Japan Foundation in Hanoi introduces the art of Japanese Butoh dance through performances and lectures given by artist Yukio Suzuki.

The performance is available at  https://vimeo.com/646352593 with Vietnamese and English subtitles.

Japanese Butoh dance is an extreme avant-garde dance that shocked audiences with its grotesque movements and graphic sexual allusions when it first appeared. Photo: Yukio Suzuki Projects

The unique Butoh dance, often translated as ‘Dance of Darkness’, was born in Japan in the 1960s. Today, Butoh is known internationally and there are practitioners all over the world.

Dancers cover themselves in white body paint and stand in a dark and almost empty room. Their slow and arrhythmic body contortions express a confluence of anguish and rapture, and a dedication to form and improvisation that is deeply connected to the nature of being.

According to Japanese cultural researchers, Butoh shares the tenets of selflessness, transformation through changes of consciousness, and above all, compassion.

The expressionism and movements employed by dancers would reflect the traditional Japanese commoner: their intrinsic connection to nature; the movements of a person accustomed to sleeping on futons, sitting in seiza style on tatami flooring, praying at shrines and alters, and toiling in arable fields.

Without a decided form, the Butoh is able to soak in the current mood of society and reflect it in a way that the traditional forms cannot. Photo: Yukio Suzuki Projects

Yukio Suzuki is a Japanese dancer and choreographer. He has studied Butoh since 1997 and in 2000 he founded his dance company “Yukio Suzuki projects” in order to more widely present activities as a choreographer, performer and director.

He’s been to more than 40 cities in the world for his strong physicality and dance performance that is flexible, sensitive, and attractive to local audiences. He is also active in choreography for ballet dancers and children, collaboration with musicians and workshops.

His works have won several important awards in Japan, in 2008 his “Confronting Silence” won the Grand prix at the Toyota Choreography Award. In 2012 he took part in Danse Elargie 2012 at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris, where he placed among the top ten.

Through his online performances and lectures, the artist hopes the audience from all over the world would depart with a more open understanding of the body as a form of expression.