Paper short abstract:

In 1950s-60s, many Japanese dancers represented 'black' in various way. There will be the ambivalent feelings to the USA and black people. This research investigates the context of the emergence of Butoh by focusing on this representation of 'Kokujin'.

Paper long abstract:

From the latter half of 1970s, Butoh has spread widely to the outside of Japan, and its one of the most impressive image is 'white' color. While Hijikata Tatsumi's dance piece Kinjiki (Forbidden Color) in 1959, thought as the first Butoh performance, he painted his body black to represent the black male character from Jean Genet's novel. So Butoh starts with black rather than white. Arimitsu Michio argues this blackness as a 'counter-culture of (Eurocentric) modernity' and the establishment (Arimitsu, 2019).

However, it was not only Hijikata who represents 'black' or 'Kokujinin' (the term used in this era) in the dance. After WWⅡ, Japanese modern dancers picked up the figure or subject that concern to blacks (the social movement of African American, musics and dances of Africa, or other topics that connect to black). For example, Kaitani Ballet Company reinterpreted Porgy and Bess by G. Gershwin in ballet style in 1955 and the dancers painted their faces black. The future butoh dancers and their surroundings also make the dances focusing on black (ex: Tokyo Seinen Ballet's Prize Stock (Shiiku) based on Ôe Kenzaburo's novel, and Fujii Kunihiko's performance Negro and the River inspired by Langston Hughes's poem). In total, there are more than 40 pieces that represented black by various ways in the period of 1950s-60s. Why did Japanese dancers take this figure in their subject ? What does this phenomenon show us in the situation of after WWⅡ ?There will be some problems Japanese have had after WWⅡ, and especially in the relationship to the U.S.A. The ambivalent feelings to the black people by Japanese also appear there.

This research investigates the context of the emergence of Butoh in another way by focusing on the representation of 'black' in post-war Japanese modern dance.