Butoh Dictionary

A Shadowbody term which is a portmanteau play on the words second nature and nurture.

Second Nurture expresses that the body itself is a most basic given, and so we are to automatically listen to the body at every moment.

In context of Subbody, it is the veiling or concealing of a world/qualia understood by the dancer. The dancer makes use of the clouded body.

Often expressed as "carrying the secret."

The audience does not know what it is but the dancer does.

A Jersey Grotowski term noted by Stephen Wangh as being the first paradox of acting which is having serious fun, or playing seriously. Serious can mean true or authentic to oneself. Yet if we get lost in authenticity, we can risk losing play or fun, yet if we get lost in play or fun, we can risk losing authenticity.

One of the 8 butoh spices in Shadowbody. Also associated with impulse and flick.

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

Examples: sleep deprivation, sleep walking, sleep paralysis

The non-physical essence of a person, place, being, or thing often associated with consciousness, emotions, and/or soul.

In relation to butoh, it can correlate to an animistic perspective (e.g. Shinto) where all things are alive with an individual spirit.

Carries parallels to the terms qualia and world.

The stacked body is a Shadowbody term that denotes a body containing one qualia base and a secondary or tertiary qualia on top of it. For instance, we might take on the qualia of zombie, which will serve as the foundation, but on top of that, we might add yogi.

Turkish butoh artist Özerk Sonat Pamir called this concept overlapping.

Method created by Rhizome Lee. Means the subconscious body. The Subbody method is based in the subconscious, resonance, and the rhizome.

One of the 8 butoh spices in Shadowbody. Also associated with nurturing movement.

At Subbody, swaying was a common, grounding practice that was constantly happening, such as when watching performances or even being idle outside of class or performance.

Similarly, shuckling is a Jewish ritual, usually swaying forward and back, but can also go side to side. It can also have a tendency to go into shake.

This motion can also be a bit of stereotypical behavior in psychiatric wards.

A perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense involuntarily and consistently triggers another—such as hearing colors, tasting shapes, or feeling sounds.

In butoh, this is extraordinarily useful for body/movement discovery.

Tatsumi Hijikata’s butoh-fu The Blind Girl contains the synesthetic line: “The fourth blind girl is listening to sounds / using her forehead, her ears, her skin, / and all the nerves in her body.”

A Shadowbody term where any variable that in decrease or increase in intensity should be played around with freely.

Synthesizer Knobs are directly linked to the Subbody term Reduction and Regeneration by X.

Example synthesizer knobs: size, density, timing, flexibility.