Butoh Training and the Quantum Body. An Interpretation of Kasai Akira’s Work

Abstract

Taking Kasai Akira’s work as a reference, this paper aims to focus the relationship between the body vision of the Japanese Butoh dance and ideas from quantum physics, to suggest the revolutionary potential that still Butoh could keeps sixty years after its birth. The founder Hijikata Tatsumi has identified a level of bodily existence that doesn’t pertain to the “human being” social identity, but rather concerns the “human body” as matter, a living material entity with its memory. To reveal this memory through dance, it is necessary to develop an internal perception of the body. Kasai develops this basic concept by exploring the very nature of matter, and this paper highlights how his dance practice is a way to achieve the expansion of awareness, which quantum physics identifies as the key to transform oneself and the world around.