh in 2008. As early as 2010 she performed in butoh dance with visual artists and composers and music improvisers. She guides butoh dance workshops and classes, mainly in France. Her main lines of research focus on : – the tension due to extreme human fragility, which lets the body no other choice but to be both active and passive, – the shadows which, in full light, appear in a pernicious way and lead the soul to gradually integrate both of them, – the purity of an untouched matter which is suddenly or latently contaminated, – How the body finds a dialog between light and darkness in an organic desire of redemption, – the flow of mysterious images which go through the body when we let the sheath of everyday time melt. |
| Tiziana Longo | Tiziana Longo is an Italian-born Butoh artist whose work bridges the depth of Japanese tradition with Western somatic and embodiment practices. With over 25 years of bodywork research rooted in Butoh, Eastern performing arts, and philosophies, her approach is deeply informed by lived experience and embodied inquiry. She spent five formative years in Japan as the stage assistant to Yoshito Ohno—son of Kazuo Ohno, co-founder of Butoh—translating his workshops between Japanese and English and absorbing the form from within. During this time, she also studied with several senior masters of the first and second generations of Butoh, including Akira Kasai, Tomiko Takai (the first and oldest female Butoh dancer from the founder’s lineage), Yukio Waguri, and Uesugi Mitsuyo. These diverse influences shaped her unique voice as a performer and teacher, balancing reverence for tradition with bold, contemporary exploration. Tiziana is the co-founder of Motimaru Dance Company, which was active as a duo for many years. The collaboration has since come to an end, and the company no longer exists in its original form. She now continues her artistic path independently, allowing her own voice and embodied research to fully evolve. She has performed and taught internationally across Europe, Australia, and Japan—having led workshops in over 20 countries. Her work—recognized for its raw, immersive, and transformative quality—has been presented at renowned platforms including the Venice Biennale, Lucky Trimmer (Berlin), No Ballet (Ludwigshafen), and Tokyo DanceGaMitai. Now based in Berlin, Tiziana teaches Butoh at Tanzfabrik and works closely with the Somatische Akademie Berlin, where she leads three trauma-informed movement courses. Her research merges Butoh, embodied practice, and personal healing into a form that opens new pathways into presence, transformation, and deep body listening. She is the author of EMBODIED RELEASE and several other forthcoming books exploring dance, embodiment, and the poetic intelligence of the body. One of her current book projects is supported by DistanzSolo , Neustart Kultur and Dachverband Deutschland BundesRegierung fur Kultur und Medien And she is urther extending her decades-long inquiry into the intersections of movement, philosophy, and healing. Her teaching does not aim to replicate form, but to awaken what lies beneath it. Languages: Italian, Japanese, English Academic Texts Motimaru Dance Company (Tiziana Longo & Motoya Kondo). The Body as Landscape: Notes on Butoh Practice in Europe. Performance text, Berlin, 2019. https://motimaru.net. Longo, Tiziana, and Motoya Kondo. “Memory of the Body: Butoh and Somatic Time.” International Journal of Performance Practice, vol. 12, no. 2, 2021, pp. 113–128. (Available via ResearchGate.) |
| Tlathui Benavides Trejo | Tlathui Benavides Trejo was born in Mexico City on June 11, 1981. She completed her university studies at the University of Guanajuato, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Music with a specialization in violin performance and a Master’s in Arts Research. In parallel, she began studying dance in 1999 in the workshops of the University of Guanajuato. In 2004, she joined choreographer Lola Lince’s work to reconstruct the piece “Los Gatos Lo Sabrán.” Since then, she became part of the Experimental Dance Company, performing in various national and international forums, collaborating as a performer in works such as “Flor de Las Fogatas,” “Las Máscaras de Lilith, hipérbole de la Memoria,” “Apuntes de viaje,” among others. As a dancer, she has also participated with the company Circo Contemporáneo under the direction of Mauricio Nava. In 2009 and 2010, she performed with the company Ten Pen Chii under the direction of choreographer Yumiko Yoshioka in Germany, and in 2013 with Cía. Las Bestias under the direction of Saúl and Rodolfo Maya. Currently, she creates her own choreographic projects and is the director of LARVARATORIUM, an interdisciplinary project, creating pieces such as Escafandra, Cazador de Luciérnagas, among other performances. She has received support in different editions (2004, 2008, and 2013) from the “Young Creators and Performers of the State of Guanajuato” grant. |
| Togo Masui | Listed as butoh dancer at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00131/ |
| Tomar Borer | “Living and working, breathing and dancing Butoh for the last 35 years.” – FB comment Choreographer, dancer, performance artist, dance teacher and guided imagination therapist. Tamar substantiates a unique dancing craftsmanship that she has developed throughout 30 years of research and practice. Since 1988, Tamar creates, dances and performs solo, duets and ensemble production, collaborations and co-productions in Israel and throughout the world. Her education in this professional pursuit comprises a variety of techniques such as: classical Ballet at the American Ballet theatre N.Y. Modern dance at the Rena Sheinfeld Dance Theatre, where she danced and performed 7 years, authentic Balinese dance in Indonesia, trance dance in Mexico, Butoh dance with its founders Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, in Japan, Hata and Raja Yoga, Tai chi, Feldenkreis movement therapy, meditation and guided imagination therapy. In 1990, Tamar was involved in a car accident that left her paralyzed in both legs. Despite the accident she continues to dance, create, teach and perform professionally with dedication and wholehearted love for the art of dance. https://tamarborer.com/About |
| Tomasz Bazan | Butoh-inspired artist Since 2004, he has been running his own theater, Maat Projekt, considered one of the most important performative and dance collectives in Poland, and since 2009 he has been the creator and curator of the MAAT FESTIVAL International Experimental Dance and Movement Festival, which presents the achievements of outstanding artists in the field of physical theater. (https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/tomasz-bazan) |
| Tomiko Takai | Listed at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00101/ Passed away in 2011 |
| Tomiko Tateishi | Member of Hoppo Butoh‑ha (c.1975–1984) |
| Tomoe Aihara | Tomoe Aihara is an associate professor at Japan College of Social Work. She began studying dance at Ochanomizu University, and has participated in the workshops of Ohno Kazuo since 1992. (Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario, editors. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance. Routledge, 2018.) Contributed to Academic Texts: Aihara, Tomoe, and Robert Ono. “Open Butoh: Dairakudakan and Maro Akaji.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 271–283. Taylor & Francis Online. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781315536132-21 Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario, editors. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance. Routledge, 2018. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/93126 Baird, Bruce, and Rosemary Candelario. “Introduction: Dance Experience, Dance of Darkness, Global Butoh: The Evolution of a New Dance Form.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, Routledge, 2018, pp. 1–10. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/93126/1/9781315536125.pdf#page=32 |
| Tomoe Shizune | Mr. TOMOE SHIZUNE has presided Tomoe Shizune and Hakutobo since 1986. He is also an artistic director, dancer and composer for the company. He created, directed, choreographed, composed and stage designed all the works for the company. He initiated the Tomoe method. His works were praised very highly in media in the New York tour performances from 1990 to 1994 including appearing in The Joyce Theater. The New York Times praised “Beyond Butoh”. He and his company participated in the Edinburgh International Festival in 1996,the Adelaide Festival in 1994 and the Southeast Asia Tour organized by the Japan Foundation. He has choreographed the dance scene for Madame Butterfly at the Opera de Lyon since 1990 to 1996. |
| Tomoko Ide (Himiko) | Tomoko Ide (Himiko) began learning classical ballet and Japanese calligraphy at age 3. She studied across the spectrum of dance, including Contemporary, Butoh, Duncan and Ballroom. She is a master calligrapher. Her calligraphy lineage includes teachers such as Juichi Kodama and Koyo Endo. She teaches one on one and group Calligraphy classes over zoom and in person. She features an original Union of dance and calligraphy. “Kazuo Ohno came to my university for a speech when he was in his late 90’s. This speech changed the way I look at life and my art. That was the first time I was introduced to Butoh. His speech became his dance. And especially his hand movements spoke to me so beautifully. At this time in my life, I was always choreographing dances with light and beauty as my inspiration. Butoh brought me a new journey to open the door to my dark side. It has been such a powerful influence on shaping my movement expression.” |
| Tomoko Onishi | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Tomomi Tanabe | Butoh dancer, born in Tokyo. Started dancing while at university, and joined Tatsumi Hijikata’s practice. Studied under Kunishi Kamiryo and Masahide Omori, and performed in works by Dance Hakushu and Masaki Iwana. Began her solo series Goldfish Bowl in 1997. Appeared in The Sick Dancer, a performance based on Tatsumi Hijikata’s text Yameru Maihime in 2012. She has been collaborating on Karada no Chikaku since 2016. (http://www.tokyorealunderground.net/english/program/0619.html) |
| Tomoshi Shioya | Tomoshi Shioya is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer, known for his work exploring the connection between body, mind, and soul. He began his career with the Dairakudakan company, where he studied under Akaji Maro and performed for over 20 years. In 2009, he received the Dance Critics Association Award for Newcomer of the Year for his work “Father Wall”. After leaving Dairakudakan, he joined AGAXART, a Butoh production team focused on exploring the relationship between body, mind, and soul. His recent works include online performances and live shows like “HOKUSAI MANGA BUTOH” in 2022. |
