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Akira Kasai (1943) is a Japanese butoh dancer and choreographer, who despite being significantly younger than mentors Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, is considered to be pioneers of the art form along with them. Kasai trained in other forms of dance, but turned to butoh in the 1960s when he met and began to work with these two men. He started his own studio in 1971 but closed it in 1979 to move and study Eurythmy in Germany. He did not dance professionally at the time and for years after his return to Japan in 1986 he stayed off the stage stating that he felt too disconnected from Japanese society to perform. He returned to professional dance in 1994, with the work ''Saraphita'' and revived his studio Tenshi kan, now influenced by Eurythmy and other dance principles. He has since performed, choreographed and taught in Asia, the Americas and Europe, but his choreography is sufficiently different from most other butoh that its authenticity has been questioned. ==Life== Kasai was born in Japan, and grew up in the Mie Prefecture. His family was upper middle class which he says was very education conscious. His grandfather spoke good English and was an interpreter for foreign cultural figures and visitors.His father was a banker and both his parents were active Christians. He began dancing as a child, listening to his mother’s organ music at church.〔 Later, Kasai went on to study modern dance, ballet and pantomime before discovering butoh in the early 1960s. His butoh career began at this time but he took a hiatus in the late 1970s to move to Germany with his family. He stayed in this country from 1979 to 1985, studying at the Eurythmy School in Stuttgart and studying European culture in depth. He describes European culture as having the ability to take dualistic concepts and reunite them, something he says is missing in Japanese monistic thinking.〔〔 In particular he studied he philosophy of Rudof Steiner, which rebelled against dualistic thinking.〔 He studied Eurythmy to answer two questions, “Is consciousness born or established by the body, or the other way around?” and “What is a life that is a life? Is life coming from a material or from somewhere else?” His goal was to deconstruct his Japanese notion of body to construct something new. He returned to Japan permanently in 1986, but he felt lost and unable to reattach to the people and places he knew before. Without social connection, he felt he could not dance and did not do so again until he worked out a way to reconnect to his native land. From 1986 to 1994, he did not return to professional dance, but rather lectured anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner and held workshops on Eurythmy.〔〔 Between Germany and this period, Kasai had a fifteen-year lapse from public performances.〔 Since then, Kasai has resumed his career both in Japan and abroad. One of his sons, Mitsutke is also a dancer, combining butoh, hip hop and break dance, appearing solo and with his father both in Japan and abroad.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Akira Kasai (dancer)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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