Butoh, Photography, Presence, and Practice

Note: This page explores the interconnected practices that shape my creative life—Butoh dance, self-portrait photography, and the contemplative tools that enable presence. While this URL carries a legacy project name (MO Theatre, formerly butoh.name Mythopoetic Theatre), the work itself is integrated and evolving.

A Living Lineage: From Odddance Theatre to Today

In 2008, I began training and performing with Odddance Theatre, based in St. Petersburg, Russia, working with Natalia Zhestovskaya and Grigory Glazunov. This apprenticeship, then partnership, immersed me in Butoh practice at its source—learning not just movement, but the philosophy of presence, listening, and integration that defines the art form.

In 2009, together with visual artist Masha Salangina, I established butoh.name Mythopoetic Theatre, later renamed MO Theatre. The group created performances and short films that explored Butoh as spiritual dance, shamanistic theatre, art of silence, and art of presence. We performed across Finland and Russia, with works like Wetland (filmed in the Soidinsuo swamp, 2009) and The Spell of the Sensuous, which exists on fragile surfaces and thresholds.

Though this chapter as a formal company closed, the integrated practice continues—evolving, deepening, and finding new forms of expression through individual work, teaching, and creative collaboration.

BUTOH: THE ART OF INTEGRITY

What Is Butoh?

Butoh is a form of physical and psychological training, an intriguing performance method that exists at a threshold state—simultaneously definable and beyond definition.

While shockingly unruly, perhaps even humorous, Butoh is also sacredly traditional, even ritualistic. It can remind us of archaic, ancient tunes, colors, and reverberations of the past that we cannot quite put into words—yet they touch our inner landscape. Still, Butoh is very concrete. The body is always concrete, never abstract.

In Butoh, experience and the body form the fundamental. Not shape. Not aesthetic agreement. The body itself is highly influential and enriched with experiences. In Butoh, we encounter experiences where we cannot help but marvel at our own resilience, diversity, and strength—each born from our own starting point.

Butoh as Liberation

The aim is to contact the person’s essence and tap into their embryonic and latent source. As every human being is a singular creation, the copycat syndrome and clone division must be avoided at all costs. Butoh helps liberate the conformist person.

Through being-experience, the person and performer momentarily become exposers of potential, free from notions of success, performance, or social flesh. We move away from differentiation toward integrity and independent creativity. Performances and encounters are found; they breathe, stand on their own feet, and approach occurrence, their value and suchness.

What is essential in Butoh is that the need to prove something, to verify one’s existence, begins to quiet. The hunger to maintain the feeling of existence through constant feedback and stimuli abates. As both a practice and a performance, Butoh can offer calming, healing experiences.

Humans are extremely hungry for stimuli, and society responds to this in many ways. It is therefore healthy and healing to pause the flood of stimuli and learn that you do not disappear even if the self is not constantly being reinforced against the noisy outer world.

Butoh is the skill of seeing things more calmly and clearly by listening to inner wisdom with the body and mind. Butoh is silence and stillness, movement of presence, and laughter of acceptance.

Butoh as Spiritual Training

The practice of Butoh heightens our latent awareness and teaches the practitioner to progress spiritually, free of prejudice and society’s artificially imposed goals. In this way, we banish false exteriors to gaze upon the true inner life of the Butoh follower.

This makes it possible to flourish without wasting time on fraudulent pursuits; we are left with enriched experience. As a result, beauty, art, and your essence are illuminated with a more transparent and truthful light. This is achieved, in time, through newly discovered and effortless creative energy.

Butoh provides experiences and streams of thought that can support the positive side of daily life, strengthening integrity and well-being. A person’s relationship with the world starts with oneself, and Butoh’s acceptance of responsibility prepares us for the world through integral experience.

As a result, the relationship between oneself and the world can become less contradictory, and while responsibility toward oneself grows, understanding of one’s survival strengthens.

As an art of integrity, Butoh manages to unite its doer, receiver, and society, nurturing the (collective) soul. It is one path for psychological growth.

The Only Requirement: Self-Knowledge

Butoh, as humanity, can be seen as a way of life, a philosophy, or as a principle or attitude toward things, movement, existence, or art. One focus of Butoh is to provide a method of approaching people and living things without being a norm or a system.

