Collection of Quotations:

Taking into your own body the idea that your wrist is not your own - there's an important secret hidden in this concept. (Tatsumi Hijikata)

The noise of the silkworms chewing on mulberry leaves is endless - 'jyari-jyari-jyari'- it goes on and on. If the man takes a nap while this goes on he'll gnash his teeth 'giri-giri-giri.' As the silkworms chew on, the sound of their chewing becomes synchronized with the sound of the gnashing of teeth. (...) All the elements are linked to each other. If matters always work as they do here, I wonder if dance training is really necessary. (Tatsumi Hijikata)

Although I'm not aquainted with Death, Death knows me. (Tatsumi Hijikata)

It is possible to make a superb dance with the eyes alone. (Tatsumi Hijikata)

The dance must be absurd. (Tatsumi Hijikata)

I abhor a world which is regulated from the cradle to the grave. (Tatsumi Hijikata)

Catching some parts of chaos and creating a total chaos. Catching some parts of the other chaos and creating the other chaos, and you'll find this chaos is completely different from the first chaos. (Akaji Maro) the nudity of language/traitorously/ betrays itself as a costume – I

The Butoh costume is like throwing the cosmos onto one's shoulders. And for Butoh, while the costume covers the body, (the way a cat covers its scat)it is the body that is the costume of the soul. (Kazuo Ohno)

There is something between life and death. (Kazuo Ohno)

I don't think that dance can be seen independently from the notion that man lives. (...) There are always hidden wounds, those of the heart, and if you know how to accept and endure them, you will discover the pain and joy which is impossible to express with words. You will reach the realm of poetry which only the body can express. (Kazuo Ohno)

 "Did I create this piece or did this piece create me? (...) Superimposition of the world of reality and the surreal world. Aren't the void and the reality one and the same?" (Kazuo Ohno) 

I wasn't really listening [to Hijikata] with my ears, rather I would place my ears near the knee, for example. (Yoko Ashikawa)

The more people try to understand butoh, the less they understand. But that doesn't matter. There are things like the stars, the moon, which you can't reach. Nothing is so beautiful, so marvellous, as the intangible, the incomprehensible. (Min Tanaka)

Butoh has always existed. The dancer takes form from the environment. The stone and the wind are our teachers, the flies and the birch-tree are our dance-partners, the grove and the dunghill our dance-floor, the autumn leaves and the cows are our audience. (...)

Look at the palm of your hand. The eyes see the palm of a hand. Look at the palm of your hand with your soul and you can see also the upper side of the hand. The butoh dancer puts eyes on each part of his body, on the back of the head, on the forehead, elbows, between the toes, in the rearmost tier of the theatre we put eyes and under the floor and behind ...

The stone exists (or do you doubt?). Whatever I and you say, it stands there in thousands of years, and the moss on the stone, cracks and cavities, the ants crawling around. The light of the sun hits the surface, the shadow of the stone. Everything exists.

That is butoh (Susanna Åkerlund)

next: Tohu Wa-Bohu