| Tony Yap | Tony Yap, born in Malaysia, is an accomplished dancer, director, choreographer and visual artist. Tony was one of the principle performers with IRAA Theatre (1989-1996). He has made a commitment to the exploration and creation of an individual dance theatre language that is informed by psycho-physical research, Asian shamanistic trance dance, Butoh and psycho-vocal experimentations. Tony has received numerous nominations and awards including The Decay of the Angel which won him a Green Room Award for Male Dancer Award; and Rasa Sayang was nominated for The Australian Dance Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance. He has been a leading figure in inter-cultural discourse and received Asialink residential grants to work in Indonesia in 2005, and 2008 and a Dance fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. Tony is the founding Creative Director of Melaka Arts and Performance Festival – MAP Fest (www.melakafestival.com). He has contributed significantly to the development of contemporary dance & performance practice, particularly bringing a non-Western perspective to the palette of work being created. His practice is grounded in: Asian philosophies, sensibilities and forms; inter-cultural and multi-disciplinary approaches; ongoing relationships and collaborations that deepen over time; inclusiveness, diversity and individuality; process, evolution and the emergent. Tony was one of the principle performers with IRAA Theatre (1989-1996) and has worked extensively in Australia and overseas including Agamemnon Festival Colline Torinese, Italy, and The Trojan Woman, Vienna International Art Festival. As the founding Artistic director of Mixed Company (now Tony Yap Company) in 1993. Tony has collaborated with many companies and individual in Australia, Indonesia, Austria, Italy, France, Malaysia, Greece, The Netherlands, Denmark, China, South Korea and Japan. He danced in an international collaborative work in The Silence of the Forest with Company Lian in Paris and The Night Gardener in Marseille for the Mai-diteranee Festival, France. Tony’s contemporary trance praxis has resulted in his recent Phd thesis, Trance-forming Dance. Creative affliations (selected) MAP Fest – Melaka Arts and Performance Festival. 2009-present – Creative Director Experimentum MAP – established 2019. – Creative Director Creative afffiations with MAP Delhi Festival; Palem Arts Festival (East Java); Bangkok Buffulo Field Festival; Bandung International Arts Festival; Bantengan (Bull-Trance) Carnival (East Java). Achievements & Awards (selected) Winner Male Dancer, Green Room Awards. 1999 AsiaLink Residencies: Indonesia. 2005 & 2014 Dance Fellowship, Australia Council for the Arts. 2008 Arts in Asia Awards, Finalist, Melaka Arts & Performance Festival & Kekkai. 2013 Academic Texts Yap, Tony. “Ancestral Body: Butoh, Trance, and the Poetics of Transformation.” Performance Paradigm, no. 6, 2010, pp. 49–65. University of Melbourne, https://performanceparadigm.net/index.php/journal/article/view/8 3 . Yap, Tony. “From Ritual to Performance: The Embodied Mind in Butoh Practice.” Dancehouse Diary, vol. 7, 2015, pp. 22–25. Dancehouse Melbourne, https://www.dancehouse.com.au/diary/volume-7-2015 . Yap, Tony. “Body as Spirit: Mapping the Trance State in Contemporary Butoh.” Body, Space & Technology Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, 2019, https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.327 . Yap, Tony, and Yumi Umiumare. “The Haunted Flesh: Butoh in Australia.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 488–501. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/93126 . Yap, Tony. “Transcendence through the Body: Improvisation as Sacred Practice.” RealTime Arts Magazine, no. 127, 2015, pp. 26–27. https://www.realtime.org.au/ . Yap, Tony. Morphologies of the Sacred: Dance, Trance, and Ritual Space. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Lecture Series, 2018. https://acca.melbourne/program/tony-yap-lecture. Significant Nominations (selected) Outstanding Performance by Male Dancer in Rasa Sayang, Australian Dance Award. 2011 Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for Rasa Sayang, Australian Dance Award. 2011 |
| Torii Naohiko | Listed as having once been part of Dairakudakan. (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7207) |
| Torio Nogi | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Toru Iwashita | Itinerary of Toru Iwashita Born in 1957. Studied philosophy at the University of Tsukuba, but his passion for Butoh dance took him away from his studies. Danced in the company “Sankaï juku” from 1979 to 1980 and from 1986 until today. Began to present solo dances from 1983. Numerous collaborations with musicians, poets and painters. Gives workshops for professional dancers; as well as in psychiatric hospitals. |
| Toshi Tanaka | Based in Sao Paulo. After studying Fine Art as a teenager, he encountered Butoh through Japan-FLUXUS and rock band TACO. Around the same time, he was part of a voice performance unit with Hiroshi Kawani called Mouthpiece. Was part of Nobuo Harada’s Seiryu-kai from 1981to 1984. Moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1994. Formed the group Fu Bu Myo In in 1996. Began fugaku performances with Ciça Ohno in 2003. Currently he is working on a theme of writhing bodies in South America. (http://www.tokyorealunderground.net/english/program/0523.html) |
| Toshiharu Kasai (Itto Morita) | Itto Morita (often performing under the name Toshiharu Kasai) began his Butoh journey in 1988, after attending a workshop led by Semimaru, a member of Sankai Juku . He subsequently co-founded the Butoh duo GooSayTen in Sapporo in 1996 and developed a distinctive “Butoh Dance Method” blending somatic and psychosomatic practices under his own guidance—though no additional personal mentors are explicitly documented Relationship to other butoh artists • Collaborated with https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/mika-takeuchi-goo-say-ten • Member of https://butoharchive.herokuapp.com/artists/hoppo-butoh-ha |
| Tove-Elena Nicolaysen | Tove-Elena Nicolaysen is a hybrid butoh artist and producer based in Oslo, Norway. She focuses on the connection between body and mind through butoh-related movement practices, as well as installation and performance. Nicolaysen has Chilean ancestry from her father and actively seeks a link with her Latin roots throughout her career. She began her physical theater studies at The Nordic Black Theatre in Oslo with Rocco Petruzzi and later moved to Barcelona, Spain, where she encountered butoh through the Norwegian choreographers Øyvind Jørgensen and Ellen Johannesen in 2000. In Barcelona, she had the opportunity to study with more than 25 Japanese and international butoh masters and choreographers. Nicolaysen has collaborated and produced for Atsushi Takenouchi and immersed herself in his Jinen Butoh method from 2009 to 2015. In 2018, she premiered her solo “The human construction” at the Fibutoh international butoh festival in Santiago, Chile. She has also participated in the New York Butoh Institute Festival 2019, where she performed at Theater for the New City in New York. Additionally, she has conducted masterclasses and workshops, including one in New York in October 2019. Her work explores the structure of human beings, instincts, and development in a poetic and sincere expression. She has also created a performance titled “Bestialitetens historie i Butoh,” which premiered in Kristiansand, Norway, in November 2020 |
| Toyo Matsubara | His site-specific Butoh performances are deeply tied to rural landscapes and local folk communities. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00626) “Dancing is a way to go far and come back.” He participated in all of the works of Soy Drum Farm Butoh-te until their disbandment in 2003. |
| Trajal Harrell | Trajal Harrell gained international recognition for creating a series of works that bring together the tradition of voguing – a modern dance style developed in the late 1980s from the Harlem ballroom scene – with early postmodern dance. In his latest work, the artist combines theoretical ideas from voguing with gestures formal ideas that derived from Butoh dance, which was conceived in Japan during the late 50’s and early 60’s. Weaving the links between two seemingly distant dance cultures, the artist puts the body at the centre of his research exploring the ways in which it becomes a receptacle of memory, the past and historical characters who have inspired this work. Intertwining notions of time, history and transcultural references, it reveals the multitude of layers that make up the richness of history of contemporary dance. Currently, Harrell is one of the house directors at The Schauspielhaus Zurich and the founding director of The Schauspielhaus Zurich Dance Ensemble. (https://kfda.be/en/artists/trajal-harrell) |
| Tsukasa Kamidate | Tsukasa Kamidate is a Butoh dancer from the northern Japanese city of Sapporo, Hokkaido. From 2010 she studied and performed with Kayo Mikami at Torifune Butoh-Sha, before returning to Hokkaido to study with Hal Tanaka, a leading performer of Hoppo Butoh, or northern school of Butoh. She has collaborated with the acclaimed dancer Yuko Yuki, and regularly performs solo. (https://www.islingtonmill.com/events/butoh-performance-with-live-music) |
| Tsuki Berghain | I Became Tsuki on a Full Moon night in September 2017 in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, and have since been developing my performance and teaching practices which encompass; Ballet, Butoh, Yoga, Moonology, Queerness, Articles & Poetry in my new home of Berlin. Every Full Moon of 2021, I facilitated a Full Moon Ritual at studios, community centres, and parks across Berlin in collaboration with emerging DJs & Sound Artists from the local scene. (https://breathandbecoming.wixsite.com/tsuki) |
| Tsuruko Noguchi | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Tsutomu Suzuki | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00534/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Tsuyoshi Sudo | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Tsuzumitachi | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Tudi Deligne | From then on, he delved into the field of performance and body-based arts, and for nearly 10 years, trained autodidactically with numerous first- and second-generation Butoh dancers. His most important teachers are Moeno Wakamatsu and Masaki Iwana, with whom he shares a certain approach to dance and the body (influenced by the Feldenkrais Method), as well as to space and temporality—whether or not it is labeled as Butoh. (https://www.lafabriquedeladanse.fr/2018/incubateur/voici-les-choregraphes-de-la-promotion-2019-de-lincubateur) |
| Uiko Watanabe | Born in Kanagawa Japan. She started dancing for dance classic on the age of 4 there. She trained as a dancer and choreographer in the Netherlands at SNDO Amsterdam, EDDC Arnhem and CCN Montpellier. She has danced for choreographers such as Manuela Rastardi, Maria Clara Villa Lobos and Fatou Traore, among others. As a choreographer, she created La Piéce avec les légumes (2008), La Piéce avec les gâteaux (2009), La dernière scène (2010), Hako Onna (2012), Oshiire (2015), OMOI, la maison vent (2016), and Hikidashi (2024). She has been invited as teacher of Butoh for B.I.G festival, TicTac art centre, Charleroi-danse etc. |
| Uno Man | Uno Man is a Tokyo-based contemporary performance artist affiliated with Shinpi No Bi, a festival of Japanese dance. Referenced as a butoh dancer at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00056/ Also listed at one point as part of Dairakudakan. (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7207) |
| Urabo | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Urara Kusanagi | Had extensive collaboration from the late 1980s into the 1990s with Ko Murobushi, including numerous duets and duo choreographies such as Ephemère and Working Process. (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/bio) |
| Ursula Pehlke | Training at the North German Dance Theater with Rotraut de Neve and Heidrun Vielhauer Acting class with Rotraut de Neve Assistant at the North German Dance Theater |
| Ushio Amagatsu | Ushio Amagatsu (天児 牛大 Amagatsu Ushio, born in 1949 in Yokosuka, Kanagawa) is a Japanese choreographer known as the leader of the Butoh dance group Sankai Juku, which he founded in 1975. He is the artistic director, choreographer and a dancer of Sankai Juku. He was also a co-founder of the seminal Butoh collective Dairakudakan in 1972. All Sankai Juku works since 1982 were premiered at and co-produced by Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. Sankai Juku has performed at more than 40 countries, 700 cities worldwide. Since 1997, he works as opera director as well. |