In my understanding, the only thing Butoh can demand from a person is knowledge of oneself—which gives birth to responsibility for life and honesty. What factors could be more important in art or in life?

Health is a flowing state, not a fixed definition. So-called excellent and bad matters are part of human life. Nevertheless, throughout one’s life, one can feel that one is a healthy, living, integral individual.

The Butoh dancer moves and transforms toward this cleansed state of being, existence, authentic self, and moment. Butoh allows us to pursue this experience and enables it to affect our lives. It does not need to stop when we pause from practice. This is part of Butoh’s integral, healing, and energizing power.

BUTOH AS PRACTICE: PRESENCE, EMBODIMENT, INTERACTION

Approaching Movement

In Butoh practice, experience, one’s own body, and imagery are the starting points—not form or aesthetic agreement. We explore the possibility of approaching movement:

• From top to bottom, from bottom to top
• From inside out, from outside in
• From mind to body, from body to mind
• From nowhere to somewhere, from somewhere to nowhere
• From fullness to emptiness, from emptiness to fullness
• From direction to directionlessness, from directionlessness to direction

Slowness and Quietness

In Butoh, we explore how images of the mind transform into movement and stillness within one’s own unique body. Slowness, silence, and imagery become movement, experience, and presence.

One’s own life experience serves as the starting point for a journey into exploring personal movement, presence, inner landscape, and one’s own story. No prior experience in movement practice is required. The body, as it is, is deeply expressive and rich in experience.

Slowness gives us time to delve into experience and gradually trains us to sense the body and mind as one unified whole. Silence is the key to the skill of listening, and listening helps us to be present.

In this way, dialogue unfolds naturally into an open-hearted encounter with oneself, with others, and with the world. The destination is a sense of well-being, the experience of presence and creativity, and joy in being.

Safe, Embodied Exploration

Butoh is a safe and versatile embodied practice in which you become more at home in your own body. Through Butoh, you can have integrating, healing experiences by moving creatively from your own being.

Outwardly, the movement can be almost imperceptible. The practice and dance can take place standing, sitting, or lying down. Imagery, relaxed concentration, silence, and slowness support the experience of presence.

A non-judgmental, listening attitude toward practice brings joy and creativity, along with courage, to participants. It may help ease the anxiety of being in front of others and build confidence in presence.

Movement and Stillness

The body is our closest world. It is a good place to begin. Movement, arising from our own inner landscape, is the language of the body—where mind and body are, paradoxically, one and together.

Butoh approaches this movement of the inner landscape, inviting it into interaction with the world. Butoh is poetry of movement—not pre-given dance.

What is special about this kind of practice of being seen is that we work primarily without words and do not construct roles. At first, it is better to deconstruct—to let the inner noise subside and become sensitized to perception. In this way, we cleanse our own unique being toward a presence that feels good and free of static, toward the confidence to be here and now, open to the world.

As the senses become more refined, the world becomes richer. In opening to the experience of presence, people discover their own story within the world—a story that is part of a larger, shared narrative.

PERFORMANCES: BORN IN THE MOMENT

Every Performance Is Unique

The performances are unique—born in the moment and disappearing with it. We invite the audience to share a brief moment of our lives, and the invitation is open.

Butoh calls viewers to pause within the moment; slowness and intensity are its strength and its opportunity to step, for a while, away from the past and the future.

As a viewer, it is possible to ground oneself and to create one’s own story, one’s own meaning from the performance and the experienced moment in relation to one’s own life. The audience becomes co-creators.

At a Border That Does Not Exist

Butoh and Butoh dancers exist at a threshold state—at the same moment definable and beyond definition. The physical manifestation is the performance, the Butoh dance, experienced by the performers together with the audience.

Butoh in the Contemporary Moment

While Butoh emerged in Japan in the mid-20th century, it finds urgent relevance in our current world. Contemporary Butoh dancers worldwide continue this lineage—adapting the philosophy while honoring its core: not performance as spectacle, but as shared, transformative encounter.

In an era of constant stimulation and digital acceleration, Butoh offers something radical: a practice that teaches presence, embodied listening, and the courage to exist in uncertainty. The slowness that defines Butoh is not passivity; it is active resistance to the expectation that every moment must produce visible result.

