Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy

by Sondra Fraleigh

Both a refraction of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a protest against Western values, butoh is a form of Japanese dance theater that emerged in the aftermath of World War II. Sondra Fraleigh chronicles the growth of this provocative art form from its mid-century founding under a sign of darkness to its assimilation in the twenty-first century as a poignant performance medium with philosophical and political implications.

 

Through highly descriptive, thoughtful, and emotional prose, Fraleigh traces the transformative alchemy of this metaphoric dance form by studying the international movement inspired by its aesthetic mixtures. While butoh has retained a special identity related to its Japanese background, it also has blossomed into a borderless art with a tolerant and inclusive morphology gaining prominence in a borderless century.

 

Employing intellectual and aesthetic perspectives to reveal the origins, major figures, and international development of the dance, Fraleigh documents the range and variety of butoh artists around the world with first-hand knowledge of butoh performances from 1973 to 2008. Her definitions of butoh's morphology, alchemy, and philosophy set a theoretical framework for poetic and engaging articulations of twenty butoh performances in Japan, Europe, India, and the West. With a blend of scholarly research and direct experience, she also signifies the unfinished nature of butoh and emphasizes its capacity to effect spiritual transformation and bridge cultural differences.

264 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2010

About the author

Sondra Fraleigh is founding director of the Eastwest Somatic Institute for Dance and Movement Studies and the author of six books on dance and movement philosophy published by university presses. She is professor of dance emeritus, and chaired the Department of Dance at the State University of New York at Brockport for nine years, later directing the graduate dance program there. Fraleigh is certified in the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education. She has also been an elected Faculty Exchange Scholar for the State University of New York. Fraleigh is ERYT with Yoga Alliance, Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher at the advanced 500-hour level. She teaches yoga, depth-movement dance, and somatic workshops at several locations in the United States, Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Fraleigh’s home and that of Eastwest Somatics is in the beautiful Red Rock country of Southwest Utah.

Reviews

[Rafael Munia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great idea but a not so great execution. While I found interesting the author's attempt to try to look at Butoh as a Philosophy, she seems to lose herself in equivalencies and comparisons, losing track of the philosophies that are born or that can be potentially born from Butoh itself. Thus, we end up with an exercise of finding philosophical themes from other philosophies inside of it, rather than discovering a new form of philosophy that can emerge from it.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for less of the personal musings, and more of the butoh.