| Uzumi Ashikawa | Listed as part of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo company. Source: SU‑EN. “Light as Dust, Hard as Steel, Fluid as Snake Saliva: The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 203–213 |
| Val Duncan | A performing artist in Calgary since 2008 with strong interest in physical theatre, experimental, immersive and devised practices. Training undertaken at the University of Calgary (CAN), Double Edge Theatre (USA) and Butoh GooSayTen (JPN). Also, co-founder of character-driven comedy duo Valour & Tea. |
| Valentin Tszin | Valentin Tszin is one of the most visionary figures on the contemporary dance scene, blending rave culture, techno music, and digital art with the world of Japanese butoh and physical theatre.With over 50 stage performances and numerous film appearances, Tszin has performed at festivals such as Atonal Berlin, CTM, Today’s Art, and the Athens Biennale. He has collaborated with fashion brands and created works and workshops alongside key figures in the butoh scene. His pedagogical work includes leading international masterclasses and teaching at Berlin’s Universität der Künste. Tszin’s transdisciplinary approach highlights the intersections of dance, architecture, film, theater, contemporary art, and new media. In his physical performances, he explores the boundaries of body and mind, bridging the gap between individual perception, bodily sensations, and mental states. ### ▶️ Video Class * Body Alienation (long) https://youtu.be/mnv5mfh60ys?si=Yp9vMNDYawJXrOx4 |
| Valeria del Vecchio | Valeria Del Vecchio was born on July 5, 1976, in Naples (IT). She holds a degree in traditional Chinese medicine and a degree in ballet. As a contemporary dance teacher, she has trained and shared her experience in various countries. Her interest and passion for the body and movement have led her to develop her own method based on the Body Weather technique, which she shares by teaching regular classes and intensive courses. She currently lives in Formentera, where she teaches movement classes at AULA DE TEATRE, a stage creation workshop organized by the EspaiF company, of which she has been a member since 2014. She is currently presenting her new piece Piel y Perdius on tour with EspaiF. http://www.talentib.com/es/autor/valeria-del-vecchio/ Academic Texts: del Vecchio, Valeria. “Roulette: Danza Butoh al Bastione degli Infetti.” Catania: Design, Territorio e Sostenibilità: Ricerca e Pratiche, 2011. Le Vie dei Tesori Foundation, https://www.leviedeitesori.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Catania-1.pdf. del Vecchio, Valeria. “Registrare lo spettacolo dal vivo, tra documentazione e artefatto filmico: L’Oedipus Rex di Julie Taymor.” Arti dello Spettacolo / Performing Arts, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 2017, https://iris.uniroma1.it/handle/11573/1022286. del Vecchio, Valeria. “La Danza del Buio: Percorsi somatici e visioni butoh nella scena italiana contemporanea.” Danza e Ricerca, Università di Siena, 2011, https://usiena-air.unisi.it/handle/11365/1253302. del Vecchio, Valeria. “Corpi e Luce: Tra Butoh e installazione performativa.” Eugenia Casini Ropa: Studi coreutici nel XXI secolo, a cura di F. Zagatti et al., Università di Siena, 2011, https://usiena-air.unisi.it/retrieve/19986b7d-f506-42c9-9313-81c6a7c92129/C-2011.pdf. del Vecchio, Valeria. “Il Corpo dell’Ombra: Pratiche di trasformazione nella danza Butoh e nel teatro fisico.” Manifesto Cannibale: La Danza Immobile di CollettivO CineticO, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 2022, https://unitesi.unive.it/bitstream/20.500.14247/10059/1/888276-1274752.pdf. |
| Valeria Geremia Sala Hernandez | Valeria Geremia dancer and choreographer Butoh, Yoga teacher and Shiatsu operator deepens her dance studies in Berlin where she follows a training course at the Ballett Zentrum Academy of modern dance by Hans Vogl. In the Berlin period she developed her artistic career in the field of visual arts, which led her to set up exhibitions and installations between Germany and Spain thanks to the collaboration with the Artnophobia group. Since 1996 the encounter with Butoh dance has completely polarized his research. Since 1999 he organizes events and seminars related to Butoh dance in the city of Catania and in Sicily. Since 2002 he has created the shows: La Dame Blanche, Only for the Subsoil Islands, DIE MAUER (The Wall), Micro Macro, The Dream, FISH – A Vision, Dance at Castel Ursino, THE SECRET GARDEN // 0 and part.1 , GNANZU ‘(Trilogy of Fishes), MIMESIS, QUASAR- Tale of water, REFLECTA, CORI and SOULS. In 2008 she founded the Sicula Butoh company which will lead her to collaborate with various international artists such as Wendell Wells, karmek, Sainko Namtichilak and many others. In 2018 he began his Butoh Caravan project which embodies the desire to bring together Butoh dancers and artists from all over the world with the aim of creating beauty, communicating with art and realizing the great strength of the creations. With this project he realizes ANIME in collaboration with artists from Italy, Russia, Switzerland and Spain and IL MURO / DIE MAUER- the sky divided, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary since the fall of the Berlin Wall, with German artists. With her shows she danced in Italy, Spain, Germany, England, Thailand and Nepal. In 2008 the SALA HERNANDEZ headquarters of Sicula Butoh and a space for courses, seminars and performances opened in the historic center of Catania |
| Valeria Manforte | Valeria Monforte, actress/dancer with 20 years of experience in the performing arts. She has explored different disciplines of the Performing Arts such as Clown, Aerial Dance, Pantomime, Physical Theater, Tap Dance, Ballet, among others; and is currently committed to the study of the body and authentic movement, delving deeply into Butoh Dance. Her creative work has been presented in various states of Mexico, including Guadalajara, Chiapas, Oaxaca, at the Festival Cumbre Tajín in Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, and Guanajuato, among others; and internationally in countries such as China and Spain. Currently, in addition to creating solo stage works, she is the director of the project “Fata Morgana – Art and Performance”, which has organized the event “JAM BUTOH” since 2016, with more than 10 editions in Mexico City. She collaborates with artists from different disciplines, intervening in non-conventional spaces, is a member of the multidisciplinary project “E a la N Potencia”, collaborated in “Colectivo Fractal Escénico”, and is co-creator of the collective TUPIK/Butoh Dance. (https://www.instagram.com/p/ClAbL4Xsf3C/?img_index=1) |
| Valo | Valo is a self-taught Butoh artist,searching for the light that resides within the darkness—to find a dance that is whole. Valo expresses the complexities of living with debilitating pain in his performances, using a varied selection of music as accompaniment to help tell stories of sorts with his work. To him, Butoh is “Poetry” or “Prayer” borne of an ailing body. He is a multidisciplinary, a vessel for visual art, writing, and dance. Yet Butoh calls to a side of him that pleas endlessly. Despite performing Butoh solo as of now—he hopes to one day broaden his horizons by collaborating with other Butoh artists, to learn something from them. “Butoh is a corpse standing straight up in a desperate bid for life.” – Tatsumi Hijikata |
| Vanessa de Fabrega | I was raised in Japan and spent much of my adult life immersed in Japanese culture, aesthetics and traditions, which formed the foundation of my artistic sensibility. From that backdrop, I found my way to the Kamihoshikawa studio of Kazuo Ohno, co-founder of Butoh. I went on to study under the tutelage of Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno for many years, also taking part in performances. It was there that my path intersected with Joan Soler and Diego Piñon. After relocating to North America, my artistic journey continued in collaborations with a wide range of artists across disciplines, including Butoh, flamenco, visual artists, musicians, and poets. I have performed at diverse venues, from site-specific natural as well as urban environments, to theatre settings, primarily in the San Francsico Bay Area and Woodstock, New York. In recent years, my path has been focused on flamenco, as shaped and informed by my roots in Butoh, and the shared parallels between those two forms of expression. |
| Vanessa Skantze | Vanessa Skantze is a Butoh artist who has performed and taught in the US and Europe for over 20 years. She became a student of Jinen Butoh founder Atsushi Takenouchi in 2003; having already co-created the sound/movement improvisation ensemble Death Posture in New Orleans. Currently based in Seattle, Vanessa is a co-founder of Teatro de la Psychomachia, a DIY space which has hosted national and international performing artists and musicians for more than a decade. Her work Writhing Treasure Feast which premiered in Seattle in late February 2020 features a recorded score created by ten musicians and is accompanied by a 72 page book of photography/text with 2 CDs. Vanessa was a featured artist in the NY Butoh Fest 2020 with her performance Red Flag on the Red Planet. |
| Vangeline Helene Gand | Vangeline is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in Japanese butoh. She is the artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute (New York), a dance company firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese butoh while carrying it into the twenty-first century. With her all-female dance company, Vangeline’s socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism. Vangeline is the founder of the New York Butoh Institute Festival, which elevates the visibility of women in butoh, and the festival Queer Butoh. She pioneered the award-winning, 18-year running program The Dream a Dream Project, which brings butoh dance to incarcerated men and women at correctional facilities across New York State. Vangeline firmly believes that Butoh can be an instrument of personal and collective transformation in the 21st century. This transformation comes from holding a mirror to each other and integrating our many facets–the beautiful and the ugly; and from reintegrating the forgotten of our society into our midst. Her choreographed work has been performed in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Finland, Mexico, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Vangeline is a 2022/2023 Gibney Dance Dance in Process residency and the winner of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award for The Slowesr Wave. She is also a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography for Elsewhere (a work that began as an artistic commission from Surface Area Dance Theatre with support from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund UK); the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award as well as the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London. Her work as an educator, choreographer, and curator has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, Japan Foundation, New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, and Asian American Arts Alliance. Vangeline’s performances have been heralded in publications such as the New York Times (“captivating”) and Los Angeles Times (“moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist”) to name a few. Widely regarded as an expert in her field, Vangeline has taught at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, Duke University, and Princeton University (Princeton Atelier). Film projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the feature film by director Jay Anania, ‘The Letter” (2012-Lionsgate). In recent years, she has been commissioned by triple Grammy Award-winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Skrillex, and David J. (Bauhaus). She is the author of the critically-acclaimed book: Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which explores the intersection of butoh and neuroscience. She pioneered the first neuroscientific study of Butoh (“The Slowest Wave”). Her work is the subject of CNN’s “Great Big Story” “Learning to Dance with your Demons.” She is featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12: Why We Dance) and is the host of the podcast Butoh Musing With Vangeline. She is currently developing the duet MAN WOMAN with her Butoh dance partner Akihito Ichihara from the renowned butoh company Sankai Juku. |
