In 1982, I was working with an American woman in Hong Kong who had a dance company. I taught dance and helped with office administration. People who were interested in coming to Hong Kong to perform would often send their promotional material to this office because this woman was really well-connected. Now she's a well-known entrepeneur working between New York, China and Hong Kong. Anyway, one day at work I saw this photo: this guy's head was shaved, and it was kind of weird. He was in this art gallery, and I don't remember if the word Butoh was there or not, but it was Akaji Maro from DaiRakudaKan.

The first time I went to Japan was also in 1982. I was there for about 5 days… got into Kobe and got off the ship. I had met someone in the Phillipines I ended up staying with in Japan. I took the train into Tokyo, never having been there at all, and connected with him. I saw everything I could see. So much to see! I think in a single day I saw Bunraku, Kabuki, and Noh. I would leave in the middle of one performance just to see another one, because I wanted to see everything. I was really interested in Japan and traditional theater — and I kept an eye out for DaiRakudaKan and the guy whose photograph I'd seen in Hong Kong. I remembered that photograph, and at that time the group was still performing. I found my way around and saw my first Butoh performance in the Spring of '82… sat there with about 300 to 400 people. There was this huge stage… very spectacle-like, with a gigantic set and props. Akaji Maro was this very charismatic occult figure… out in the lobby they had posters that were all black. All these flocks of people… the performance was about 2 1/2 hours without an intermission… loud music, this crazy stuff, and I'd never even been to Japan before. I thought, Whoa, what is this weird stuff!!!

But I left Japan wanting to return.

By '84, I had friends in Japan and I'd go for six weeks, just looking around, checking out different performances and visiting places. Then I went back for six months. I was seeing how modern dance had developed because that's what I was interested in, right? Then I saw more and more Butoh and ended up concentrating on Butoh. But I also performed some modern dance with Japanese people when I was there.

How was Butoh viewed by the Japanese at that time — it's still not considered mainstream is it?

It has definately become more mainstream. Only certain groups though. Mostly it's because of Sankai Juku. Although a lot of the Butoh community think they sold out — went commercial — and that what they're doing is not Butoh, you know how it goes. But Sankai Juku really did open up a lot of audience possibilities. So did Ohno Kazuo's frequent performances in large halls.

I think of Butoh in a continuum from raw to refined. Sankai Juku's aesthetic, to my way of thinking, is very refined. If you've never seen Butoh, or never seen Asian people do Japanese traditional or contemporary dance, then it's going to look very exotic and strange to you. But when you've seen other Butoh performances, you realize it's a very refined aesthetic that Amagatsu Ushio created. It has its own kind of predictability. Once you've seen a couple of pieces, there really isn't anything surprising. I mean it's beautiful, and it's very palatable — the large-scale sets and imagery. Everything's so pristine… I think that it's not really ugly like a lot of the other stuff can be, mostly because it doesn't have the rawness…. And so, people from other countries who are into the arts, even the ballet world and modern dance, they were able to enjoy Butoh groups such as Sankai Juku. It opened up the possibility for them to think about Butoh as something interesting — not as something ugly. But, with the exception of Ohno, Sankai Juku, and a few other groups, Butoh is still not that "mainstream." For a lot of Japanese people, most of Butoh is too ugly and disgusting. It's interesting: the older people are more into Noh and traditional theatre, and the younger people are influenced by American and European culture to the pont where they're not really drawn to Butoh.

So you spent time studying Butoh in Japan with Ashikawa Yoko and Ohno Kazuo? That must've been amazing….

Ohno was the first person I studied with. Altogether, I spent about 2 1/2 years in Japan, maybe a little longer. '82 was the first time. After '84, I was back and forth a lot. I spent a little over a year in one stretch, but since I've been coming and going so much it seems much longer.

As in any art form, there are a lot of purists — as you mentioned earlier — people who say this is or isn't Butoh and so forth. As a Westerner, did you encounter that? I've read some articles that say Butoh is strictly a Japanese art form since it goes back to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but you state that the themes are universal, archetypal.

Well, the interesting thing is, there are some people inside and outside of what I call the Butoh community — artists, critics, the audience — who would say you can't do Butoh if you're not Japanese. Other people think Butoh is not restricted to the Japanese. I mean, Min Tanaka has had foreigners, non-Japanese, in his company for years — probably since the late 70's or early 80's. He's also working with a group of non-Japanese right now. So he may be very particular about who he trains, but obviously he doesn't believe that a person has to be Japanese to do Butoh. Ashikawa Yoko, started her first group, Hakutobo, with Hijikata, and at the time they were reluctant to have non-Japanese in their company. But when I was studying with her, she specifically started a second company called Gnome that would include both Westerners and Japanese. It was partly a training ground for her dancers, and also a means to spread the work. Ashikawa is no longer associated with Gnome. At the same time as Gnome got started, several other groups centered around non-Japanese dancers emerged. One example of these is Su En, a company lead by Susannah Akerlund, which started in Tokyo and is now based in her native Sweden. So, it just depends on who you talk to.

One thing I wrote about in my dissertation is what is the slippery fish that is Butoh. Just recently, a friend of mine passed on someone's comment that they just don't get into "white Butoh." Ultimately, I call my work Butoh because I have an intention to be engaged in something that I believe is that.

It's interesting, because if people argue that only Japanese can do Butoh — talking about appropriation, ethnocentricism, and political correctness — then it would follow that Asian people could not do ballet. You'd be cutting out a whole range of possibilities. So, although I call my work Butoh, ultimately I want my work to be appreciated for what it is, for what people see and how they respond to it. And if your're going to be so hung on the fact that a non-Japanese person is calling what they do Butoh, you won't be able to respect or enjoy what they're doing. So you're really cutting yourself out of the picture… depriving yourself of an experience. Among people who've seen both my work and Sankai Juku's work, most recognize that I am doing the same kind of thing. My work differs from Sankai Juku's as much because of my artistic process as it does because I am a gaijin, not Japanese. Another interesting point is that the Japanese are known for doing a lot of cultural borrowing, adapting certain aspects of other cultures into their own. In many respects, I'm doing the same with Butoh.

In the histories I've read of Butoh, it speaks of the influence of Western avant-garde literature, as in Lautreamont, Genet, DeSade, and especially Artaud.

Exactly. But as I discussed in my disseration, the focus should be upon the body from which Hijikata created Butoh. It's the body that knew the earth. So, I definitely do not have a Japanese body, but I do have a body that's been connected to the earth from childhood. This is what is important. The cold weather and all that… I mean, I didn't have a severe life situation like Hijikata did, growing up in a framing community, the youngest of ten kids. But still, when you're a kid, when you're out there frozen, the body is affected just the same, whether you're Japanese or not, the body memory is implanted.

For one thing, not all Japanese people have that traditional physique. As time goes by their bodies are becoming less and less like the bodies that worked in the field. My way of thinking is that you carry that history in your body or psyche somewhere. When I studied ballet and modern dance, a lot of people didn't have that kind of body. Because I don't have a Japanese body my Butoh will look different , but that's fine. It should be based upon my body, anyway. Butoh should be in accord with one's own body, and, in the deepest sense, with one's own history — that's the one thing Butoh can be.

The other thought that's interesting is about the German Expressionist influence. I went to Europe last year. It was a root search for me and I really connected with my German roots — I have a lot of German in me, and some Danish too. So, you see, I've got German Expressionism in my blood, and the link between Butoh and Expressionism is undeniable.