This article appeared in Tokyo Weekender Vol. 2. To read the entire issue, click here .
Butoh dancer Kana Kitty begins each performance with a poem. A little-known fact about Butoh is that its choreography is invisibly yet inextricably linked to poetry. “I write a poem for every performance,” Kana explains, “and I recite it in my head while I dance.
Butoh rhythm is often based on the words’ intonation.” Though her poetry is beautiful — she grabs her phone and reads one to me, her raspy yet gentle voice putting us both under a spell — she usually never reads them aloud. She only “dances on them,” as she puts it.
“The ‘toh’ in Butoh means ‘to stomp,’” she explains. The word “Butoh” is comprised of two kanji: “bu,” which means “dance,” and “toh,” which means “step,” “tread” or “stomp.” Taken together, these two characters convey the idea of a dance form that’s intense, grounded and deeply expressive.
Initially founded in the late 1950s as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which was seen as too Westernized and commercialized, Butoh revels in darkness, strangeness and existential despair, with dancers slowly and precisely contorting their bodies into unusual positions in a manner that simultaneously recalls agony and rapture. An art college graduate, Kana is a self-taught Butoh dancer, having entered that world in 2009. She went on to perform at art festivals in Japan and abroad, appear in movies, .