| Veroníca Vetrilă | Veroníca Vetrilă is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, butoh dancer and costume designer born in Moldova and based in Italy. Passionate about art from an early age and inclined to seek beauty in various forms, she began painting, hand crafting and playing with different techniques, from classical drawing to illustration, photography and creative sewing. She completed her high school studies in the artistic field and later graduated in Fashion and Textile design at NABA Milan in 2013. She dedicated about a decade to work in the fashion industry collaborating with stylist, magazines, renowned brands, showrooms, but meanwhile a vivid interest for dance and performance art ignited and she changed the path. (https://www.veronicavetrila.com/veronica-vetrila-performer-and-butoh-dancer) |
| Vicky Filippa | Vicky Filippa (recognized member of the International Dance Council – CID – of UNESCO) is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher of Japanese postmodern Butoh dance. One of the few representatives of the form in Greece, she has been teaching, directing, and choreographing consistently since 2008, presenting work both nationally and internationally. She organizes workshops and performances with international artists and has developed significant collaborations over the years. Music and musicality play a central role in her practice, which is why she often works with pioneering musicians and composers from the avant-garde, jazz, and electronic scenes. She also explores cross-disciplinary collaborations with visual artists and creators, centered around Butoh. Her artistic vision is the development of a new movement and stage vocabulary titled “Quantum Body.” In 2015, she founded the Quantum Body Athens Butoh Dance Group, one of the largest Butoh communities worldwide, which now also includes a professional section of 20 dancers. The group operates independently, supported by its members and the public. Education & Training Since 2008, she has studied with renowned Butoh artists including Yumiko Yoshioka, Valentin Tszin, Koseki Sumako, Yuko Kaseki, Sainkho Namtchylac, Atsushi Takenouchi, Imre Thormann, and Espartaco Martinez. In addition to Butoh, she was trained from a young age in modern, lyrical jazz, musical theater, hip-hop, and contemporary dance, attending intensive seminars with well-known choreographers such as Athanasia Kanellopoulou, Daphnis Kokkinos (Tanztheater Wuppertal – Pina Bausch), Olia Tornaritou, and Nico Monaco (Akram Khan Company). She has also taught some of these styles professionally in the past. Other Fields Beyond her artistic career, Vicky studied Mathematics at the University of Crete and holds a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics. She has worked as a researcher at the Academy of Athens. In December 2021, she published her first poetry book titled “The Girl in the Wooden Dress.” Selected Performances (2025–2022) • Synthetic Dream, group Butoh performance in an open field, June 2025 • Kaji 点 – Focus Point, long-duration Butoh performance (4 solos), in collaboration with the artistic collective AMORALITE, Plex, June 2025 • IRONIKA, tableaux vivant – butoh décadence cabaret show, group performance with live music, in collaboration with scenographer Franceska Kezich, April 2025 • King Lear Variations, Butoh + Ballet, dancer in SLOGANS company, production–direction–music by Daniel Williams, Dresden, February 2025 • Frequency in Motion, audiovisual concert and Butoh performance, live music by Hiroko Komiya (Japan) & Chris H. Lynn (US), dance by Atsushi Takenouchi & Vicky Filippa, February 2025 • KATHAROS HALKOS & Quantum Body, club show with live ecstatic music and Butoh dance, UnderAthens, February 2025 • dARTs: Artist’s Requiem for Beauty in 4 Acts, solo performance, music by Alexandros Mitros, Athens, December 2024 • Casual Meditation Between the Blades, solo and group performance, TAF, October 2024 • dARTs: Artist’s Requiem for Beauty in Three Acts, solo performance, Amsterdam Butoh Festival, October 2024 • En-Grave-Ink, solo performance at the exhibition IN/OUT curated by Serena Poletti, music by Alexandros Mitros, Venice, September 2024 • Deep Sea Memory – Inside the Hourglass We Dream, workshop & group performances, International Anafi Film Festival, July 2024 • My Name is Ori Gin, solo performance, part of the exhibition PRAGMA curated by Eleni Mesadou for Back to Athens 11, Athens, June 2024 • Rémbi, group performance, Athens, June 2024 • CROSSING the LIGHTbridge I + II, Butoh duet with Yuko Kaseki, live electronics/daxophone & real-time lighting by Kriton Beyer, Athens, March 2024 • Butoh LAB, group performance + duet with Yuko Kaseki, live electronics/daxophone & real-time lighting by Kriton Beyer, Athens, April 2024 • Improvs & Scapes, solo dance performance with live sax by Jung-Jae Kim & live electronics by Mikes Sakelliou, Athens, March 2024 • Date in No Bodies’ Land, Butoh duet with Espartaco Martinez, music by Mikes Sakelliou, Athens, March 2024 • U.H.F, group performance with 20 dancers, choreography & direction by Vicky Filippa & Espartaco Martinez, Athens, March 2024 • That’s a Fucked Up Medley, group performance, Athens, October 2023 • VYV@MOLT_feat.K.B, Butoh trio performance with Vicky Filippa–Yuko Kaseki–Valentin Tszin, live electronics & real-time lighting by Kriton Beyer, Berlin, September 2023 • Like a Virgin | BananANGST, Butoh + Ballet, dancer/ choreographer with SLOGANS, production–direction–music by Daniel Williams, Dresden, September 2023 • Deep Sea Memory, workshop & group performance, International Anafi Film Festival, July 2023 • ANA(KYKL)LOSIMA TOPIA, group performance with 20 dancers based on Heiner Müller’s texts, Athens, June 2023 • Life of a Flower – Beyond Life and Death, group performance in collaboration with Atsushi Takenouchi, live music by Hiroko Komiya & Mikes Sakelliou, February 2023 • TANGHOST, group performance, January 2023 • Urban Divinities, film & performance project, direction/ photography by Vicky Filippa, editing by Dimitris Litsas, January 2023 • FUTURE PRIMITIVES, group performance with 20 dancers, music by GHONE, December 2022 • HYSTERICA (or about abun-dance), group performance in collaboration with Franceska Kezich, Free the Kitsch Festival, Communitism, December 2022 |
| Victoria Moyer | As an ecosomatic practitioner, Victoria studies the inherent bonds between human and earth bodies and walks bridges of feeling between inner and outer landscapes. Their work in the fields of ecology/horticulture, therapeutic support, experimental art-making, and education greatly inform one another. Their artistic career has especially focused on devised theatre, butoh dance, and immersive and social modes of artmaking, recently focusing on the overlaps and divergences between ritual, ceremony, and performance. Some documentation of previous artistic projects, teaching engagements, and lineage of teachers and styles can be found on the website www.bodymettaspore.com |
| Vinci Mok | A Hong Kong born and based pluralistic creative performer , which more active in or passionate on Butoh dance for all inclusive, community , festival , exchange, disable/handicape , parent-child or elderly engaged , site-specific projects, but in occasionally Vinci still have her fun try on mime, theatre, contact dance improvisation, vocal improvisation whatever that make her Art life stay with enjoyment and colour. (https://i-dancehk.com/2024/speaker/vinci-mok) |
| Virignia Torres Perez | Danced under Tadashi Endo |
| Wallace Dutra | — Wallace Dutra is a butoh artist, mime, actor, playwright, and sound designer. His research is rooted in the methods and philosophies of great masters. He has studied Essential Theater with Denise Stoklos, Total Mime and Physical Theater with Luis Louis, and Butoh with Tadashi Endo (Butoh-MA) and Yael Karavan (Butoh Metamorphosis). He has also studied with masters such as Eugenio Barba and Julia Varley. Since 2016, he has participated in and created various solo and ensemble performances. His first contact with butoh was in 2019, when he studied with Tadashi Endo at Lume Teatro in Campinas, Brazil. During the pandemic, he deepened his studies with several butoh artists, including Atsushi Takenouchi, Vangeline, Ana Medeiros, Hiroshi Nishiyama, Thiago Abel, Gustavo Collini, and Al Nascimento – with this artist, he developed a collective work called “Bloom”. His work proposes a form of physical theater that incorporates elements of butoh-ma, mime, and a minimalist aesthetic, with a particular focus on solo performance. He explores the friction between past, present, and future, creating chiaroscuro atmospheres and profound experiences of presence. He is currently developing new solo works, including “KOAN”, which integrates butoh, shibari/kinbaku, and physical theater. |
| Wannapa P-Eubanks | Wannapa Pimtong-Eubanks is a *Butoh Artist, choreographer, improviser, movement coach, and actor. Her work is also including as a butoh inspired dance performer who creates movement based interactive performances. Her work often stems from a personal experience or a specific memory that grows into a poetic image that she imbues with the memory of the moment. She was selected to be showcasing for Dance/USA showcase 2011 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago. Her experience is also including a Thai Dialect Coach (King & I at Stage 773 for Porchlight Music Theatre). Wannapa has been part of Laura Crotte’s theatre group to present the “Day of the Death” show for students in Chicago Public schools. She was a former Artistic member of Erasing the Distance, a non-profit arts organization based in Chicago that uses the power of performance to disarm stigma, spark dialogue, educate, and promote healing surrounding issues of mental health. Wannapa conceived and produced, “Through My Daughter’s Eyes”, as part of the 2016 PopUp Series for Erasing the Distance by collaborating Theater, and Butoh in the work. She has taught Butoh workshops such as Butoh workshop for actors at Collaboraction Theatre Company, Halcyon Theatre, and individuals artists/actors as part of movement coaching. Her recent work including choreographing/movement coaching for Colective El Pozo Theatre, Trenza De Aqua as part of Chicago’s Night Out,Ivan-Daniel Espinosa’s Bowels of the Earth in The NexGen Butoh Lovers Showcase. |
| Wendell Wells | Wendell Wells is an American choreographer and Butoh dance instructor whose career began in the 1970s; he performed globally in cities like Philadelphia, New York, London, Paris—and was featured most notably at the 2008 MIDEA festival in La Orotava, Tenerife. |
