Explanation about Butoh-Fu

Butoh-Fu is sometiong that Yukio Waguri put together from his own notes of the words that Tatsumi Hijikata taught “through speech” when he choreographed his pupils at Asbestos-kan, the studio he led.

Explanation about Butoh-Fu

Even though there are many Butoh dancers in Japan and overseas, there is no Butoh-Fu, which is common throughout the Butoh world unlike the basic movement called “pas” in ballet. Each dancer and choreographer is creating dance of their own. One may not use words, and the other may use improvisation. However, in this case, Butoh-Fu is limited only to the choreography of Tatsumi Hijikata.

Explanation about Butoh-Fu

Even the Butoh-Fu of Tatsumi Hijikata wasn’t available to all the dancers at Asbestos-kan as a common text book. Since each dancer extracted parts of his spoken choreography to make notes of their own, it is possible that other Asbestos-kan dancers as Yoko Ashikawa, Koichi Tamano, Saga Kobayashi, Moe Yamamoto, and so on may have different Butoh-Fu from those collected here. Butoh-Fu stored in this application is a document of the words that Yukio Waguri received from Tatsumi Hijikata.

Explanation about Butoh-Fu

Tatsumi Hijikata had never taught dance by systematizing and organizing it as Butoh-Fu. The 7 worlds classified and organized as “Butoh-Fu Title Map” in this application is still only Yukio Waguri’s interpretation from the long period of time for which he was associated with Butoh-Fu. Therefore, many different ways of reading and interpreting are possible.

Explanation about Butoh-Fu

One of causes for the theory of Butoh-Fu to come to existence is the peculiarity of the characteristics of the second Ankoku Butoh group that Tatsumi Hijikata started after the 1970’s. In the second Ankoku Butoh group, some amateur dancers, who never had any basic physical training were included, and it was an unthinkable and unique thing in the dance world. It must have been an effective sort cut (to have dancers imagine in association with words and to have them get something out of it) when Hijikata attempted to create his world by directing those new dancers. However, this theory may not have been necessary at the genesis of Butoh before the 70’s when people, who were trained as modern dancers, were dancing by breaking throught existing forms.

Explanation about Butoh-Fu

Yukio Waguri, who put together this Butoh-Fu told by Hijikata, does not always use only the Butoh-Fu of Hijikata when he creates his production. Butoh-Fu of Waguri’s own has been increased as he does a production, and his pupils have also been creating their own Butoh-Fu as they create their own solo performances. Butoh-Fu is not something definite but is something like a spring that creates more new Butoh-Fu from there. However, we have limited this application to store only Hijikata’s Butoh-fu.

Explanation about Butoh-Fu

The title, “Butoh-Kaden” is taken from “Fushi-kaden (The book of the Transmission of the Flower)” written by Zeami. With a will to impart the “FLOWER” of Noh. Zeami digested and recorded the teachings passed down to him from his father Kan’ami, the originator of Noh. My intention for having written down Butoh-Fu and to open it as “Butoh-Kaden” to everybody is to share with you “FLOWER”, the theory and farsighted view of Tatsumi Hijiakta, who created “Butoh” as a dance expression, original to modern Japan.