[2] He is the author of several books on Butoh, including The Palace Soars through the Sky, Dessin, Words of Workshop, and Food for the Soul.

[2] The war and its horrors provided him with inspiration for some of his later works, such as Jellyfish Dance, thought to be a meditation on the burials at sea he had observed on board the ship transporting soldiers back to Japan.

[3] Later, he met Tatsumi Hijikata, who inspired him to begin cultivating Butoh, a new form of dance evolving in the turmoil of Japan's drab postwar landscape.

He received Japan's prestigious Dance Critics' Circle Award for the performance and subsequently toured the piece, impacting the international dance world from the 14th International Festival at Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle in 1980, to his American debut in 1981 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City.

He wrote three books on Butoh, including The Palace Soars through the Sky, a collection of essays and photographs; Dessin with drawings and notes on his Butoh creations; Words of Workshop, a collection of lectures given in his workshop; and Food for the Soul, a selection of photography from the 1930s through 1999.

The latter two books were combined and published in English as Kazuo Ohno's World: From Without & Within (2004, Wesleyan University Press).

In 2001, though he lost his ability to walk, Ohno continued performing and developed ways to express himself through dance solely by moving his hands.