慶應義塾大学アート・センター　Keio University Art Center

This year’s “Talking Together about Hijikata Tatsumi” event will be divided into two parts, with Part 1 linking up online with participants from throughout Japan and overseas, for a talk from guest speaker Akira Kasai, alongside activities reports, and group discussions. Part 2 will involve a video screening of a recent post-butoh performance by Akira Kasai, “Dancing Chopin”. (no online stream of the screening)

While 2022 was another challenging year, it also saw the successful staging of many butoh performances. On the international stage, rather than seeing its profile diminish, butoh has in fact overcome the pandemic to further its reach.
Butoh is needed precisely when human bodies are in crisis, and eras of crisis must surely also offer opportunities to further the cause of spiritual autonomy and solidarity. While Tatsumi Hijikata said that butoh choreographs existence, the future direction of butoh, and how individual butoh dancers will navigate this journey, are up for debate at any time, whether today or tomorrow.

In 2022, several people who worked with Tatsumi Hijikata passed on. This too is a reminder of the inevitable passing of an era.

2023 is also the 37th anniversary of the death of Tatsumi Hijikata. Even after 37 years, Tatsumi Hijikata and his butoh continue to be scrutinized and explored. Perhaps the flesh and words of Tatsumi Hijikata are what we need in the search for what butoh, which he shared with the world, should mean in our present moment.

On this occasion, we will welcome Akira Kasai, to “Talking Together about Hijikata Tatsumi” 37 years after his death. Kasai can surely be regarded as simultaneously Hijikata’s most staunch critic, and the person who most profoundly understands him. Even now, Kasai’s flesh and words, which confront the present and the past in order to shed light on the future, carve into the heart of contemporary butoh.

Meeting and talking together is pressing importance. While there will be limited time available to us on this day in 2023, it is our hope that this event will prove a precious opportunity to reflect in conversation about the year past as well as that to come. (Morishita)

You can watch Part 1 here;
Talk “Tatsumi Hijikata” (Guest Speaker by Akira Kasai)
Free discussion “Tatsumi Samadhi” (Facilitator: Takashi Morishita)
Talk “Reports from around the world, and exchange with different regions”

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