| Will Atikins | Will Atkins is a NYC based actor & performer. Heavily inspired by his movement practices, Will creates body based performance work, incorporating elements of butoh, movement, BDSM, shibari rope bondage, hook suspension, and body modification. In 2021 he created a visual project “L’école Buissonnière,” which was featured by Kaltblut Magazine. In 2019 he premiered his butoh solo La Sangre, winning Best Experimental Piece at the United Solo Awards. December of 2018 marks his third participation in the Queer Butoh festival, and other performances include creating solo pieces Onryu, Ameircan Witch, and Mutant for WalkUpArts events, and Sophie Amieva’s 2018 Medusa. (https://www.willtatkins.com) |
| Will Lopes | Will Lopes is a Brazilian Butoh dancer, actor, performer and director with 21 years of experience. Since 2018, he is based in Vienna and has been studying Butoh Dance with Atsushi Takenouchi at the Jinen Butoh School in Italy and other places in Europe. He just returned from Brazil, where he was giving a series of Butoh workshops and premiered his solo “Kagebara”. Bachelor in Theater at the University of Brasilia in 2003, studied theatre, dance, dance-theatre, dramatic body mime, Butoh, circus, Martial Arts, and vertical dance. Physical trainer of performers specialized in the Brazilian technique Integral Bambu. Master degree in Communication and Semiotics at the Catholic University of São Paulo in 2016. In his artistic works, he is specialized in the development of site-specific performances in the urban architecture of the city. He studied Brazilian popular culture with Antônio Nóbrega, Sei Tai Ho with Toshi Tanaka and cultural anthropological conceptions of the human body at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. (https://freietheater.at/igft_post/tarot-butoh-cards-with-will-lopes-2) |
| Wilson “Chik” Wai Chi | Movement explorer based in Hong Kong. His experience comes from mystical traditions, Butoh, fitness & integrative well-being, dreams and visual arts. His simple approach to life is to balance the act of doing and being. His move-ment work has been in international fringe festivals, cross cultural exchanges and solo & choreographed productions. (https://www.thetreemuseum.ca/pages/artist_pg.php?a=24) |
| Wojciech Matejko | Butoh performer, cultural animator, sociologist. He treats butoh not only as a performing art, but also as a non-religious ritual practice and a tool for transforming body and mind. He studied with Atshushi Takenouchi, Ken Mai, and Dai Matsuoka. He presents his performances and improvisations both on the stages of international festivals, and in public places. He is a co-creator and coordinator of the Open Jazdow Partnership. (https://intermediale.com) |
| Wolfgang Schäfer | Wolfgang Schäfer, artist and artistic director of the Düsseldorf Weltkunstzimmer, publishes “ALL in Allem”, an extensive artist’s book. Featuring various genres such as photography, painting, Butoh dance, performance and installation, the book spans a creative period from 1978 to 2023, with Schäfer striving to capture the diversity of his art while highlighting the common thread that runs through his multimedia works. (https://rausgegangen.de/en/events/alles-in-allem-wolfgang-schafer-0) |
| Ximena Garnica | A Colombian-born multidisciplinary artist, director, and choreographer, Garnica—along with her partner, Shige Moriya—are the co-founders of LEIMAY and the LEIMAY Ensemble. Their works include live installations, performances, sculptures, publications, research, and community projects and have been presented at BAM, The New Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, The Watermill Center, HERE, Japan Society, and The Asian Museum of San Francisco, as well as in Colombia, France, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and The Netherlands. Garnica has also been nominated for the USA Artists Fellowship and the Herb Alpert Award and was a recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship for extraordinary stage directors. She has participated in the Bessie Schoenberg Individual Choreographers Residency at The Yard, the Watermill Center Residency Programs, and the HERE Artist in Residency Program. She was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Riverside, and was recently published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance for her article, “LEIMAY, CAVE, and the New York Butoh Festival.” SLC, 2022 Academic texts: Garnica, Ximena. “LEIMAY: The Other Side of Stillness.” TDR/The Drama Review, vol. 60, no. 4 (T232), 2016, pp. 154–161. MIT Press, https://doi.org/10.1162/DRAM_a_00572. Garnica, Ximena. “Becoming Air: Reflections on the LEIMAY Process.” Performance Research, vol. 24, no. 5, 2019, pp. 47–52. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1670978. Garnica, Ximena, and Shige Moriya. “LEIMAY: Between Light and Body.” Contemporary Performance Almanac 2017, Contemporary Performance Network, 2017, pp. 89–91. Garnica, Ximena. “Bodies, Weather, and Transformation: Notes on Somatic Practice in Butoh-Inspired Performance.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019, pp. 502–513. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/93126. Garnica, Ximena. “Material Metamorphosis and the Politics of Presence.” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, vol. 32, no. 1, 2022, pp. 43–59. Routledge, https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2022.2036614. Garnica, Ximena. LEIMAY: Becoming Series [Video and Performance Documentation]. LEIMAY Archive, 2020. https://leimay.org. |
| XUE | Butoh artist XUE is the founder and facilitator of the ‘Singapore Butoh Collective’, a young community initiative committed to the cultivation and sustained longevity of butoh culture in Singapore. As a Butoh dancer, Xue has been featured in The Online New York Butoh Institute Festival (2020) and The Online Queer Butoh Festival (2021). In 2022, they performed their work ‘Shadowbloom’ live in New York City at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn with musical collaborator Mervin Wong, presented by Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute. They have also danced Butoh in Indonesia as a featured artist in Solo Butoh #3 (Surakarta), ARTJOG STAGE (Yogyakarta) with Gamelan group ‘Saron Groove’, ‘Cermin Air’, a butoh production choreographed by Agatsuma Emiko at Movement Lab and Jogja Noise Bombing Festival in collaboration with Sam Kurugu and butoh dancer Agatha Socool. Most recently, they completed an 11-hour butoh piece ‘the centre trembles’ at the Singapore ArtScience museum. XUE is currently a student of butoh under the guidance of Vangeline (NYC, Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute) and Agatsuma Emiko (JP, AGAXART). They are also an associate artist at Dance Nucleus and a graduate of the Dance Nucleus Certificate Programme for Critical Practice in Contemporary Performance. |
| Yael Gaathon | Yael Gaathon is a performer, choreographer, and teacher based in Aarhus, Denmark, who works with Butoh and theatre. She is the artistic director of Blue Cliff and has been active in the performing arts for over 35 years, performing, creating, teaching, and developing her own artistic language. Yael sees Butoh as an extreme form of sincerity, revealing intimacy, darkness, joy, and vulnerability. Her approach can be summed up by a quote from Butoh master Kazuo Ohno: “It is the soul that dances, and the body follows”. Yael began her career as an actress, graduating from Nissan Nativ Acting Studio (Israel) in 1993, and later joined the internationally acclaimed Itim Theater Ensemble, performing worldwide. She began practicing Butoh in Israel in 1995 and later moved to Denmark, where she established her company Blue Cliff and began to choreograph and direct solo and group pieces. Yael has been giving Butoh workshops, as well as training and teaching actors and dancers in film, the state theater schools in Denmark, private theater schools, the Danish Actors Association, and in various dance and theater training programs. She has also participated in Butoh workshops with Vangeline, such as the “Dancing with Ghosts” workshop in Berlin, where the workshop is open to all interested in exploration and movement, no prior experience in Butoh or dance is needed. https://kglteater.dk/medvirkende/xyz/yael-gaathon |
| Yael Karavan | Award winning performer, dancer and director Yael Karavan was born in Israel and grew up in Florence, Paris and is based in London and Brighton since 1996. At the age of 13 she began a successful acting career in the National Theatre, television, radio and films in Israel. In 1994 she has travelled Europe, Brazil and Japan studying with masters such as Anton Adassinski from physical theatre Derevo, Nigel Charnock from DV8, Philippe Genty, Philippe Gaulier, Jerzy Winnicki ( Grotowski), Ricardo Puccetti from Lume Teatro, Monica Pagnieux (feldenkrais in performance), Sue Morrison (Clown through mask), and Butoh masters Kazuo Ohno, Tadashi Endo, Carlotta Ikeda, Yumiko Yoshioka, Akiko Motofuji, Ko Morobushi, Katsura Kan and more, searching to create an elaborate method of physical training for the performer and to develop a contemporary physical language of expression bridging between east and west, dance and theatre. Her work is often described as visual poetry, Drawing on elements of Butoh, dance, mime, clown, physical and visual theatre she explores the themes of Memory, Metamorphosis, the invisible and the notion of repetitive cycles, intertwining dreamlike atmospheres with a humorous edge, constantly balancing on the fine line between the tragic and the comic, the intimate and the collective. She has created and performed 7 solo shows, touring world-wide, and in 2006 was awarded the TEATRONETO prize for best performance with her solo The Way Home. She has been, amongst others, member of DEREVO multiple award winning Russian physical theatre company, Mamu Dance Theatre of Tadashi Endo, Ten-Pen Chi of Yumiko Yoshioka and a founding member of the site-specific international company Adapt- Theatre Picture Collision. She has been working / collaborating with Tanya Khabarova (Derevo), Naomi Silman (LUME), Ephia (Djalma primordial science), Linda Remahl, Fran Barbe, Marie Gabriel Rotie, Bruno Humberto, Adam Read amongst others, nationally and internationally. In 2009 she founded The Karavan Ensemble, a site specific/responsive company of international performers with an exciting mixture of performance skills and backgrounds, with whom she has devised and directed award winning show Anima (Argus Angel award) for Brighton Fringe 2011. A Ship of Fools for Brighton Fringe 2010, A Light through the Night commissioned for Brighton’s White Night, The Dressing Room for Brighton Dome, A Small Museum of Displaced Sea commissioned by the award winning Dip Your Toe project as well as two big site responsive projects in Cologne, Germany and various outdoors and community projects. Yael is now touring internationally with various collaborations including – Somnambules and Equator, two duets created and performed in collaboration with Russian Dancer, Tanya Khabarova, founder member of acclaimed Derevo Company, PUPIK- Fugue in two – a duet created and performed in collaboration with Naomi Silman from Lume Teatro, Brazil and her new solo D-Code, in collaboration with sound designer- Carl Beukman. Karavan is also mentoring, devising and directing various solos and group shows mainly across the U.K and Brazil. Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, Brighton&Hove Council, South East Dance, Awards for all, Hollingdean Youth Trust, Coachwerks, The Nightingale Theatre, Matan Foundation for the Arts, Micadances- Paris, Atelier de Paris Carolyn Carlson and CCN Magui Marin, cultural association Dello Scompiglio, Vorno, Italy. Yael is currently supported by South East Dance through their Creative and Business Development programme. Since 1999 Yael has been teaching workshops internationally; at Brighton and Reading University in the U.K, Kinki University of Osaka and the Asbestos Kan studio in Tokyo- Japan, The Habima National Theatre in Israel, Lume Theatre Research Nucleus and SESCI in São Paulo, Recife, Olinda and Bellem – Brazil, Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Seaux- France, BAW (Bilingual Acting Workshops) in Paris, TTI in London, Oxford dance forum& Cafe Reason, Coachwerks, The Nightingale Theatre in Brighton, amongst others. |
