In About Kazuo Ohno, the Japanese dancer-theatre maker Takao Kawaguchi brings three iconic performances by butoh founder Kazuo Ohno back to life. Rather than interpreting, he meticulously copies Ohno’s movements as precisely as possible, based on archival footage of Admiring La Argentina (1977), My Mother (1981), and The Dead Sea (1985). Before taking it to the stage—three years after Kazuo Ohno’s death—he showed the work, somewhat hesitantly, to Ohno’s son Yoshito. ‘He even wanted to lend me the original costumes.’
Takao Kawaguchi
12, 13 juni
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‘Blasphemous’ —he drops the word casually, to indicate that his art project, About Kazuo Ohno, has stirred fascination and debate since its debut. It’s not hard to see why. Who would dare to replicate the work of Kazuo Ohno, the iconic pioneer of butoh? ‘Some thought I was using his name for publicity reasons,’ Takao Kawaguchi (1962) says over Zoom from Tokyo. ‘But that was never my intention.’ Still, the effect was undeniable. When the work premiered in August 2013, it sold out immediately.
Butoh legend Kazuo Ohno believed that dance came from within. ‘Form was secondary,’ Kawaguchi explains. ‘What mattered was the heart and soul from which the dance emerged. No two performances were ever alike. Everything he did was improvised—he had no interest in fixing movements, let alone developing some sort of notation.’
And what did Takao Kawaguchi do? He took DVDs from the butoh archive, studied the shapes and movements of the master, and worked on copying them as precisely as possible. Three of Ohno’s signature works became his focus: Admiring La Argentina (1977), a tribute to Spanish dancer Antonia Mercé y Luque, My Mother (1981), a tender homage to Ohno’s own mother and The Dead Sea (1985), inspired by Ohno’s visit to Israel. To this day, Kawaguchi bases his performances on the same footage from early stagings – anchoring ephemeral works in time and space.
Founder of butoh
Kazuo Ohno died on June 1, 2010 at the age of 103. Together with Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986), he is considered a founder of the Japanese performance art butoh, ‘dance of darkness’. Until he was 100, he still performed in public—no longer able to walk, he let his bent hands do the work from his wheelchair. Where traditional dance often celebrates youthful, agile bodies, butoh embraces fragility, age, and decay.
‘People told me: you’re a bad dancer. You don’t look anything like Kazuo Ohno,’ says Kawaguchi, who is self-taught. ‘But others said that my poorly executed imitation brought back vivid memories of him in their minds. It was as if they were watching a bizarre duet. I found that interesting.’ And yet, he’s quick to note: About Kazuo Ohno isn’t just for those who know the master’s work. ‘I’m not concerned with what Kazuo Ohno felt, thought or wanted to express. I have one goal: to follow the visual instructions I see in the videos—left foot, right hand, turn, pause. Nothing more.’
The 'dancing translator'
Kawaguchi was born in Arita, a small town on the island of Kyushu known for its porcelain. A future in ceramics, like many in his family, would have been natural—but his interests led him elsewhere. ‘As a child, I loved performing. At twelve, I took up volleyball. I wasn’t really thinking about my future.’ In 1980, a love of languages took him to the U.S. as an exchange student. There, he immersed himself in sports, choir, and musicals. Back in Tokyo, he studied Spanish and became a translator—earning the nickname ‘the dancing translator’. Whenever international choreographers held workshops in Tokyo, Kawaguchi would work as both interpreter and participant. ‘It was a great way to earn money—and learn to dance at the same time.’ He still does it today, though more from the sidelines.
From 1996 to 2008, Kawaguchi was part of Dumb Type, a Kyoto-based multimedia collective known for merging performance, technology, and visual art. Butoh didn’t enter his orbit until later. ‘At Dumb Type, we were always focused on the surface: how to present the human body within an environment. It had little to do with the inner self. That was the aspect I wanted to explore, when I left the company. I wanted to pursue solo work.’
The name Kazuo Ohno struck him like a revelation, he says. ‘I thought: he’s the ideal role model, the perfect teacher. So I studied videos and began copying his movements, like guitarists study Jimi Hendrix riffs. Eventually, that became the work itself.’
Unique style
This was no easy task. ‘His style is so unique. It’s incredibly difficult to reproduce. I keep going back to the videos again and again. I even work with a dance analyst who gives me feedback and advice.’ That he was aligning himself with international trends at the time—choreographers like Boris Charmatz and Xavier Le Roy were creating new work influenced by butoh—he had no idea. Kawaguchi had enlisted a coach. Together they decided to present Kawaguchi’s efforts to experts before going public. ‘It took me a month and a half to get there. Then I approached Yoshito Ohno, Kazuo’s son. He was impressed – he even offered me his father’s original costumes. But they didn’t fit – Kazuo was much smaller than me.’
One of the most profound responses came from another student of Kazuo Ohno. ‘He told me: “No matter how hard you try, there will always be a gap between your dance and his. Try to make that gap as small as possible—because that’s where you become visible.’ I thought: wow, so the copy ultimately becomes the original! That idea meant a lot to me. It’s what I’m still working on.’
Kazuo Ohno's soul
What about the initial idea—the exploration of the inner self? ‘Well, ofcause it hasn’t worked out as I intended back then. But as a result… You can’t imitate someone else without first examining yourself closely. If you aim for a perfect copy, you’ll have to erase your yourness from your body and your movement. That contradiction fascinates me. And it also provokes questions for the audience: what is dance? Who gets to claim it?
‘You know the phrase “a healthy mind in a healthy body”? That’s the hypothesis I follow. If I can copy Kazuo Ohno’s body and movement perfectly, maybe I can copy his soul. It’s an impossible task—but I find it endlessly amusing and challenging.’