ABSTRACT
Kazuo Ohno is the grandfather of the controversial Japanese avant-garde dance form Butoh. Known for its shocking, contorted body gestures and dedication to breaking taboo, Butoh rose out of postwar Japan as a renegade performance form. Ohno, with his partner, the late Tatsumi Hijikata, fostered the early experimental development of Butoh in the 1960s, and was instrumental in making it an influence on many twentieth-century modern dancers. Even at his advanced age, Ohno in the 1990s has been teaching twice a week in his Yokohama studio, choreographing a new work annually, appearing worldwide in dance and theatre festivals, lecturing, and taking part in a variety of symposia.