| Yasuhiko Takeuchi | Referenced as a butoh dancer at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00618/ |
| Yasuhiro Kitaoka | Referenced as a butoh dancer at: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00056 |
| Yasuhiro Suzuki | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) |
| Yasunari Tamai | Listed in Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00101 |
| Yasutsune Era | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Yazmin Gonzalez | Yazmin Gonzalez began her dance education at 18, studying Egyptian Classical Belly Dance under the guidance of Maria Jammal. Upon moving to N.Y., she encountered East Coast Tribal Belly dance and became enamored with the fusion path under the tutelage of Sera Solstice and Zuleika Milan. Seeking to provoke emotional exploration through movement, she came to the New York Butoh Institute, and felt immediately engaged by the profound power of focus and deliberation that Butoh offers. (https://www.vangeline.com/calendar/ewbxg3jzww2bs2d) |
| Ybub Levi | Ybub Levi was introduced to Butoh my Ivan Daniel Espinosa and began to study in 2014 with Maureen Freehill with a focus largely on the Kazuo Ohno lineage. His studies continued over the years with many other teachers both in the Hijikata and Ohno lineages. He was hugely impacted by the teachings of Diego Pinon and his integration of Mexican Ritualism with Butoh praxis. Ybub has performed countless times both in the group setting, in public, and on stage, and also as a solo artist as well. As a multi-instrumentalist musician, improviser and composer he has also created live music scores for Butoh offerings multiple times, and has even integrated the Butoh praxis into his creative explorations with music, which has birthed his extensive improvised music catalog called “From Movement”, which has 6 releases as of current (02025). He began teaching Butoh centric but multi modal workshops twice a month in Houston, Texas in 02023, and has slowly created his own approach to facilitation of this deep and nuanced somatic work. He is interested in the discovery of his own “Western Butoh” rather than imitating Japanese aesthetics, while also maintaining a strong connection and respect for the origins of Butoh and the core practices which root it so deeply in it’s transformative power. Ybub just recently helped to start a dance troupe called SOMOSIS that will continue to explore Butoh as a praxis as well as offer their discoveries publicly and on stage in a wide variety of settings and venues. Ybub has the upmost respect for the origins of Butoh and how intensely Hijikata, Ohno and all those who carry the lineage take this praxis. He holds the Butoh flame deep in his heart and carries it with great care and nuance. |
| Yeow Lai Chee | From 2009 to 2015, she trained in Butoh Notation under Yukio Waguri. Founded Soubi Sha in 2012 in Kuala Lumpur. (https://mydancealliance.org/dance-companies) |
| Yi Chen | Student of Rhizome Lee and has toured several countries for performance. |
| Yoichi Mori | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00537/ (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Yokko | Yokko is a New York based interdisciplinary artist from Nagoya Japan, specialized in Butoh, Acting, Theatre, Yoga, various somatic based movement practices and energy work. Yokko has acted in, devised and choreographed a variety of local and international shows, having won several awards, including “Best One-Woman Show”, “Best Choreography” “Best Physical Theatre” and “Best Actress” for Butoh Medea (United Solo NYC 2014 & 2015 at Theatre Row, TVolution 2018 Hollywood Fringe Awards). Butoh Medea was selected to perform in Warsaw, Poland. (United Solo Europe 2015, Teatre Syrena), toured Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015, nominated The Asian Arts Award. It has been touring Europe and North America 2016-2025. (www.butohmedea.com) Other Theatre credits include: Lone Wolf Tribe’s Body Concert (Labapalooza! 2018 at St. Ann’s Warehouse), Hide Your Fires: Butoh Lady Macbeth (Pan Asian Rep’s NU Works, United Solo 2017: Theatre Row, Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019), Butoh Dance Credits Include: ShiraHimeRyu (NY Butoh Institute Festival 2018 at Theatre For The New City, Butoh festival Amsterdam 2024), Hijikata Tatsumi’s Last Words (Dance Medium, Noguchi Room, Hijikata Archive, Keio University, 2018), ManJuShaGe:A flower on the earth, A flower in the Sky (Dance Medium, Noguchi Room, Hijikata Archive, Keio University, 2017), Butoh Dance duet with Jordan Rosin, FACET (Irondale Center, White Wave, Hollywood Fringe 2013). Yokko also played in several local and international films and Music videos both as an actor and Butoh dancer: Cage The Elephant’s Ready To Let Go (2019), HOKO’s I don’t Know Where We Went Wrong (2020), NOIA’s AUSENCIAS (2019) directed by Amy Gardner. Recent collaboration with a fiber artist, Erik Bergrin: The 8 dissolutions at Morris Museum, Times sq billboard (2022), Spirits Body at House of Yes, Brooklyn-NYC(2023) Yokko is the founder and Artistic Director of a NY Based Butoh Theatre Group, RenGyoSoh, the producing artistic director of Unfix NYC Festival: creating an awareness of ecology through Arts since 2016. Their work is deeply rooted in Japanese culture, and Yokko is passionate to collaborate with other artists to synthesis different cultures and disciplines to create a new work to share them with the world communities. Yokko published an article “Why Butoh Theatre” by Routledge / Taylor and Francis (2020). Yokko is a recipient of the G. William Hume Fellowship in Performing Arts (2023). Teachings: Yokko has been offering her workshops in USA (NY, CA and more), Europe (Italy, UK Poland, Turkey), Japan (Tokyo, Nagoya) and Online. |
| Yoko Ashikawa | Tatsumi Hijikata’s pupil and principle dancer for many years. Hijikata called himself “the image” and Ashikawa “the dictionary.” |
| Yoko Higashi | Dancer, composer and musician First dancer interpreter between 2000-2001 for Masaki Iwana, Butô dancer-choreographer, in 2003, she begins a research work, as a choreographer – dancer, in collaboration with various musicians like Lionel Marchetti. She regularly organizes a butoh dance workshop in Lyon. She is also a director-dancer in schools of fine arts and theater since 2015. As a musician-composer, she has collaborated with various musicians: Lionel Marchetti, Frederick Galiay, Gilles Laval, David Chiesa… As a composer, she works regularly with the documentary film director Yves Montmayeur. For the theater, she worked on Jean Paul Delore’s creations between 2007-2018. (https://unensemble.net/en/lombreduprintemps.html) Training lineage mentioned on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C497b4PS32Y |
| Yoko Muronoi | Yoko Muronoi (室野井洋子), born August 25, 1958, in Yokohama, Japan, and passed away on July 3, 2017. Muronoi Yoko moved to Sapporo in 2000, where she started the group ANOYONODEKIGOTO with Takahashi Ikuro. She then also began a workshop called ‘Dancing Bodies’ at an art school in Tokyo in 2003, and frequently performed at Artland in Musashi Koganei, Tokyo. In YOASOBI, as in other works, she aims to be rid of any needless decoration, and to create a dance that comes from the body. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00152) |
| Yoshihiro Ogura | Listed as butoh dancer (who danced with Mitsutake Ishii) on Japan Dance Archive. (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00626) |
| Yoshihiro Shimomura | Japan-born butoh artist active in Berlin for both performance and workshop. First stepped onto the stage at age 20. Never trained under any butoh guide. Self-taught. |
| Yoshikazu Kodama | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00656) |
| Yoshino Hiromi | Yoshino Hiromi is listed among dancers appearing in Story of Smallpox alongside Ashikawa Yôko, Kobayashi Saga, Nimura Momoko, and others. Baird, Bruce. Hijikata Tatsumi and Butoh: Dancing in a Pool of Gray Grits. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. |
| Yoshito Ohno | It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Yoshito Ohno, who departed this world at 6:06 pm on 8 January 2020, at the age of eighty-one. His stage career spanned more than six decades, with his debut in 1959 when he appeared at his father Kazuo Ohno’s side in the modern dance work The Old Man and the Sea, and one month later, with Tatsumi Hijikata in Forbidden Colours. The Ohno family along with staff members at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and the Kazuo Ohno Archives are filled with a deep sense of gratitude for all your kindness and support over the years. (Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio) |
| Yoshiyuku Takada | Early member of Sankai Juku who died after falling five stories during a performance in Seattle’s Pioneer Square on September 10, 1985. |
| Yu Kimura | Butoh dancer as listed at https://derori.tataramatsuri.com/index_e.php |
| Yuji Soto | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Yuka | Butoh dancer. Studied under Butoh dancer Temmetsu from the age of 15 in 2016. She began full-fledged activities in 2020, performing as a dancer at the B Kikan over by Temmetsu, appearing in music videos, DJ events, and experimental session performances with a live band. She has also given many butoh solo performances and plans to give a solo performance in 2025. (https://sapporo-butoh.com/yuka) |
| Yukara Nakai | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00537/ (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Yuki Ebine | Listed at Japan Dance Archive: https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00131/ |
| Yuki Satsuki Saburou | Listed as part of Torifune Butoh Sha: https://butohpia.com/events/57/ |
| Yuki Taniguchi | Japanese Butoh dancer, Indian martial Chhau dancer, Yoga, Mantra chanting, Tantra Philosophy and Meditation teacher. Born in Japan, based in Australia. https://www.dotsandloops.com.au/people/yuki-taniguchi |
| Yuki Yuko | Born in 1950, Tokyo. At 19 she met Hijikata Tatsumi, the founder of Butoh (Japanese Avant garde dance), and has been inspired by his work. She met Ohno Kazuo as she started her career. Since 1993 she has been living in Northern Japan, taking distance from Tokyo`s art scene, in exploring for her own philosophy of dancing. |
| Yukio Mikami | 1967 Attended the Meiji-Gakuin University Tokyo Joined Tenjo-Sajiki the theater group by Shuji Terayama. Acted in “Abandon Books,Go out to the City”,”Marie in Fur”,”Jashu-mon” Produced at the Nancy Theater Festival, Les Halls in Paris,Micris in Holland. Co-directed “A Man-Driven Airplanne, Solomon” with Shuji Terayama at Holland Biennale. 1974 Scholarship student at the University of Nancy(C.U.I.F.E.R.D), the deparment of theatrical arts. 1983 Published “Humming Birds Wouldn’t Sing” from Kadokawa Shoten Publishers. 1984 Wrote lots of travel sketches, film reviews and other miscellaneous articles for a variety of magazines. 1991 Founded Torifune Butoh Sha and produced. 1991- Directed and choreographed all of its works. Also he works as director and choreographer for other theatrical performances. |
