“Kan Katsura begins his Time Machine suspended over­head in a fabric sling that he unmakes into a white cascade; he clambers down. Pools of light ring him in this difficult, unfamiliar world, where thudding percussion and windy cries resound. Supine, he strains upward. Braced on all fours, he waits. At the end of his hyper-tense assimilation of what might be new wisdom, he clambers back up the cloth. Azumaru, improvising with mu­sician Jack Wright, explores the space, his own body, and the sounds Wright sputters into a beat-up sax. Prowling, Azumaru’s a handsome sight; undulating, mouth open in horror, he’s … Continued

“Water is a potent force in Howl, periodically gushing down onto Kaseki’s head from a suspended pail, caus­ing her face to squash into a wince and her body to sag. A shiny square on the floor becomes a pool in which she embarrassedly confronts her reflection. In the end, she’s caught in a no-win ordeal, trying to scrub the floor dry with her long robe, then wring­ing the water out. We laugh—she’s the naive clown, the holy fool who often appears in butoh—but in the wake of hurricanes we feel the hopelessness of her task.” – Deborah Jowitt, “Fields of … Continued

“In his program notes for “Beast of Grass,” Mr. Iwana stated, “I only want to be as I am.” Indeed, he seemed to be just getting to know his naked body, which was decorated with swathes of chipping plaster, rib­bons and swinging bells that chimed violently as he lurched and tumbled among hanging lengths of fabric. As the lights dimmed, and he retreated backward to the sound of birdcall, it was as much a beginning as an end­ing.” – Claudia La Rocco, “Plumbing the Depths in Vast Inner Landscapes”, The New York Times, 2005

“In “Before the Dawn,” Yumiko Yoshioka’s body became a menager­ie of strange creatures. A founding member of the all-female Butoh company Ariadone, she appeared in voluminous red robes, her face masked. When her hands emerged from the fabric, they skittered over her body like spiders or pecked at her flesh like birds. Eventually shedding much of her clothing, she made her body both a physical and an ab­stract object.” – Claudia La Rocco, “Plumbing the Depths in Vast Inner Landscapes”, The New York Times, 2005