ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that butoh history in Brazil inspired a complex genealogy of questions about an imaginary Japan, dancing bodies, exotic images, but also about artists and their power of collective change. Before the great impact of Ohno Kazuo in the 1980s, butoh was introduced in Brazil through two independent events. They represented something like a butoh avant la lettre, which means: dance experiences connected, in a certain way, to butoh history, but that have chosen not to use the butoh terminology. In 1987, the choreographer Maura Baiocchi studied for five months with Ohno and Tanaka Min. Back in Brazil, she held several workshops, and wrote a book on her experience entitled Butoh: Danca Veredas D'Alma. After 2000, inspired by films, texts, and photographs, both Japanese and Brazilian dancers started offering workshops of their own version of butoh, without any specific training. At the same time, there was a philosophical reenactment looking for new paths, beyond stereotypes.
