Our dancer Thomas Bradley has been invited to the German Dance Awards in Essen for the world premiere of NOT BUTOH SOLO. His news creation is both a tribute to Gabriele Brandstetter and Tadashi Endo and a reflection on the artist's enduring fascination with Japanese butoh.

During a Butoh training session in Tokyo in 2017, the master gave him the task: ‘Become a rooster!’ Thomas Bradley resisted, finding it illogical, because he could only imitate the animal, its wings, its behaviour, its sounds, but not really transform himself. At some point, he realised that he could become a rooster, because he wasn't one. The rooster itself, unchangeable, is already what it is. The Australian artist Bradley makes such insights from unsolvable tasks the principle of his work with dance. This is also the case in NOT BUTOH SOLO, where he embodies the possibility of becoming something he is not, a Japanese Butoh dancer and a rooster.

The German Dance Award is organised by the umbrella organisation Tanz Deutschland and is the most prestigious award for dance in Germany. This year, it will be presented on 28 February at the Aaalto Theatre in Essen. All information can be found here.

NOT BUTOH SOLO

Choreography: Thomas Bradley
Dance, video, costume: Thomas Bradley *
Music: Charles Gounod, Ballettmusik from Faust, Allegretto 1 and Allegro Vivo (Carlo Rizzi, Welsh National Opera Orchestra & Chorus, album Gounod, Faust, Highlights, 1994)