The exhibition Butoh Photography sheds light on one of the most important aspects for the photography of Butoh dance: the relationship between model and photographer, between documentation and staging. What is the significance of the photographer's relationship to the dancer for the special aesthetics of the photographs, which go beyond a mere documentation of the performances? Would a survival of Butoh be possible at all without a photographic legacy? The exhibition wants to show that photography is emancipating itself from performance.

With Butoh Photography, the Hans Peter Zimmer Foundation fulfils two essential focal points of its mission, which have been repeatedly thematised since its foundation in 2009. On the one hand, this is the deep friendship with Japan and the promotion of the spread of Butoh dance, a modern Japanese expressive dance that developed after the end of the Second World War and turned against the Americanisation and rationalisation of Japanese society. On the other hand, this is the examination of the relationship between performing and visual arts.

For the current exhibition, works by the Japanese photographers Eikoh Hosoe, Mitsutoshi Hanaga, Teijirou Kamiyama and Naoya Ikegami have been acquired, providing a comprehensive overview of the development of Butoh dance since the 1960s. The pioneers Hosoe and Hanaga shaped a free, photographic view of motif choice and composition. The expressive images show the radical play with gender roles and our expectations in striking contrasts of light and dark.

The works of Nourit Masson-Sékiné and Helmut Steinhauser, who both lived in the Butoh scene for many years and accompanied it photographically, provide a further link: The view of the West on Japan creates a connection to the influences that the German expressionist dance of the 1920s had on Butoh.

The themes of the mythical, the invisible and the unspeakable, which Butoh takes on, are mirrored in photography. By concentrating on the body both in the dance action and in the photographic choice of motif, an intellectual readability of the photographs recedes into the background in favour of an expression that fascinates through the dimensions of darkness, shadow and horror. This depth of expression of dance is transported and preserved through photography.

The photographs go far beyond conventional dance documentation: within the exclusive staging for the camera both in the studio situation and in nature and abandoned, urban places, dance transcends into photography and re-materialises itself beyond performance. Butoh Photography opens the view for this intimate relationship history of Butoh dance and Butoh photography.

Artistic Director: Wolfgang Schäfer

Assistance and editing: Martha Martens

Coordination, communication and translation: Akiko Okamoto

Exhibition architecture: Julia Scholzen

Film & Video Documentary: Norman Schlupp

Under the patronage of the Japanese Consulate General Düsseldorf.

Framework programme

10 February 2016, 7 pm / Exhibition opening with Butoh performance by Tadashi Endo

12 - 14 February 2016 / Butoh workshop with Tadashi Endo. Participation fee: 150 euros. The number of participants is limited to 12. Registration and further info unterinfo@weltkunstzimmer.de

14 February 2016, from 4 pm / Symposium "Butoh today" with speakers Norbert Mauk, Nourit Masson-Sékiné, Sabine Seume, Tadashi Endo, Helmut Steinhauser and Wolfgang Schäfer.

5 March 2016, 7 pm / mizoh. - Butoh performance with Yuko Kaseki and miu, admission 5 euros.

25 February 2016, 5 p.m. / Workshop for children and young people with Sabine Seume, more info coming soon.

Sponsored by the Cultural Office of the City of Düsseldorf. Under the patronage of the Japanese Consulate General Düsseldorf.