Modern performances draw from the same sources as traditional Butoh—from archaic space, from silence, from the body as archive of lived experience—while engaging with contemporary concerns: identity, displacement, environmental transformation, memory, and the search for authentic encounter in a fragmented world.

This is why Butoh continues to be practiced, taught, and performed in universities, theatres, festivals, and intimate spaces across the globe. It is not a historical form, but a living practice that transforms with each practitioner while maintaining its essential integrity: the invitation to pause, to listen, to become present.

PHOTOGRAPHY AS EMBODIED PRACTICE

Where Images Come From

I work at the intersection of movement, stillness, and self-observation. My photographs do not aim to capture the decisive moment, but to dwell in a moment long enough for it to begin transforming.

What appears in the images is rarely a single blink of an eye; it is time unfolding, curving back into itself, and leaving traces. The work arises from a need to understand how I exist in the world—how I am seen, how I experience myself dissolving and re-forming, how memory, perception, and presence intertwine.

Photography becomes a quiet experiment: what happens if I do not seek to control time, but allow it to speak?

Experience Over Representation

I am more interested in experience than in representation. A sharp image often answers too quickly. Blur, movement, and uncertainty keep the question open.

Many of the works arise from existential curiosity: am I fixed or in constant motion? Where does the self begin, and where does it end?

Standing by a lake, in a field, beside a tree, or in the mist, I place my body within the same flow as wind, water, and light. The human figure is not dominant, but porous. Long exposure makes it possible to enter a state of becoming rather than merely being. It reflects the way memory functions—layered, selective, incomplete.

The images are not documents, but reflections of what it feels like to exist in time.

Connection to Butoh Tradition

Within this thinking, there is a profound connection to the tradition of Butoh dance.

Kazuo Ohno’s idea of dance as prayer, as a slow listening to inner movement, resonates with my way of working. Tatsumi Hijikata’s ankoku butoh—the dance of darkness—reminds us that the body carries history, shadows, and silent layers.

In my own practice, Butoh appears as embodied listening and radical presence—movement that emerges only when the performer stops presenting and allows being to dissolve through forms. This same principle guides my camera: I do not construct the gesture; I allow it to arise.

Places of Threshold

I return again and again to similar places: lakeshores, fields, forests, gardens, and the threshold spaces between seasons. These are not dramatic landscapes, but quiet and often overlooked ones.

I am drawn to thresholds—early winter, late summer, the first moments of morning, mist, melting ice. Moments in which spaces overlap. Water that is almost solid. Light that is not yet fully awake.

These environments reflect the inner state I explore: transition without resolution. I usually work alone, early in the morning or late in the evening, when the world feels less observant and more honest.

THE RICOH GR CAMERA: TOOL FOR PRESENCE

Why Ricoh GR?

The Ricoh GR platform has become central to my practice because it embodies a single principle: limitations enable clarity.

The camera has no electronic viewfinder—I am 100% dependent on the rear LCD screen for composing every shot. That forces presence. I cannot hide behind autofocus settings or shooting modes. The 28mm fixed lens eliminates decision fatigue. I have a frame. I use it intentionally.

This is the camera that taught me that constraints create clarity. It is built for seeing, not for impressing. The best gear becomes invisible; you stop thinking about the equipment and start seeing again.

The Tools I Use

Cameras:

• Ricoh GR III – Core practice. The foundational tool for street and contemplative work.
• Ricoh GR IIIx Urban Edition – 40mm perspective for more intimate framing.
• Ricoh GR IIIx HDF – Built-in highlight diffusion filter for emotional self-portrait work.
• Ricoh GR III Screen Protector – Protect your LCD window to presence.

Optical Expansion:

• Ricoh GA-1 Adapter – For GR III only (enables 49mm filter compatibility and wide-angle conversion lenses).
• Haoge LAR-GR3X Adapter – For GRIIIx (GA-2 alternative).
• Ricoh GA-3 Adapter – For GR IV.

Light Control:

• Tiffen 49mm Black Pro-Mist 1/4 – Noticeable softening for self-portraits; reduces harshness, adds dreamlike quality.
• Tiffen 49mm Black Pro-Mist 1/8 – Subtle diffusion for landscapes and street work; atmosphere without obviousness.
• B+W 49mm XS-Pro Digital Vario ND – Variable neutral density for wide-open apertures, shallow depth of field, and creative control.

