HOW difficult is Butoh?
Contemporary dance is hard on the joints. The Bharatanatyam dancers I worked with said so too. Butoh is not so hard on the joints. It is hard on the muscle, but you build a lot of strength. In a way, it is healthier than the other forms I have worked on earlier. How did you evolve into this form? One of my great regrets was that I never learnt to speak Japanese. So I wasn’t able to communicate directly with my grandparents. When I saw Butoh, I thought it would be possible to learn a language, a Japanese language of the body. In fact I’ve experienced my heritage from a visceral point of view. How did you identify your teacher? She performed at Montreal in an International Dance Festival. I was so moved by the way she created a work that had complexity, sophistication and was aesthetic. It was emotionally moving and also from a woman’s point of view. Why a woman’s point of view? Does this dance have gender? There are more men than women doing Butoh. I had seen the work of many male chore