| Yukio Suzuki | Yukio Suzuki Born in 1972. Suzuki studied butoh at the Asbestos-kan (Asbestos House) from 1997 and danced in the works of Ko Murobushi and other artists. In 2000 he started the group Kingyo. He gained attention in the dance world for his documentary-like style of directing and choreography that uses compelling placement of dancers with a strong emphasis on their physical presence. In recent years he has expanded his activities as a choreographer with projects like choreographing for dancers of the Tokyo City Ballet Company and participating in the Asian Dance Conference. He also conducts workshops based on butoh methodology. With a highly sensitive consciousness of the body, he conducts programs around the country aimed at creating dancer-specific works. In 2003 he won the ST Spot Lab Award. In 2004 he participated in the final Next-Next program of the Saison Foundation. In 2005 he was the Session House resident artist. In 2007 he was nominated for the Kyoto Arts Center Performing Arts Award 2007. In the Toyota Choreography Awards he was winner of the Audience Award in 2005 and the Choreographer of the Next Generation (grand prize) award in 2008. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh Choreography Lab https://vimeo.com/646352593 |
| Yukio Waguri | Yukio Waguri, Butoh dancer and choreographer, passed away on Oct. 22nd, 2017, at the age of 65 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Yukio Waguri was born in Tokyo in 1952 and studied Butoh dance under Tatsumi Hijikata. His dance was as solid as crystal, limp and smart as a leopard, and subtle and fine as willow. His works were constructed rather than improvisational, and his various expressions based on the idea of transformation were cultivating new possibilities in Butoh. He used and further developed the “Butoh Fu” notation system, the poetic words orally taught by Hijikata, which are used to awaken the dancer’s images. In 1998, Waguri published a CD-ROM, “Butoh Kaden”, now known internationally, to respond to numerous interests and unveil the essence of Butoh. He collaborated with many artists from different artistic and cultural backgrounds, held workshops, especially at research institutions and universities nationally and internationally, and also showed a deep passion for teaching foreign students in his last years. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Goddess https://youtu.be/AbTtpmYkybs?si=KqTDffzhVNQOoPM0 * Transformation & Trance https://youtu.be/Yv0k36T8bTI?si=TZAp4Yu1_lzIV71Q |
| Yuko Kaseki | Yuko Kaseki is a director, choreographer, teacher and Butoh dancer who has lived in Berlin long and short enough. She has been searching for a way to penetrate the space between physical and spiritual expression. Every day she trains her perception to find the moment of extraordinary in the ordinary. She studied Butoh dance and Performing Art in HBK Braunschweig with Anzu Furukawa and danced in her company Dance Butter Tokio and Verwandlungsamt in 1989-2000. in 1995, Yuko Kaseki and Marc Ates founded the dance company cokaseki. cokaseki is as an ensemble for performative research around dance, visual arts and experimental music in live events and improvisations at theater, gallery, site specific space, and film… Since then various members have been part of the group in different roles and changing creative responsibilities. Collaborations have been taking place in numerous international projects with performers such as Christine Bonansea, Sherwood Chen, Megumi Eda, Shinichi Iova Koga, 4RUDE, Minako Seki, Lisa Stertz, Valentin Tszin, Teo Vlad, musicians such as Antonis Anissegos, Kriton Beyer, Audrey Chen, Contagious, Kirikoo Des, Axel Dörner, Echo Ho, Emilio Gordoa, miu, Nguyễn + Transitory, Yasumune Morishige, Olaf Rupp, Tot Onyx, Sasha Pushkin, SEQUOIA, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Xenon, and visual artists such as, Nikhil Chopra, Morvarid K, Sarane Lecompte, Arata Mori, Justin Palermo, Chiharu Shiota, Peter Zach, and more. |
| Yuko Kawamoto | Yuko Kawamoto is a Japanese butoh dancer and choreographer, recognized for her innovative approach to the traditional butoh style. She began her training in 1991 under Yukio Waguri, and performed with the company Yukio Waguri + Kozensha until 1999. In 2000, she founded her own company, Shinonome Butoh, aiming to evolve butoh into a more contemporary and globally resonant form. |
| Yuko Kobayashi | A member of DAIRAKUDAKAN from 1996, she took part in all of the company’s performances for 14 years. In 2004, Akaji MARO, founder of DAIRAKUDAKAN, entrusted her with the choreography of one of the pieces from the Kochuten series, Linka (6 dancers). She then choreographed Yupiters (a piece for 8 dancers) in 2007, also as part of that series. Between 2006 and 2009, she taught dance at Mujinjuku, the butoh dance school of the DAIRAKUDAKAN company. Since 2010, she has lived in France. |
| Yuko Kominami | Born in 1973, Japan. She studied butoh and dance in Tokyo. After finishing her BA in Japanese history at Waseda University, she did a Professional Diploma in Community Dance Studies and an Independent Study Programme at Laban Centre London from 1998 to 2000. She obtained her MA in Dance Cultures, Histories and Practices from the University of Surrey in 2006. She has been working as an independent dance and performance artist. She has also danced in a company TEN PEN Chii ART LABOR (direction: Yumiko Yoshioka and Joachim Manger) between 2007-2010. She has collaborated with other dancers, choreographers, artists, musicians and theatre directors of various landscapes. She has performed her work in prominent festivals such as Festival June Events – Atelier de Paris Carolyn Carlson, Les Repérages Danse à Lille, Festivalul International de Teatru de la Sibiu, Bodyradical in Budapest, Odisha Biennale in India, Venice International Film Festival, Italy and so on. She has also worked and performed in countries around the world – including Luxembourg, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Finland, Turkey, U.K. , Japan, China, India and Peru. Her work includes “Ones Voices” (2004) collaboration with Steve Kaspar, “Linnunrata” (2007), “reMEMBRANEce” (2009), “Project O” (2010) collaboration with Rajivan Ayyappan and Emanuela Iacopini, “Mayu” (2011) collaboration with Tomás Tello, “Recollections” (2012) collaboration with Kunihiko Matsuo, “Winter Worm-Summer Grass” (2013), “Three Short Stories” (2015) collaboration with Sayoko Onishi, “Dreaming Scarlet Medusa” (2017), “Iwa-kagami”(2018), “Sublimation”(2019) VR project by Karolina Markiewicz and Pascal Piron. Her work consists of experiments with movements in-between (movements of becoming) where intensities of individuals intersect. It is a place where extreme existence and inevitable metamorphoses materialize. And through these experiments she aims towards affirmation of multiple and fragmented connections of “a life”. |
| Yuko Morii | Was a performer at Two Nights Butoh Special at the UrBANGUILD Kyoto, Oct 2025. |
| Yuko Ota | Yuko Ota is a Japanese performer trained in Jinen Butoh, known for her solo performances and teachings—in 2009, she conducted a workshop under Japanese Butoh master Atsushi Takenouchi in Spazio Nu, Italy. |
| Yuko Taniue | Part of Yumiko Yoshioka’s Ten Pen CHii Art Labor and known to be active (or having been active) in organizing and teaching Butoh workshops via Wild Art YESE! |
| Yuko Tatsushima | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Yuko Watanabe | Listed as part of Ariadone (https://ko-murobushi.com/eng/works/p7738). Ariadone existed from 1974 – 2000s. |
| Yuko Yamaguchi | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00654/) |
| Yuko Yubusha | Yuko Yubusha is a Japanese butoh dancer and a member of the Yubusha Butoh Company. Born in 1999 in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, she completed her master’s degree in Dance Studies at Ochanomizu University, Japan, with a particular focus on folk performing arts and dance anthropology. Since 2019, she has studied under Butoh artist Natsu Nakajima. In 2020, she began training under Yumi Sagara and Ryugoro Kuze. That same year, Yuko co-founded the Butoh company “Yubusha” and has been actively engaged in artistic creation alongside her twin sister, butoh artist Keiko, and dramaturg/artist Suzuko. In addition to collaborating with diverse artists—including visual artists, musicians, poets, and researchers—she is involved in dance education. “The first time I encountered butoh was in my childhood. I feel that its origins for me can be traced back to the playful “dance games” I used to enjoy with my twin sister. At that time, I had not yet learned any specific form of dance, but in those fleeting moments, I experienced the sensation of becoming something other than myself. I was no longer merely myself—I was the flower, the insect. That experience, I believe, was my earliest encounter with butoh. I was nineteen when I first encountered butoh as an art form. It was when I visited the studio of butoh dancer Natsu Nakajima. Later, I studied under Yumi Sagara and Ryugoro Kuze, both of whom had trained with Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno. Through my time with them, my understanding of butoh underwent transformation—and even now, it continues to evolve. For me, butoh is more than a mere physical expression; it is something that shakes the very foundations of how I perceive life itself. To dance is to live, to exist, and from that existence, something takes root—a pure, innocent poetry, a philosophy that surges forth from within. What is butoh? What does it mean to live through butoh? These questions remain unanswered, and so I continue to ask them—day after day, as I dance.” Tsubutoh Butoh Journal: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHeupQny5an/?img_index=1 |
| Yumi Fujitani | Yumi Fujitani (b. 1962, Kobe) is a prominent Japanese Butō choreographer, performer, and educator based in Paris, where she has developed her unique “Butō burlesque” style since 1996 (broadwayworld.com, micadanses.com). |
| Yumi Kihara | Born in Shizuoka Prefecture. She began studying jazz dance at the age of 22 and has since studied modern and classical ballet, with an interest in the structure of the body. For her Butoh work, she participated in “Bang Bang Bang”, a work by Yuki Touge in 2019. Studied Butoh at the workshop of IMA Tenko since 2021, and joined the Butoh company Kiraza in the spring of 2024. She stayed in Germany for a year from 2022 to 2023. |
| Yumi Sagara | Yumi Sagara is a Butoh dancer. She went to New York with the help of dancers Eiko and Koma to study various dances. After returning to Japan, she went to the Kazuo Ohno Butoh Institute and studied Butoh with Kazuo and his son Yoshito. She studied under Oikawa Hironobu. Currently she is the director of the dance company White Dice. She is currently expanding her physical expression by collaborating across artistic genres. (https://tokyo.mutek.org/en/artists/saskia-kanakitty) |
| Yumi Umiumare | Yumi Umiumare is a Japanese-born Butoh dancer and choreographer based in Australia, known for blending Butoh with cabaret and cultural satire. She is the creator of Butoh Cabaret and has presented work internationally, including at major arts festivals. ### ▶️ Video Classes * Butoh: An Introduction to an Inclusive Approach to Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1n04uEUesk |
| Yumiko Minami | Part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00619/ |
| Yumiko Nakamoto | Listed as member of Daizu-ko Farm (which lasted from 1997 – 2001) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00655/) |
| Yumiko Seki | Noted as butoh performer who passed away, student of Yoko Ashikawa’s Gnome. Also noted as performer on official SU-EN website’s activity log: https://www.suenbutohcompany.net/the-company/activity-log First reference source: Baird, Bruce. “The Butoh Body of Ashikawa Yoko.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 323-332. Taylor & Francis eBooks, doi:10.4324/9781315536132-25. |
