Information and resources on "Level 2 Gallery Catherine Sullivan " at Tate Online.
Tatsumi Hijikata (1928-1986) was an originator and the most significant choreographer of butoh, an experimental and influential Japanese dance form. Debuting as a dancer at the age of 24, he was influenced early on by the Bauhaus-related German dance movement Neue Tanz, as well as the work of writers Jean Genet and Yukio Mishima. His work during the 1960s expressed the eroticism of male dancers and mixed violence with sensationalism. Interested in decay and the dark side of history, Hijikata believed in the power of images to evoke movements and used gestures to investigate memory.
In conjunction with her exhibition in the Level 2 Gallery, Catherine Sullivan will select a programme of very rarely seen films documenting Hijikata's work. Sullivan shares with Hijikata an interest in the interplay between image and movement, and how various texts and devices can be employed to generate and determine the behaviours of performers.
19 November 2005 – 5 March 2006
