Murobushi Kō and his challenge to butoh

Murobushi Kō explored the political quality inherent in Hijikata Tatsumi’s anti-dance, viewed in terms of terrorism against his own body integrated into the system. Murobushi’s counter-discourse elaborates critical assessments of identity, body and dance in relation to politics of knowledge, gender, society, ideology and religion. In combination with an anti-religious and anti-nationalistic attitude his artistic investigation posits at its centre the corpse and practices of self-mummification achieved by anchorites (miira or sokushinbutsu). While drawing on Foucault’s biopolitics, Murobushi’s butoh of the outside questions immobility/movement and disrupts the fictiveness of the performative act, processing through his critical corporeality crevices of ontology and fiction. His influential work spread on an international level and challenged the stereotyped image of butoh blurring categories of both butoh and contemporary dance.