Stability and Perspective:

• K&F Concept 90”/230cm Ultra High Tripod – For self-portrait sessions and overhead compositions that demand new angles. Height expands creative possibility.
• Peak Design Everyday Sling 3L – Minimal hip carry for accessibility. Three liters is enough: camera, one adapter, two filters, a lens hood. Nothing extra. Nothing missing.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases through these links. These recommendations reflect gear I genuinely use and trust in my contemplative practice.

The Philosophy Behind the Gear

Carrying less forces intention. Every piece you bring must earn its weight—no redundancy, no insurance policies.

What follows is a complete toolkit developed over years of contemplative street photography, self-portraiture, and urban exploration. Not because these products are the only options available, but because they’ve earned their place through actual use—through moments when presence matters more than capability.

The goal isn’t to own the collection. The goal is to see more clearly.

HEALTH QIGONG: INTEGRATED PRACTICE

Qigong as Embodied Knowledge

Health Qigong integrates the principles of traditional Chinese medicine with modern knowledge of human physiology. Through practice, one simultaneously develops awareness of how one’s body, breath, mind, and energy move and function.

The practice combines movement with the rhythm of the breath, principles of Chinese medicine for exercising and regulating one’s body, breathing, energy, and mind.

The Nine Sets

I practice and teach the standardized Health Qigong Association sets:

• Ba Duan Jin – Eight Pieces of Brocade
• Wu Qin Xi – Five Animals Play
• Taiji Yang Sheng Zhang – Tai Chi Health Preservation
• Mawangdui Daoyin Shu – Ancient Daoyin exercises
• Shi Er Duan Jin – Twelve Pieces of Brocade
• Da Wu – Great Dance
• Daoyin Yangsheng Gong – Daoyin nourishing life exercises
• Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Seated – Seated version for accessibility
• Yi Jin Jing – Muscle-Tendon Changing Classic
• Liu Zi Jue – Six Healing Sounds

Each set works with different energetic channels and has specific benefits for organ systems, emotional balance, and overall vitality. They can be practiced standing or seated, making them accessible across ages and abilities.

Integration with Butoh

Both Qigong and Butoh share a fundamental principle: the integration of body, mind, breath, energy, and space into unified presence.

Where Qigong works with the internal cultivation of chi and the regulation of physical systems, Butoh explores the transformation of inner experience into authentic movement and stillness. Together, they form a complete practice of embodied awareness.

INNER LANDSCAPE: WHERE IT ALL CONVERGES

The inner landscape within the performer, photographer, and audience comes alive. The surface is perceived by and interacts with everyday reality.

During powerful interaction, this kind of experience can produce something mutual and communal between people—coming from an archaic space of memories and experiences. It is from this area that extremely influential and meaningful experiences in human life are born:

Butoh dance, poetry, myths, fables, art, love, creative life.

In all these practices—in Butoh, in self-portrait photography with the Ricoh, in Health Qigong—I am pursuing the same essential territory: the space where being meets expression, where presence becomes visible, where the self dissolves into genuine encounter.

TEACHING AND CREATIVE WORK

I offer various training and guidance packages tailored to individual needs and group contexts:

• Butoh workshops and intensive training – From complete beginners to advanced practitioners
• Creative self-portraiture and movement photography – For artists, performers, and those exploring embodied presence
• Health Qigong instruction – Individual or group practice
• Integration of practices – For performers, theatre practitioners, and those seeking multidisciplinary creative training

In all teaching, the starting point is the same: clearing one’s being and doing so that something new can be born. The body, as it is, is expressive and rich in experience.

A SHARED VISION

I do not aim to explain. I aim to open a space.

If these practices invite slowness, reflection, or a sense of recognition, that is enough. I hope they function less as statements and more as mirrors—places where you can rest, question, or remember something wordless.

Ultimately, this work is about learning how to stand inside time without trying to control it—and allowing light, hope, love, gratitude, movement, and silence to finish the sentence.

Learn more about individual practices on this site, or reach out to discuss how these integrated approaches might serve your own creative or contemplative path.