Japanese Butoh Dance: About Kazuo Ohno

Melancholia – A Portrait of M will be performed on Saturday 11 November at 7pm

About Kazuo Ohno will be performed on Sunday 12 November at 6pm

This very special programme of two performances by two internationally acclaimed Japanese dance artists, Mitsuyo Uesugi and Takao Kawagachi comes to Jersey for a one-off performance as part of a tour to the UK.

This double-bill presents two works created in homage to Kazuo Ohno, the seminal pioneer of Japanese ‘Butoh’ dance (originating from a term to mean ‘dance of darkness’).

Butoh is a dance form that developed in Japan in the post-war period of the late 1950s and 1960s, when two artists, Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata , moved from the studio to the streets to perform what became iconic dances that faced the social realities of the time and in doing so gave form to a dance of protest and radical philosophy.

Kazuo Ohno went on to dance around the world creating poetic works, mostly in his later works dancing solo, till the age of 103 when he passed away in 2010. These two performances have been created, one by his student of over 50 years, Mitsuyo Uesugi, and another by an acclaimed contemporary Japanese performer, Takao Kawaguchi who has created a performance based on bringing back to life four of Ohno signature works.

About Kazuo Ohno comes to probably its most intimate performance in Jersey after performing worldwide in 38 cities including Théâtre de Ville in Paris, Reino Nacional Centro de Art Reina Sofia in Madrid and the Japan Society in New York, where it won a Bessie Award.

Entry: £15 per performance or double bill ticket: £25