Ecological Intimacies of BUTOH (舞踏, Butō) Performance

(scroll all the way down for FULL conference schedule of events)

FRIDAY, March 6th Butoh performances

• 7:00 PM: Doors open
• 7:30 PM — 9:30 PM: STAGE PERFORMANCES in the CU Loft Theatre:

1. JOAN LAAGE/KOGUT (Seattle) performs: Black Widow
2. IVÁN-DANIEL ESPINOSA & COMPANY performs: Bowels of the Earth
3. SAGA KOBAYASHI (Japan) performs: The Double Mask

SATURDAY, March 7:

• 8:00 PM — EARTH TOMES PERFORMANCE in the CU Loft Theatre

1. EARTH TOMES ensemble performance directed by JOAN LAAGE/KOGUT (Seattle)

Location/venue info:

LOFT THEATRE in the University Theatre Building, 1515 Central Campus Mall, Boulder, CO

Join us for a unique opportunity to journey back over half a century into the exciting world of Japanese Butoh, a contemporary form of avant-garde dance-theatre that emerged in the 1960's Tokyo avant-garde. This two-day conference at the University of Colorado-Boulder features immersive film screenings, workshops, and two evenings of live Butoh performances on Friday, March 6th and Saturday, March 7th in the CU Loft Theatre. The film screenings and workshops are FREE for all CU students, staff and community members (advance registration required). Free online tickets to the evening performances must be reserved in advance because the CU Loft Theatre's seating is limited to 125 audience members only, so RESERVE YOUR TICKETS SOON!!

This conference highlighting a unique East Asian art form invites reflection on Butoh dance, created in postwar Japan by the late Tatsumi Hijikata, to reinterpret, reimagine and transmit his Butoh choreographies from the 1970s and 1980s based on the embodied memory of those who are part of his artistic lineage. The conference proposes a dialogue between archive, body, and contemporary creation, understanding dance as a language of embodied knowledge and a sensorial, dynamic archive that transcends cultures and generations. The two evenings of stage performances give students and community members the opportunity to witness artworks by world-renowned Butoh performers as well as emerging artists, offering a potent immersion into this powerful dance form and an intimate glimpse into what Butoh is and can be.

For this special event, we are honored to welcome the legendary Butoh dancer SAGA KOBAYASHI from Japan, an acclaimed master of Butoh who is one of the last surviving members of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata’s original Butoh company that is still active and performing to this day. Ms. Kobayashi will perform a solo piece on Friday evening, March 6th that incorporates choreographic phrases from historic Butoh works of the late 1970s originally created by Hijikata using the unique Butoh-Fu choreographic notation method. Ms. Kobayashi will also teach a Butoh dance and choreography workshop on Saturday, March 7th that gives participants a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of Hijikata’s multi-layered choreographic creation. Drawing on the private notational archives of Kobayashi, this Butoh workshop offers participants a rare opportunity to discover the workings of Hijikata’s choreographic method through the guidance of one of his principal dancers who performed in all of his seminal works. Joining Ms. Kobayashi as a translator and assistant in the workshop is KAE ISHIMOTO from Japan. Ms. Ishimoto is an archivist at Keio University Art Center's Hijikata Tatsumi Butoh Archive in Tokyo.

For this event, we are also glad to welcome Dr. JOAN LAAGE, a renowned Butoh performer from Seattle known as the founder of the Pacific Northwest Butoh community and who is one of the only non-Japanese dancers to have trained with Butoh pioneer Yoko Ashikawa in Tokyo. Dr. Laage will perform a solo piece on March 6th based on her training with Ashikawa and the Hakutōbō Butoh company founded by Hijikata. Dr. Laage will also perform her ecology-themed "Earth Tomes" group piece on March 7th featuring an ensemble of local and visiting dancers. The two-evening program of performances will be rounded out by a nature-themed Butoh performance titled "BOWELS OF THE EARTH" choreographed by CU PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies Ivàn-Daniel Espinosa, featuring a multicultural ensemble of Seattle and Chicago dancers.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

FRIDAY, March 6:

• 12:30 PM — 1:30 PM: Artist Talk with Butoh master SAGA KOBAYASHI, and with Butoh archivist KAE ISHIMOTO from Japan in the CU Theatre Building Seminar Room C342
• 1:30 PM — 4:30 PM: Film screenings of two historic Butoh performances: Bitter Light (Nigai hikari, 1977) and Story of Lily of the Valley (Suzuran no monogatari, 1976) from the Hijikata Tatsumi Butoh Archive at Keio University Art Center in Tokyo. Location of film screenings: CU Theatre Building Seminar Room C342
• 7:30 PM — 9:30 PM: STAGE PERFORMANCES in the CU Loft Theatre:

1. JOAN LAAGE/KOGUT (Seattle) performs: Black Widow
2. IVÁN-DANIEL ESPINOSA & COMPANY performs: Bowels of the Earth
3. SAGA KOBAYASHI (Japan) performs: The Double Mask

SATURDAY, March 7:

• 12:00 PM — 4:30 PM: BUTOH DANCE WORKSHOP with SAGA KOBAYASHI from Japan (space is limited to 20 participants; must register in advance)
• 8:00 PM — STAGE PERFORMANCE in the CU Loft Theatre: EARTH TOMES

