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Sankai Juku has performed at more than 40 countries, 700 cities worldwide. Put together, the word loosely translates to “earth dance”, signalling an intimacy with the ground and a primordial quality that “captures the natural movements of the common folk”5.
Bizarre and controversial at first, Hijikata’s shaved head and Ohno’s whitewashed body were symbolic of stripping away one’s identity, and were adopted by subsequent butoh performers, who would undergo this ritual of “purifying” themselves.
Amagatsu doesn't dance in this one.
Awards and recognition
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He was also a co-founder of the seminal Butoh collective Dairakudakan in 1972.All Sankai Juku works since 1982 were premiered at and co-produced by Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. Since 1981, France and The Theatre de la Ville,Paris has become his places for creation and work and that year he created Bakki for Festival d’Avignon. The grotesque body to him is raw, open, primal and unfinished, just as the classical body is refined, artificial and rigid; it is transgressive and aims to bring elevated phenomena “down to earth”—to the material, corporeal or sensuous level4.
In March 1998, at Opera National de Lyon, France, he directed Peter EOTVOS’s opera “Three Sisters” (world premiere), which received “Prix du Syndicat National de la Critique, France.”
“Three Sisters” has been seen in the 2001-2002 season at Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, at Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels at Opera National de Lyon, and at Wiener Festwochen 2002 in Austria. In March 2008, Amagatsu directed “Lady Sarashina,” Peter EOTVOS’s new opera at Opera National de Lyon (world premiere).
These early expressions of butoh can also be linked to the idea of the grotesque3 put forth by Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin in 1941.
According to Bakhtin, beyond its use as an adjective for the strange and mysterious, the ugly and disgusting, the grotesque in art functions beyond aesthetic value.
He is the artistic director, choreographer and a dancer of Sankai Juku. It therefore not only celebrates the cycle of life, but also reflects the human condition and the deep-seated anxieties of society.
Etymologically, the Japanese character bu refers to dance while toh refers to the act of stomping, which takes reference from agrarian practices.
Ushio Amagatsu, the butoh visionary
Introduced in the 1960s during a time of social change, political unrest and urbanisation, butoh is a Japanese art form that emerged from a desire to break away from both Japanese classical and western modern dance forms. Their use of grotesque imagery, crude gestures and mime articulated a sense of alienation, loss of identity and the disenfranchised body.
The Theatre de la Ville, Paris he has created 14 productions since 1982.
Amagatsu also works independently outside Sankai Juku.
Three Sisters has been seen in the 2001-2002 season at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, at Opéra National de Lyon, and at Wiener Festwochen 2002 in Austria.
In 1988 he created “Fushi” on the invitation ofJacob’s Pillow Foundation, in the U.S., with music by Philip Glass. “Lady Sarashina” again received “Prix du Syndicat National de la Critique, France” and it was seen in Opera Comique in February 2009 and in Teatr Wielki, Polish National Opera, in Warsaw in April 2013.
Amagatsu has also presided on the jury of International Choreographic Competition of National Academy of Dance, Italy (2011), and the Jury of the International Meeting of Dance of Bagnolet (1992).
Awards and merits include the Purple-Ribbon Medal by the Japanese government (2011), Geijyutsu Sensho Prize (Art Encouragement Prize) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2004).
Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Letters by French Cultural Ministry (1992).
Commandeur de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French Cultural Ministry (2014).
Books include “Ushio Amagatsu, des rivages d’enfance au buto de Sankai Juku” (Biography dictated by Kyoko Iwaki, Actes Sud, 2013, France).
Since 1997, he works as opera director as well.
This act of detachment and entering a state of nothingness is one of the trademarks of butoh, suggestive of Zen Buddhism.
Born in Yokosuka,Japan in 1949 and founded Butoh company Sankai Juku in 1975.
He created Amagatsu Sho (1977), Kinkan Shonen (1978), Sholiba (1979) before the first world tour in 1980.
In 1989, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Spiral Hall in Tokyo where he directed “Apocalypse” (1989), and “Fifth-V” (1990).
In February 1997, he directed “Bluebeard’s Castle” by Bartok conducted by Peter Eotvos at Tokyo International Forum. “Dilogue avec la Gravite”(Actes Sud, 2000, France).
More information : sankaijuku.com
Ushio Amagatsu
Ushio Amagatsu(天児 牛大,Amagatsu Ushio, born 1949 in Yokosuka, Kanagawa) is a Japanese choreographer known as the leader of the Butoh dance group Sankai Juku, which he founded in 1975.
Avant-garde collaborators and early pioneers of butoh Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata1 wanted to commune with nature through dance and let the body “speak” for itself—and in doing so, externalise one’s primal instincts.
In their earliest performances, Hijikata shaved his head2 while Ohno caked himself in thick white powder that recalled the image of nuclear fallout victims, a stark reminder of the terrifying aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.