ABSTRACT
Butoh in its experimental naissance emerged as part of a wider critical problematics of representation and of the body, in which artists working in varied media and performance genres strove to give shape to sensibilities that were historically new, though often echoing Taisho and early Showa artistic productivity and contemporary international developments. The dance/performance genre that has come to be referred to as "butoh" did not initially emerge as a recognizable style; indeed, there is general agreement that the early performances of butoh were chiefly distinguished by their anti-formalistic nature. The point of origin itself is a retrospective, genealogical presumption, obscuring the historical process in which butoh emerges as the product of a complex series of experiments by a number of interrelated performers. These performers in turn were part of a remarkable period of artistic productivity from the late 1950s to the early 1970s that was mediately related to the wider historical dynamics of the period.
