Sankai Juku By Sanjoy Roy for The Guardian
Originating in Japan in the late 1960s, Butoh is a darkly expressionist style of movement characterised by elemental gestures, excruciating slowness, gaping mouths and shaven-headed bodies dusted with white powder. Choreographer Ushio Amagatsu, a second-generation Butoh artist, and his all-male company Sankai Juku have had the highest profile in the west - but have also been accused of adding a lacquer of designer sophistication to the style.
Though it is not the tradition but the work that matters, Kagemi, Sankai Juku's latest piece shown in the UK, lends support to that charge.
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Sankai Juku By Clement Crisp for The Financial Times
Sloth is one of the deadly sins. And so, I suggest, are portentousness, turgid movement, and the passing off of leaden-footed orientalia as something worthwhile. Sankai Juku, apostle-troupe of Japanese butoh dance - is back in Rosebery Avenue with Kagemi which, you will be fascinated to learn, means "Beyond the Metaphors of Mirrors", and slothful, laboured activity is not the least of the sins on view.
It is the mixture as before. Ravishing visual effects - a setting of giant lotus flowers; a colour range that verges frenziedly from pale beige to pale ivory, beautifully lit.
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