This Butoh Symposium is a Kingston School of Art event co-created by the Visual Cultures Research Centre and the Sepsis Dreamers Club. With the collaboration of Infinity Land Press, London, and in association with Café Shy, Tokyo.
Everyone is welcome to attend, and entrance is free. Please book tickets on eventbrite.
This is the first London conference dedicated to new research into Japanese Butoh Dance, its histories and representations. especially in film and photography.
The Butoh Symposium will be held over two days and early evenings, Thursday-Friday 17-18 September 2026, at the Main Auditorium of Kingston University’s award-winning Town House Building, in south-west London. The Symposium is organised by researchers attached to the School of Art’s Visual Cultures Research Centre at Kingston University’s School of Art faculty. This symposium follows on from our recent successful symposia of 2024-25 on the work of Antonin Artaud, on ‘Experimental archives’, and on the work of J.G. Ballard
Butoh – or ‘Ankoku Butoh’, the ‘dance of utter darkness’ – is an extraordinary dance form which originated in 1959 in Japan through the experiments of the choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata, and now has a vital worldwide expansive presence as an exploratory corporeal art form.Presentations will present original research on all and every aspect of Butoh dance culture and its histories and manifestations, from 1959 to the contemporary to the future.
The Symposium will have a particular focus on the pivotal relationship of Butoh, from its first moments, with film and photography, especially in their experimental forms.Recent Butoh-focused films and publications, such as Alisa Berger’s film Invisible People (2025), Amélie Ravalec’s film Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers (2025), and Stephen Barber’s book Film’s Ghosts (2021), have all investigated the seminal rapport between Butoh andfilmic/photographic cultures. Marie-Gabrielle Rotie has drawn upon her extensive training in Butoh to create choreography for films directed by Robert Eggers, Nosferatu (2024) and Werwulf (2027).
Organisers: -Romina Achatz, Stephen Barber, Matt Melia
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Butoh Symposium – Kingston University London
This Butoh Symposium is a Kingston School of Art event co-created by the Visual Cultures Research Centre and the Sepsis Dreamers Club. With the collaboration of Infinity Land Press, London, and in association with Café Shy, Tokyo.
Everyone is welcome to attend, and entrance is free. Please book tickets on eventbrite.
This is the first London conference dedicated to new research into Japanese Butoh Dance, its histories and representations. especially in film and photography.
The Butoh Symposium will be held over two days and early evenings, Thursday-Friday 17-18 September 2026, at the Main Auditorium of Kingston University’s award-winning Town House Building, in south-west London. The Symposium is organised by researchers attached to the School of Art’s Visual Cultures Research Centre at Kingston University’s School of Art faculty. This symposium follows on from our recent successful symposia of 2024-25 on the work of Antonin Artaud, on ‘Experimental archives’, and on the work of J.G. Ballard
Butoh – or ‘Ankoku Butoh’, the ‘dance of utter darkness’ – is an extraordinary dance form which originated in 1959 in Japan through the experiments of the choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata, and now has a vital worldwide expansive presence as an exploratory corporeal art form.Presentations will present original research on all and every aspect of Butoh dance culture and its histories and manifestations, from 1959 to the contemporary to the future.
The Symposium will have a particular focus on the pivotal relationship of Butoh, from its first moments, with film and photography, especially in their experimental forms.Recent Butoh-focused films and publications, such as Alisa Berger’s film Invisible People (2025), Amélie Ravalec’s film Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers (2025), and Stephen Barber’s book Film’s Ghosts (2021), have all investigated the seminal rapport between Butoh andfilmic/photographic cultures. Marie-Gabrielle Rotie has drawn upon her extensive training in Butoh to create choreography for films directed by Robert Eggers, Nosferatu (2024) and Werwulf (2027).
Organisers: -Romina Achatz, Stephen Barber, Matt Melia