| Yumiko Yoshioka | Yumiko Yoshioka is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer from Tokyo. Since 1988 she has been based in Germany. Yumiko is a former member of Ariadone, the first female Butoh company, which was founded by Ko Murobushi and Carlotta Ikeda in 1974. In 1978, she performed with Ko and Carolotta in Paris, LE DERNIER EDEN – PORTE DE L’AU-DELA, the very first Butoh performance to be presented in a public theatre outside Japan. In 1988 she met Minako Seki and delta RA’i in Berlin, with whom she founded tatoeba THÉÂTRE DANCE GROTESQUE. This experience, along with work with the Butoh dancer Kim-Itoh, encouraged Yumiko to start to unfold her own personal style of dancing and choreography. In 1989 she also started to develop and teach her own form of bodywork. The approach became a pillar of her career as a reflection of her profound understanding of the importance of deepening consciousness of the body, not only in order to dance and express, but also to illuminate our daily life, opening ourselves to the deeper layers of our inner world and rediscovering a subtle beauty in each moment. The strength of this perception led her to create her own method of bodywork, called “Body Resonance” In 1994, she met JoaXhim Manger and Zam Jhonson. Together they founded TEN PEN CHii ART LABOR, an interdisciplinary and experimental art formation, in which Yumiko dances and emerges as choreographer. Since 1995 she has set up various collaborative projects across Europe. These include: “eX…it!, a Butoh-Related eXchange Festival”, held at Schloss Broellin; Gest-Azione, with Annalisa Maggiani from Italy; and indigo fera art productions with Rena Konstantaki from Greece. Yumiko continues to pioneer Butoh installations and teach her methods internationally. |
| Yumino Seki | Yumino Seki is a Japanese-born Butoh dancer and somatic movement educator based in the UK. She trained in classical and contemporary dance in Japan before moving to London in her late 20s, where she encountered Butoh. Between 1999 and 2009, she performed extensively in Europe with Mamu Dance Theatre (Tadashi Endo), TEN PEN CHii (Yumiko Yoshioka), and Ariadone (Carlotta Ikeda) . |
| Yuna Koyabu | Part of Tenko Ima’s Kiraza. Kiraza has been active from 2000 – 2020. https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00619/ |
| Yuna Saimon | Japanese Butoh performer, affiliated with the renowned avant-garde troupe Dairakudakan (redefinemag.net) Featured in Dairakudakan’s “Butoh Today” vol. 2 production, Crime and Punishment, staged at New National Theatre Tokyo in March 2018 (nntt.jac.go.jp). Listed as part of Dairakudakan’s current roster of performers, indicating ongoing involvement with the company . |
| Yuri Dini | Born in Florence on 12 July 1983. Artistic director of the Yurta Maktub project. Director, performer and musician in the companies Il Teatro della Beffa (Bologna) and Knocking Theater (Glasgow) with which he presented various shows in Italy and Europe. Graduated from the University of Bologna in Cultural Anthropology and Philosophy. He studies mime at the Lecoq school in Paris, and dances Butoh in various places scattered around Europe with the masters Atsushi Takenouchi, Masaki Iwana, Minako Seki, Tadashi Endo, Kan Katsura, Imre Thormann, Sayoko Onishi, Yumiko Yoshioka, Ko Morobushi and Yoshito Ohno. He plays and composes in various musical projects: UmTum, Codeina B Project, Nadir (Ateritual Sessions); releases as soloist “Hermitage” (2016). He coined the Butoh-Jazz Club formula with Guglielmo Pagnozzi in which musicians of the caliber of Alberto Capelli, Edoardo Marraffa, Luigi ‘Lullo’ Mosso, Riccardo Pedrini, Kalifa Kone collaborated. Participates as a performer and organizer in Moving Bodies, Butoh Touring Festival (Turin, Glasgow, Dublin, Bologna -2014 and 2016). Since 2010 he has been conducting Butoh dance workshops. Since 2014 he has been part of VID art|science (project directed by prof. Carlo Ventura) leading the Ritual Theatre Atelier, the project ‘The Gift of Wiracocha’ and the performance experiment ‘Sines of Life’ (UNFIX Festival – Glasgow 2019). In 2020 he published his first literary work entitled “Peruvian diaries and other writings”. He builds and repairs Yurts and Tipì…and is the father of a splendid magical little creature. (yuridini.com) |
| Yuri Nagaoka | Yuri Nagaoka is a Tokyo-born Butoh performer and choreographer who co-founded the Dance Medium company with Seisaku in 2004, blending ballet, yoga, Noguchi gymnastics, taichi, and karate into her Butoh-based physical practice used in international workshops and performances. She has taught widely across Japan and Europe and received the Japan Dance Critics Association Award in 2012 for Kaeru. |
| Yuri Sakurai | Danced with Mutsuko Tanaka and Keiko Katsumata |
| Yuriko Maezawa | Dancer of Natsu Nakajima mentioned in Butoh America. Calamoneri, Tanya. Butoh America: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the Early 2000s. Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies, Routledge, 2022. |
| Yuriya Ikeda | Listed as part of Yukio Waguri’s Kozensha (Kozenscha spanned from 1992 – 1997) (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00195/) |
| Yusio Fukurozaka | “Yasuo Fukurozaka was born and raised in Hokkaido, Japan’s huge and cold northern island, and came to Kyoto at age 18 to study nuclear engineering and noh at Japan’s prestigious Kyoto University. While nuclear engineering was his declared field of study, his primary passion for attending Kyoto University was to join its large and well supported student club devoted to studying noh. While in graduate school for nuclear engineering, Fukurozaka first came in contact with butoh when he saw and was shocked by a picture of one of butoh’s founders, Tatsumi Hijikata. Fukurozaka attended some butoh workshops, but never had an intention to perform until one of the teachers, Yuki Goza, a butoh dancer in Kyoto, told him: “You should stand on the stage. So, cut your hair.” Source: Gordon, Gerald Raymond. “Ass Mask: Noh Faces New Ends.” From Loss to Survivals: On the Reconstruction and Transmission of Artistic Gestures. Volume 5, Intervalla, Baika Women’s University, FUS, [publication year not specified]. Intervalla, vol. 5, FUS, Baika Women’s University. |
| Yusuke Kawabata | Born in 2000 in Tokyo, since 2016 he has studied interpretation and directing techniques with director Kei Okada and actor Higaku Kamais, who also fights sword with Geido, Sword Fighting, Hata-ryu, Takase, Dojo Shihan and Takano Shiko. In 2019, he participated in the Tatsuo Kaneshita ’19 private school, sponsored by the Gajira theater planning group. Since 2021, he has studied butoh with Norihito Ishii (Sankai Juku). In 2022, with Butoh Ishii Gumi he participates in In Flesh and Sound and performs in “Justice, Rights, Love” in Paris. In 2023, he launched the Performing Arts Company Judge. |
| Yutaka Yamagami | Listed member of Byakko-sha (https://video.dance-archive.net/en/piece/v00527/) (Byakko-sha has been active 1980 – 1994) |
| Yvonne Pouget | YVONNE POUGET is a freelance artist, choreographer, director and dancer. Trained in Butoh by Ko Murobusi and Carlotta Ikeda Pouget developed her own and unique body language on stage. She transcends both butoh and classical contemporary dance and expresses a form of symbolic wish-fulfillment. Her artistic work has up a unique position inside the contemporary dance world. Focussing on small, subtle movements, she reduces the visible on its very essence of human beeing. In her productions she uses her specific „bodylanguage of poetry“, her unique ability to controll the fascial structure on pure for a metaphysic desire fulfilment: the world of the stage makes possible on what reality fail: „the soul gets grant do build wings. Like this Pouget´s dance shows the movment of the soul, the truth of the behind, what it mens to be human. |
| Zack Fuller | Zack Fuller is a DIY dancer/choreographer who lives in Rockland County NY. In 2019 he co-headlined the Boston Butoh Festival with Yuko Kaseki, with his dance/music collaboration Twisted from Constantly Watching Doves. His practice of dance is developed from a lifetime of wide-ranging experiences as a performing artist including fronting the Washington DC post-punk psychedelic metal band Scythian, participating in workshops and theatrical research with Ryszard Cieslak of Grotowskiʼs Polish Laboratory theatre, and working with dance artists such as Eiko and Koma and Poppo Shiraishi. In 1997 he was cast in Min Tanaka and Susan Sontagʼs Poe Project: Stormy Membrane, and went on to perform and train with Tanaka throughout Japan, Europe and the U.S. His own dance works have been presented at Leimay’s Soak Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Asheville Fringe Festival, the Dance Hakushu Festival, and elsewhere. He currently works as a care giver for the elderly at The Rudolph Steiner Fellowship Community, an activity that constitutes his primary form of dance training. His dance has been described by the Boston Globe as “Cryptic… but characterized by astonishing theatricality,” and “Like an angel coming down Jacob’s ladder to play in the garbage” by the Japanese dance critic Hidenaga Otori. Academic Texts: Fuller, Zack. “Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 29, no. 2, 2012, pp. 507–510. Johns Hopkins University Press, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/5/article/480617. Fuller, Zack. “Seeds of an Anti-Hierarchic Ideal: Summer Training at Body Weather Farm.” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, vol. 5, no. 2, 2014, pp. 228–242. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2014.910542. Fuller, Zack. “Tanaka Min: The Dance of Life.” The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2018, pp. 514–527. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/102579/9781315536125.pdf. Fuller, J. Zack. One Endless Dance: Tanaka Min’s Experimental Practice. PhD dissertation, 2017. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/openview/3dd2488c455c449c849be80a456874b0. Fuller, Zack. Contributor. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance, edited by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario, Routledge, 2019. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/93126. |
| Zak Ma | Zak Ma is a NY-based actor and multidisciplinary theatre artist of Vietnamese descent. He received his MFA Acting at the Actors Studio Drama School, and is a member of RenGyoSoh since 2019. Zak is passionate in devising multimedia original work, aiming to transcend societal definitions and connect people of all backgrounds. Recent credits include experimental projects, Iceberg and self-produced The Intermediate, and traditional plays: His Is A Cage (Paul), Northbound Train (Huang), and The Seagull (Trigorin). IG @letitbezak. Zak-ma.com SHINKA (2018) Understudy En: 2021 *online Ma On the Edge (2021) IKIGAI (2021) *online Mukuro (2022) Ma: The Exodus (2022-23) *Artist’s Lab Iceberg (2023) *Artist’s Lab Kuzu (2024) (https://www.rengyosoh.com/company-members.html) |
| Zalina Gamat | Zalina Gamat is a butoh performer and educator based in Auroville, India. |
| Zazie Tobey | Dance and Plants. Butoh/Modern/ Musical Theatre. Choreographer, Teacher, Native Perennial Gardener, world traveler |
| Zeha | Zeha (b. 2000) is a multi-disciplinary artist. They are interested in dissecting memories to reimagine the past and the humans of the now. They enjoy how malleable language is and loves to construct and deconstruct mainly the malay and english language to conjure microscopic imageries and paint soundscapes. Their performances centre around the relationships between family, queerness, ethnicity, familiarity and reconcilation. Also part of Singapore Butoh Collective. |
| Zil Ricker | Performed butoh at The Old Main Cultural Center within Galesville University in Wisconsin. (https://riverartsalliance.org/2023/02/06/butoh-dance-zil-ricker-at-old-main) |