Akira Kasai
Akira Kasai
Akira Kasai became active as a Butoh dancer after meeting Kazuo Ono in 1963 and Tatsumi Hijikata in 1964. By 1971, at the age of 28, he started his own studio Tenshikan (*1). From this studio would emerge Butoh artists Setsuko Yamada, Kota Yamazaki and others. In 1972, Kasai traveled to Germany and studied at the Eurythmy school in Stuttgart. After returning to Japan in 1985 he lectured on the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner and held performances and workshops on Eurythmy. In 1994, Kasai made his return to Japan’s dance world with a work titled Seraphita (*2), after which he continued to present not only his own solo pieces as well as choreographing pieces for such representative butoh artists of Japan’s contemporary dance scene as Kuniko Kisanuki, Kim Ito, Naoko Shirakawa and Ikuyo Kuroda, and also figures like the famed ballet dancer Farouk Ruzimatov. At the same time he has also performed actively overseas in places like North and South America, Europe and South Korea.