An evening of butoh performance | Part of Rebellious Bodies Festival

Rebellious Bodies Festival comes to London for two nights of radical Japanese butoh dance. Butoh is an avant-garde dance form born of fierce experimentation in post-war Japan, and this festival aims to hold true to that spirit, bringing five contemporary Japanese butoh dancers to the UK.

This evening features four short butoh performances. MUTSUMINEIRO return to the UK after a sell-out performance in 2025 with The Last Two, a magical duet in which their two distinct worlds collide. Seiji Tanaka's UK debut Pulse of Absence trembles in the space between the visible and the invisible. Makiko Takamatsu's Naked Rabbit offers a darkly playful solo inspired by one of Japan's oldest myths. The evening culminates with A Requiem for Her, as the legendary Mitsuyo Uesugi, 76, returns to The Place for the first time in 46 years, when she performed alongside Kazuo Ohno.