CONTEMPORARY DANCE and BUTOH
Contemporary Dance and Butoh
The Lack of Dance Literacy in Japan Tsutsumi Hiroshi
People in Japan have never been so keenly alert to their cultural environment as in 2019. At the arts festival Aichi Triennale, the exhibition After ‘Freedom of Expression?’ (Hyogen no Fujiyuten—Sonogo) was cancelled temporarily due to defamatory attacks online, as well as a flood of complaints and threats by phone. Government comments 130
on the issue amounting to an act of censorship led to the Agency for Cultural Affairs withdrawing an already-promised grant. Subsequently, Vienna Art Exhibition, Kawasaki Shinyuri Film Festival, and the Japan Arts Council, which canceled the grant to the film Miyamoto (Miyamoto kara Kimie), also voluntarily gave ground in view of the political atmosphere and a few complaints from the public. These problems shared the same cause: lack of cultural literacy. Principles of law were ignored, and the discretion of organizations was disregarded. People didn’t look at the context or at the background of the work; they simply condemned it and even called it toxic. As a result, it was not just the freedom of expression of the artist, but also the freedom of the audience to see art, that was