1. EARTH TOMES ensemble performance directed by JOAN LAAGE/KOGUT (Seattle)

ABOUT THE PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

SAGA KOBAYASHI

^^ Born in 1946 in Mie Prefecture, Japan, SAGA KOBAYASHI is a world-renowned Butoh dancer, choreographer and teacher who is one of the last surviving members of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata’s original Butoh company in Tokyo. Kobayashi began her prolific career in Butoh when she entered Hijikata’s dance studio in 1969 and trained directly with him at his legendary Asbestos-kan theater. Kobayashi became one of Hijikata’s principal dancers and performed in Hijikata’s most important productions from the end of the 1960’s to the mid-1970’s, alongside fellow core dancers Yoko Ashikawa, Momoko Nimura, Koichi Tamano, Moe Yamamoto, and Yukio Waguri. She played an important part in the establishment of ANKOKU BUTŌ in the 1970’s by dancing in Hijikata’s seminal performance Twenty-Seven Nights for Four Seasons in 1972 held at Art Theater Shinjuku Culture, in the opening performance of Seibu Theater’s The Quiet House, and in Hijikata’s 1973 production Summer Storm. After becoming an independent dancer in 1975, Kobayashi returned to work with Hijikata for her 1977 solo performance Bitter Light, which he choreographed for her. In 1983, Kobayashi went on tour all across Europe to perform Hijikata’s choreography BREASTS OF JAPAN with Yoko Ashikawa. Through her company Saga Kobayashi + NOSURI, she has been active internationally as a choreographer and Butoh dancer for over 40 years. Besides performing her own choreographies for solo and group, Kobayashi actively collaborates with music, video, and theater artists. She also collaborates often with the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive at Keio University Art Center launched in 1998. At eighty years old, she is still teaching, choreographing, and performing today. She most recently taught and performed at the 2025 Salish Sea Butoh Festival in the United States and at the November 2025 Butoh Scores Mexico: Deconstructing Hijikata Symposium in Mexico City.

JOAN LAAGE / KOGUT

^^ JOAN LAAGE is a Butoh dancer, director and educator who is regarded as the pioneer of Butoh in the Pacific Northwest. While living in Japan, Joan studied and trained with Yoko Ashikawa (the major disciple of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata) and with Butoh master Kazuo Ohno in Tokyo. Joan performed with Yoko Ashikawa’s Butoh troupe, Gnome, in the 1980’s and is one of the few non-Japanese dancers to have trained directly with Ashikawa. Joan continues to performs internationally ever year and she has been a featured artist at national and international Butoh festivals since the 1990’s including the New York Butoh Festival, Paris Butoh Festival, Vienna Butoh Festival, Chicago Butoh Festival, Seattle and Salish Sea Butoh Festivals, Poland Butoh Festival, and the UCLA Butoh Symposium. Her pioneering PhD dissertation research titled “Embodying The Spirit: The Paradox of Performing The Body in Butoh” has been presented at dozens of academic conferences and symposiums around the world. In addition to over 36 years of teaching and thousands of performances over the years, Joan Laage is responsible for bringing the art form of Butoh to Seattle in 1990. She continues to perform annually at the Seattle Japanese Garden and at the Kubota Garden Foundation. Joan's work is highlighted in the award-winning books “DANCING INTO DARKNESS: BUTOH, ZEN AND JAPAN” and “Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy” by dance scholar Sondra Fraleigh as well as “BUTH AMERICA: Butoh Dance in the United States and Mexico from 1970 to the early 2000s” by Tanya Calamoneri.

KAE ISHIMOTO

^^ KAE ISHIMOTO was born into a family of traditional Japanese dancers. She began studying jazz dance at the age of four and later trained in modern and contemporary dance. From 2002 to 2017, she danced with Hijikata’s disciple Yukio Waguri and performed in several of his works. She has also trained and danced with Natsu Nakajima, Yoshito Ohno and Moe Yamamoto. In 2004, she co-founded the company Wangnin Bunmei (“The Civilization of Fools”) with eight musicians, with whom she performed in 13 countries across Asia, Europe, and the United States. In 2011, she performed “Transformation Girl,” choreographed using Hijikata's Butoh method, in seven countries in Asia and Europe. In 2013, she co-founded POHRC with Professor Rosa van Hensbergen, through which she organizes Butoh events and conferences. Since 2020, she has been an archivist at the Keio University Art Center, working in the Tatsumi Hijikata Archive.

IVÁN-DANIEL ESPINOSA

^^ IVÁN-DANIEL ESPINOSA is a dance choreographer that creates interdisciplinary artwork engaged with ecology, mushrooms and fungi, Japanese Butoh, climate change, and interspecies performance. He is a current PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder and he also holds a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. As an academic scholar, Iván-Daniel specializes in Butoh history and philosophy, and his work as a choreographer is highly influenced by his studies of Butoh. For over a decade, Iván-Daniel has trained with many renowned Japanese master teachers from the lineage of Hijikata including Natsu Nakajima, Saga Kobayashi, Hiroko and Koichi Tamano, and Moe Yamamoto of Kanazawa Butoh-Kan. Iván-Daniel’s formative training began in 2015 with Seattle Butoh pioneer Joan Laage, who continues to serve as his foremost teacher to this day. Iván-Daniel is the Executive Producer of the Salish Sea Butoh Festival, an annual dance convergence that takes place on the Olympic Peninsula to deepen the study of Japanese Butoh with artists from all over the world.

For this event, Iván-Daniel will be performing his choreography BOWELS OF THE EARTH with an ensemble of Seattle and Chicago dancers featuring:

• Harlan Rosen
• Corin Wiggins
• Arlo Sage King
• Stefan Bach

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Host or Publisher Iván-Daniel Espinosa