【Akira Kasai】
After meeting Kazuo Ohno in 1963 and Tatsumi Hijikata the following year, Akira Kasai began his career as a butoh dancer. He performed many solo dances, mainly in Japan, and in 1971 set up his own studio Tenshikan, which went on to produce many butoh dancers like Setsuko Yamada and Kota Yamazaki. In 1979 he went to Germany to study at the Eurythmy School in Stuttgart, and after returning to Japan gave various Eurythmy dance performances. He returned to butoh dance in 1994 with “Saraphita”. Aside from his solo performances, he has choreographed for exemplary figures of Japanese contemporary dance such as butoh dancers Kuniko Kisanuki, Kim Ito, Naoko Shirakawa and Ikuyo Kuroda, as well as globally-renowned ballet dancer Farukh Ruzimatov. He is active in performances overseas in places like North and South America, Europe, and South Korea. Kasai pursues his own unique creative endeavors as both a butoh dancer and a choreographer without being constricted by a particular genre like butoh, modern dance, contemporary dance or Eurythmy.