ABSTRACT
In 2004 Waguri Yukio released his Butoh Kaden : DVD-ROM presenting the notational records of 88 butoh movements choreographed by Hijikata Tatsumi in the 1970s. Equating "Hijikata butoh" with butoh-fu, as Waguri does, suggest its application is broader than the "notation" of a written score. Butoh is, after all, a live performance art. Hijikata's language is hardly quick to grasp at first parsing but rehearsed its use sharpens up into something physically legible. The butoh artist SU-EN has suggested "body words" in place of "notation" as a more faithful translation of their in-context use. Waguri certainly understands butoh-fu in this broader sense: "butoh-fu uses words to explain matters that cannot easily be symbolized," he writes. Waguri's Butoh Kaden speaks to the imagination in several ways: as a record for trained butoh dancers embedded in a dialogue between the choreographic voice and listening body, and as a creative prompt for limitless re-imaginings through other media and techniques.
