I met several people I hadn’t seen in almost 45 years. It was wonderful! At first, I’d almost completely forgotten them, but as we talked, it felt like a veil was peeling away and things became clearer. Of course, there were many people there who weren’t there at the time, but I learned a lot from talking to them. I was able to gain new insights while reminiscing about the past. What I thought would be a night of reminiscing turned out to be a very refreshing night for me.

Ten years after the passing of the unparalleled dancer Murofushi Kou in 2015, an exhibition and lectures about Murofushi were held at Implustanz, Europe’s largest dance festival, in Vienna last year. Kimiko Watanabe, who runs the Murofushi Kou archive cafe Shy in Tokyo, handled all aspects of the planning and made the event a success. While there is strong interest in Japanese dance worldwide, especially in Europe, there are many misinterpretations of dance. The Vienna event was an attempt to return to the origins and re-examine dance through Murofushi’s thoughts and actions.

This time, the Murofushi Kou exhibition, titled “Faux Pas/Misstep,” was held in Tokyo, building on the success of last year’s Implustanz, and took place at the galleries Shy and Le Tiroy. These two locations are only a two or three-minute walk apart, making it easy to go back and forth between them.

Murofushi participated in the founding of Dairakudakan in 1972. At the same time, Ushio Amagatsu, who also participated, later formed the large company Sankai Juku with several members, and Isamu Osuga formed the large company Byakko-sha. In other words, while Maro, Amagatsu, and Osuga each made their mark on the world as Butoh spectacles and maintained that structure, Murofushi continued to dance primarily alone. There are probably no other Butoh dancers, domestically or internationally, who have continued to think, experiment, and challenge themselves as much as Murofushi. The exhibition traces Murofushi’s footsteps, presenting them from both his “inside”—memoranda, notebooks, letters, and journals—and from his “outside”—newspapers, magazines, and photographs from both Japan and abroad. It prompts each visitor to consider and imagine what kind of time and space exists where these two perspectives intersect. It is designed to stimulate the viewer in this way. Currently, there are many people around the world who aspire to dance, and the vast majority of them perform solo. Therefore, the path Murofushi followed is sure to attract increasing interest from people both domestically and internationally.

I felt that there were surprisingly many people from generations unfamiliar with Murofushi who came to the exhibition. This made me consider the challenges ahead: how can we ensure that the materials displayed in this exhibition reach a wider audience around the world and be passed on to the next generation?

The most memorable part of this Murofushi Kou exhibition was definitely the “Hokuryukyo Night.” I met several people I hadn’t seen in almost 45 years. It was wonderful! At first, I’d almost completely forgotten them, but as we talked, it felt like a veil was peeling away and things became clearer. Of course, there were many people there who weren’t there at the time, but I learned a lot from talking to them. I was able to gain new insights while reminiscing about the past. What I thought would be a night of reminiscing turned out to be a very refreshing night for me. February

Ko Murobushi Exhibition was held across two venues: Shy and a nearby atelier. Since 室伏鴻’s materials are originally stored in Shy, the exhibition there mainly featured posters announcing butoh lectures, displayed against the backdrop of his personal book collection. Although this was less noticeable in the spacious venue in Vienna, the posters arranged within Shy’s limited space each radiated an intense presence, which was also beautiful in its own way. The venue’s glass façade allowed a clear view inside, and passersby on the main street would occasionally stop to look in.

At the atelier, about a three-minute walk away, part of the Vienna exhibition had been recreated. Directly in front of the entrance, a film was projected onto the wall, drawing visitors immediately into Murafushi’s world as soon as they stepped inside. Records and testimonies from people who knew that era were also distributed.

At Shy, a symposium was held over three nights starting from the opening day. I attended the first and third days; the venue was full, and the post-event gatherings were lively as well.

This event not only conveyed Murafushi’s achievements, but also reaffirmed that his butoh continues to provide fresh inspiration to new audiences even today. The success of holding the exhibition in the two cultural cities of Vienna and Tokyo is largely due to the efforts of the organizers, and I sincerely hope it will continue without interruption in the future.