What is Butoh?

Butoh is a mysterious, constantly evolving art medium. Chaotic or calm, extremely slow or hysterical, painful or elegant, improvised or choreographed with stylized gestures, Butoh is constantly changing, resisting definitions, but still manages to transform the viewer. 
Butoh (舞踏 Butō) – loosely translated means the dance of darkness, i.e. the dance of the earth and the depth of the subconscious. 
Butoh is certainly a significant revolution in dance creation, representing primarily the opposition to all classical forms of performing art. It expresses the return to the roots of the human race, and that is why it descends from the heavens (classical art) to the earth, searching deep in the genetic code, in the memories of our ancient ancestors, for answers to the key questions of existence. 
It represents the cycle of life, birth and death, expressed from the depths of our subconscious through performance. Performers do not dance but "are danced", given the semi-trance state they are in, and thus as urban "shamans" they channel energies, proto-memories, collective unconscious, subconscious archetypes, spirits of time through their body and dance with them . With various techniques of meditation and movement, the artist enters an "in-between state", explores his subconscious, but also goes deeper beyond the boundaries by entering other dimensions, and thus lets his body play willingly and naturally. 
Sometimes it is grotesque, creepy, terrifying, scandalous, monstrous, sometimes it is completely calm and neutral, sometimes it carries a special, undiscovered feeling. At the beginning, the performer must take off the ego mask he wears to get in touch with the deep darkness of his soul, but at the same time tell part of the story to the audience and convey the energy in the right light, without embellishment. 
A new type of aesthetics, established rules and boundaries are overcome, saying that everything is beautiful in its own way. The artist dances between worlds, dimensions, transforms himself into another being, speaks a hidden language and searches for the elixir of eternity.