Butoh Dictionary

In Shadowbody, the perfect image relates to the most ideal qualia or world, whether literal or abstract that adequately represents our internal environment.

Finding the perfect image is a shortcut in moving in a particular way. If we find the perfect image to embody, movement and choreography will come more easily.

Example: Tatsumi Hijikata found many perfect images for himself. One of the most known butoh-fus was the bugs crawl where bugs would gradually crawl on the body. This gives the body a typical butoh look with whole body detail dance that can be identified as a butoh trope.

Butoh intersecting with pop culture, often blurring the line between authenticity and parody.

In Shadowbody, the possession body is one of the human character tropes or butoh in real life that either inspires or resembles butoh.

Example: Religious or spiritual possession

A term mentioned by the theatre and performance theorist Richard Schechner to describe the activity directly before the actual performance. It is a type of proto-performance.

Oftentimes, the preparation before an actual butoh performance is the beginning of the performance itself or at least the beginning of a kind of ceremony or ritual.

Example: Putting on the white body paint.

A focus in the now of the internal and external environment. It is actively being here now. Presence is related to butoh scholar P Liao’s 2nd stage of butoh creation he calls encountering.

Presence is directly tied to resonance.

A Shadowbody term describing when the dancer embodies movement under the imagined conditions of prosthetic limbs—for example, a prosthetic leg or prosthetic feet.