This piece was created in Japan in 2012. Our master, Yukio Waguri, worked with us to create the choreography, and later, 4RUDE refined the details for the Butoh piece to be performed on stage.
It premiered in 2014 at Acker Stadt Palast in Berlin. Subsequently, it was performed four times in Berlin and Paris.
This revival marks its return after nine years
The realm of yōkai—supernatural beings from Japanese folklore—intersects with the human world.
The Legends of Tono (Tōno Monogatari) is a classic collection of folktales, yet it defies the familiar structure of folklore anthologies. There is no attempt at classification, no headings, no categories. Instead, it is an eclectic assemblage of stories: you may find fairy tales, legends, and even traces of mythology. But mixed among them are sensational tales akin to tabloid headlines—“A frenzied youth slays his mother with a sharpened sickle,” or “Country boy stabs his own mother.”
We were drawn to this chaotic richness. From within these tales, we selected a series of striking episodes. Yukio Waguri has crafted a unique set of Butoh-fu—the poetic notation of butoh—assigning each story its proper physical language and forming nine distinct scenes.
Entrust yourself to the bodies of the dancers in whom the Butoh-fu resides, and let them guide you into the uncanny world of Die Legenden von Tono.
What is Butoh-fu?
Butoh-fu is a vocabulary of choreographic imagery orally transmitted by Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of butoh. Each word or phrase serves as a poetic cue that shapes the performer’s movement from within. As Hijikata’s disciple, Yukio Waguri systematized this body of work and released it on CD-ROM in 1999. Today, it is openly accessible online.
Butoh: Maco, Hikaru Inagawa
Researcher: Julia Kühn
Choreography: Yukio Waguri, 4RUDE(Maco, Hikaru Inagawa)
Direction, light & sound design: Hikaru Inagawa
Costume: Maco
Music: Masaru Soga and others
Production assistant: Adina Mohr, Rareș Grozea
Production: 4RUDE
Running time: about 55 min
