Sankai Juku

Butoh's source is the Japanese avant-garde of the 1960s, a period when Japan struggled with the lingering effects of the atomic bomb detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II.

[1] Originally called "ankoku butoh," or "dance of darkness," the medium created a space for the intensely grotesque and perverse on the stage.

The all-male company's work is performed by as few as six dancers eschewing the movements typical of modern or other dance forms.

The performances are characterized by slow, mesmerizing passages, often using repetition and incorporating the whole body, sometimes focusing only on the feet or fingers.

Occasionally recognizable emotive postures and gestures are used, notably contorted body shapes and facial expressions conveying ecstasy and perhaps more often, pain and silent “shrieks.” Frequently, ritualized formal patterns are employed, smoothly evolving or abruptly fractured into quick, sharp, seemingly disjointed sequences whose symbolism or “meanings” are obscure.

Spare scenic backgrounds, delicately nuanced lighting and arresting props (in "Kinkan Shonen," a live peacock) add to the ethereal nature of their performances.

On September 10, 1985, in Seattle, Washington, one of the original members of the troupe, Yoshiyuki Takada, participating in a demonstration, died in a hospital shortly after his supporting rope gave way.