Its key founders are the charismatic Hijikata Tatsumi and the otherworldly Kazuo Ohno, who performed publicly until the age of one hundred. Butoh is traditionally performed in white body makeup with highly expressive and hyper-controlled gestures. Using meditation to induce trance-like states, butoh explores the themes of memory, the subconscious, transience and eroticism, as well as transformation of the soul.

Disciple of Tatsumi and Ohno, Ushio Amagatsu's Sankai Juku troupe creates works of stunning beauty. Eternity is the central motif of Amagatsu's art; it refers to the ephemeral existence of human beings and the eternal universe in which we live. In Europe and the US, dance is basically about the visible body, while in Japan it's based on the invisible body; turning away from the Western styles of dance, butoh aims to create a new aesthetic that embraces the squat, earthbound physique.

Sankai Juku dancers draw the audience deep into their texturally rich and metaphorical world of dance, delicate at every turn, yet viscerally intense. Ethereal, dreamlike images.

Featuring a set design inspired by fossilised Palaeozoic sea lilies, Meguri - symbolised here by the pictograph of the Chinese character "回"- delves intimately into the themes of circulation and rotation, referencing natural phenomena, such as the passage of time, the cycle of the four seasons and transitions of the earth.