A retrospective look at iconic butoh artist Ushio Amagatsu

Sylviane Pagès

Japanese choreographer and dancer Ushio Amagatsu passed away in March of this year. He was a longtime leading figure of butoh, a form of avant-garde Japanese dance-theatre that emerged in the late 1950s.  Dance researcher Sylviane Pagès, author of a book on the history of butoh in France, pays tribute to the legacy of this iconic artist.

One of Japan’s most influential butoh dancers and choreographers, Ushio Amagatsu, passed away earlier this year at the age of 74. Part of butoh’s second generation, his death follows those of his contemporaries Carlotta Ikeda in 2014, Kô Murobushi in 2015, and Yoshito Ôno in 2020, all of whom contributed to the artform’s development and brought it to France in the 1980s. As co-founder and longtime leader of the dance company Sankai Juku, renowned for its worldwide tours, he played a major role in the butoh’s international success. The CN D’s archives hold a collection of photographs that showcase Amagatu's impact and singular approach to dance.

Amagatsu was known for his visually powerful works, including Unetsu – The Egg Stands out of Curiosity (1986) and Shijima – The Darkness Calms down in Space (1988) both of which were commissioned by the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. His stagings often included sophisticated scenography that inspired other artists, including the photographer Guy Delahaye and filmmaker André S. Labarthe.

His sets often featured natural elements: stretches of water, falling sand, or a backdrop wall of fishtails. Beyond mere decoration, dancing with the elements, in butoh, is about becoming one with sand or water, metamorphosing into mineral, vegetable, or animal beings. The materials incorporated are meant to nourish the imagination and heighten the senses, enabling butoh dancers to reach an intense state of concentration.

The photographs of Amagatsu and his dancers capture their presence, a way of being on stage. In the simplicity of their postures, gestures, and actions – walking, letting themselves hang, silently shouting – we see the intensity of a dance based solely on the physical state of the body, rather than on virtuosity. The Sankai Juku company dancers appear mysterious and ghostly with their white body paint, shaven heads, and identical costumes. Sankai Juku’s style of painting dancers’ bodies all white became the dominant representation of butoh in France, perfectly embodying the aesthetic projects of erasing individuality and allowing otherness to emerge within oneself.

Amagatsu’s first visit to France, in 1980, was captured by late photographer Jean-Marie Gourreau. The images are a rare archive of his company’s risk-taking performances in public space — a practice they ended in 1985 following a fatal accident while on tour in the United States. But the performers’ closeness to the audience also reveals a lesser-known history: the aesthetic shock of seeing Amagatsu’s butoh for the first time, and the indelible mark his art left on many spectators.

Sylviane Pagès is a dance scholar working in Université Paris 8. Her research focuses on butô and 20th-century dance history in France. She is the author of La réception du butô en France, malentendus et fascination (CN D, 2015; translated into Japanese, Keio University Press, 2018). She also co-wrote two books for the CN D’s Young Readers Collection with choreographer Laurence Pagès: Ma danse, tout un art ! in 2022 and Cette danse, quel spectacle ! in 2023.

“Suspended Sankai Juku”
Ina Timelines, 1980
Watch online

“Sankai Juku, to the origins”
Ina Timelines, 1980
Watch online

Ushio Amagatsu, Elements of Doctrine
Documentary
Directed by André S. Labarthe
View online on Numéridanse platform

Jean-Marie Gourreau collection
CN D Media Library
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Laurent Argueyrolles collection
CN D Media Library
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