Exploring Butoh and its contemporary mutations through art, dance & embodied research

Butoh.co.uk is the online home of Butoh Mutations, a movement and dance project initiated by multidisciplinary artist and author, Dominique Savitri Bonarjee. Inspired by her long-term research into postwar Japanese Butoh, the mutations she brings to Butoh seek to deepen the contemporary resonance of the “dance of darkness”, at a time of quasi-debilitating complexity in the face of polycrisis and systemic collapse.

The dance generally known as 'Butoh', emerged in Japan, in the aftermath of nuclear trauma and the dismantling of traditional notions of Japanese identity that had existed unquestioned under the emperor-system. This inquiry into existence began from a visceral place, as a rebellion of the body, against everything that seeks to congeal, shape, and name the dark enigma that is life.

Isn't this apocalyptic trauma what we are beginning to sense at a global level? Is this not the reason behind the lure of politics that promise to simplify things, by making things 'great' again by brininging back neo-imperial models of governance?

Butoh Mutations addresses the physical, psychic and psychological lacerations of an extractive system, through workshops, art works, and practices that engage collective imagination, poetic activism, and 'human rehabilitation... which [again] today goes by the name of dancer'. Our community extends from London to Berlin, across Europe, with strong networks and contributors in India, Hong Kong and Japan.

Please look through the site and send a message if you have any questions or wish to join a class.

"I am a body shop; my profession is the business of human rehabilitation, which goes today by the name of dancer." Tatsumi Hijikata

What we offer

Workshops, movement mentoring and direction, personal sessions.

Butoh Mutations

Group and 1-1 classes in person and online. Dark Ecstatic Dance, a live set focused on inner journeys. Plus a deep-dive annual retreat in Arctic Sweden.

Movement mentoring

Working with artists and performers to develop embodied techniques, movement dynamics and textures in their practice and performances.

An eco-somatic technique that draws on Tai Chi Chuan -Tai Chi forms and Qi Gong, somatic inquiry and improvisation.

Eco-harmonics

Coming up...

COLLAPSE, Oxford: 19 September 2026

We are looking for participants to join COLLAPSE in Oxford this September. Please get in touch!

COLLAPSE is a ritual action initiated by artist Dominique Savitri Bonarjee. It intervenes within the dynamics of human-made architectures and landscapes, making visible the exhaustion of a body perpetually deprived of time, caught in an entropic dance with the force of gravity. This dance of gradual surrender reveals the body’s material strangeness. This action transforms our perception of time, concretizing it by making it suddenly palpable in the mass of the collapsing body. More info and previous activations here >>

For the Oxford activation we are collaborating with Helen Edwards. She comes from 25 years of embodied arts practice in Japan, SE Asia, Europe and UK and has been creating invitations for unworlding the body in urban settings for many years. Her work holds space for embodying materiality of time and earth, expressing the shadow and light of the lost gestures of all species arising to make visible and palpable the unconscious and conscious forces of our time.

COLLAPSE, Avignon (2026)

Media

Butoh Mutations current videos, podcasts and media

Book Launch at Daiwa Foundation

On 29 January 2026 Daiwa Foundation, London was delighted to host a book launch event, ‘From Postwar Butoh to a Contemporary “Rebellion of the Body”’, with Dominique Savitri Bonarjee.

Resdance: Finding Home in the Body

In this podcast episode Resdance host speaks to Dominique Savitri Bonarjee speaks about intuition, belonging and butoh dance.

Realisation Podcast host, Mark Vernon, talks with artist Dominique Savitri Bonarjee about her exploration of nondual practices, embodied research as devotional practice and impermanence.

The body as imaginal practice

Photo: ProduktivaProduktioner

What If We Were the End Ones?

Collapse, Butoh Mutations, and Cosmo-technics in the Swedish Arctic

Contributor, Elspeth Chan Chi Fan has written an article about the first Butoh Mutations Arctic Expeditions, which took place in April 2026.

You can learn all about what to expects, if you're thinking of joining the next retreat,

READ

Dance of Ecstatic Darkness

***NEW OPEN CLASS***

Ecstatic dance, open level, free movement through Deep Sound Journeys

“They should... drop a ladder deep into their own bodies and climb down it. Let them pluck the darkness from within their own bodies and eat it.”
— Tatsumi Hijikata

MORE INFO

350+

Artistic Community

Testimonials

" I found this retreat to be deeply moving, the reverberations of which have stayed with me and continue to pulsate long after we said goodbye in the melting snow. I expected a creative, physically demanding, inquisitive space but not quite the depths to which this experience has taken me. Overall it has been transformative, dare I say life altering. I find it hard to quite find the right words." -Arctic Retreat participant

" You have a reverence for energy, movement and the body. You teach with this reverence and it encourages reverence. Some may find it intense but butoh people love it.." -Arctic Retreat participant

" Savitri held the space with confidence, dedication and an energy that continued to inspire me. I really like the way you weave theory, personal history and method together, encouraging us to move from an embodied place. It felt open and free, equally deep and enlightening." -Arctic Retreat participant

" For me, the whole experience cannot be easily described with words, that's how fascinating it is! The space where I could connect to my humble - self. The dance/movement is a kind of deep listening that is not for expressing myself, it is to dissolve the ego and compromise with a sense of “self"." - Tu Perkins

" I had long been intrigued by butoh but struggled to find the right teacher in London. After a life-changing spine injury, I decided to join Dominique’s classes, seeking a way to reconnect with my body. Dominique’s deep dedication to butoh, her training with the masters and the beautiful room we were learning in immediately put me at ease. Her teaching revealed a new philosophy of movement that transformed my relationship with my post-injury body. I would urge everyone, no matter their age or ability, to explore butoh in Dominique’s classes—you will no doubt uncover something amazing. - Keira Johnson, professional dancer

"Dominique creates a unique situation in her classes in which she shares her extensive understanding of the practice and history of Butoh along with a range of other practices in response to the needs and interests of members of the class. She creates and maintains a beautiful balance between leading and sensitively inter-acting with us, individually and as a group: allowing us all to enquire into ourselves and our world, to work closely with others, and to feel supported and facilitated in doing so under her guidance. I’ve been attending Dominique’s class for over a year; I signed up originally because my first (very good) experience of Butoh was attending a 3-day workshop led by another teacher (at another venue) and I wanted to find a regular class. I value the weekly classes being a regular part of my life (and miss them during breaks!) Dominique’s classes have had a liberating effect on me; I have felt the effect of them develop week on week and they continue to impact on, and benefit, both my physical and psychological wellbeing." - Jane Wildgoose, artist and historian