Stranger in a Strange Land

“Stranger in a Strange Land” outlines the contours of American performing arts that Japanese butoh artists encountered in the 1970s lay the foundation for the touring networks that would develop in the Americas. La MaMa theater director Ellen Stewart brought Shuji Terayama to New York; Chilean filmmaker and provocateur Alejandro Jodorowsky settled in Mexico City by way of Paris. Both artists broke all the rules of propriety and performance in general, paving the way for experimentation to come. Major catalysts include Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, who relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976 at Hijikata’s request to send butoh abroad, Ellen Stewart, who also brought Min Tanaka and Kazuo Ohno to perform in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and tours by Dairakudakan at the American Dance Festival (ADF) in 1984 and Sankai Juku tours in 1985. In Guanajuato, Mexico, the Festival Internacional Cervantino presented Carlotta Ikeda in 1980, Sankai Juku in 1981, Natsu Nakajima in 1987 who by then became a regular presence in Mexico, teaching numerous workshops and collaborating with both dance and theater artists. Mexican theater director Abraham Oceransky has created a critical channel for butoh in Mexico, collaborating with Ko Murobushi and Nakajima frequently as well as Yumiko Yoshioka and Katsura Kan; many Mexican performers encountered butoh through connection to Oceransky.