create a new form of “ethnic dance” through his Ankoku Butoh. Dance historian and butoh critic Kuniyoshi Kazuko sees that Hijikata’s butoh stems from a concept of the body called suijakutai, literally “weakened body,” or the body that you sense living in your body other than your present self (Kuniyoshi 2002: 64). Hijikata says that his dead sister lives inside his body, scratching away the darkness inside him when he dances (2000d: 77). For him suijakutai confirms the existence of the origin of self farthest from modernism (Kuniyoshi 2004a). New is not necessarily better; the movement of old people, introverted and slow tempos can all be beautiful. Western dance celebrates youth; while in contrast, Hijikata and Ohno reveal a full spectrum of human experience, not just the Japanese experience. Their dance figures are empathetic and openly affective, not perfect. CHALLENGING MODERNIZATION
Hijikata wanted to create what he called Tohoku Kabuki, in restoring the original, local intent of Kabuki before the Westernization of Japan. The social context for the emergence of butoh through Hijikata and Ohno had its antecedent in the history of Kabuki, particularly the movement to reform Kabuki as the influence of the West expanded in the Meiji period beginning in 1868. With the aim of rejuvenating the Kabuki tradition, ‘civilization and enlightenment’ (Bunmei Kaika) became guiding principles for the theater reform movement in the early Meiji period (Tschudin 1999: 83). The establishment of the Ministry of Religious Affairs effectively placed all actors and entertainers in government service as teachers to educate the masses and to ‘encourage virtue and chastise vice’ (Tschudin 1999: 84). Kabuki gradually became monopolized and institutionalized by large corporations. European artistic techniques and radical political ideas produced actors who were no longer suited for the Kabuki stage. Shingeki (New Theater) was then created as a stage for expression of multinational theater ideas and by 1960 was dominant in Japanese modern theater (Lee 2002: 377). The Seinen Geijutsu Gekijo (Youth Art Theater) was formed in 1959 when Shingeki, which was really Western-inspired theater serving a dominant text, itself became establishment theater, and could not respond to the perspectives of young people. One of the early underground dramatists, Kara Juro, leader of Jokyo Gekijo (Situation Theater), developed his group as a pre-modern Kabuki troupe of itinerant actors producing a DANCES OF DEATH, SACRIFICE, AND SPIRIT
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