Butoh Dictionary

Concept is inspired by butoh artist Coco Villarreal's workshops where objects or props are a tremendous tool for instigating a reduced body in butoh.

For instance, if the object we are to use is a box that one is to get inside, there will be a reduction of space. We dance despite the reduction and find new discoveries. The same can apply for any object limitation such as being bound in different ways or having one's senses modified in some way.

A key butoh concept inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata's writing Ailing Dancer in which resonance with the subconscious or dream world masks literal meaning, allowing movement and expression to emerge beyond straightforward interpretation. In other words, the body is abstracted.

Another term used is the clouded body.

A Shadowbody term which is a portmanteau play on the words obscure and secure.

We must become secure in the obscure, or resonate with mystery.

To Yukio Waguri, this is having “optimistic irresponsibility” for exploration.

In Shadowbody, an exercise where participants straighten out their body with arms raised and roll together in a row on the floor (similar to log rolls) with a water qualia flow. The participant at one end will glide over the participants like a drifting body or surfer till reaching the end, and the next participant at the end will continue.

A Shadowbody exercise. The participant disco dances while in strange or difficult positions such as on all fours or bridge, handstand against the wall, or while hugging a tree with all four limbs.

A Body Weather term describing way of training the body so that awareness and movement do not originate from a single fixed center (like the head, chest, or pelvis), but instead from any and every point of the body simultaneously.

A universal open arms gesture of prayer. In the Shadowbody dance method of Theokinesis, the gesture is used as one of the starting places for butoh work.