ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights butoh continues to adapt to new circumstances and how Japanese and non-Japanese dancers alike contribute to the explication of contemporary butoh practice. "Crazy, dirty, and mad" may be the qualities that attracted people to butoh in the first instance, but its passport is the mechanism that has allowed it to circulate and thrive. The chapter explores three mechanisms that characterize butoh's international circulations: butoh diasporas, butoh pilgrimages, and new local butohs. It illustrates examples of contemporary dancers who exemplify –and complicate–butoh's roots and routes. The chapter seeks to examine the stakes and political-aesthetic investments in the extension, revision, and re-contextualization of butoh's legacy. If mainstream Western reception of butoh conceived the form as "essentially" Japanese, some Japanese scholars have made similar moves. If dancers depart Japan for multiple years, they are marked with a broken line that suggests a tenuous link to both the country and butoh.
