What happens when a dancer’s movements transcend time, captured through the lens of a master photographer?
In The Butterfly Dream, legendary photographer Eikoh Hosoe and Butoh pioneer Kazuo Ohno embark on a journey into the surreal. This extraordinary photobook, spanning over four decades of their collaboration, transforms Ohno’s ephemeral performances into a permanent visual narrative.
Through haunting black-and-white imagery, Hosoe captures Ohno’s spectral presence—his body in motion yet frozen in time. The title references Zhuangzi’s Daoist parable, where the boundaries between waking life and dreams dissolve: Am I a man dreaming of a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of a man?
Each image is a meditation on impermanence, the subconscious, and the delicate threshold between life and death. Butoh, an avant-garde dance form born from Japan’s post-war trauma, finds its visual counterpart in Hosoe’s grainy, high-contrast compositions. Ohno’s body contorts, dissolves into darkness, or emerges ghostlike from the frame, embodying the fragility of existence.
Presented in a large-format hardcover edition with a slipcase, this book enhances the dreamlike intensity of each photograph, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the theatricality and raw emotion of Butoh.
Highlights:
Unprecedented collaboration – A 40-year artistic partnership between Hosoe and Ohno, two pioneers in their respective fields.
✔ Rare documentation of Butoh – A groundbreaking Japanese dance form that explores themes of mortality, decay, and transcendence.
✔ Masterful photography – Stark, high-contrast compositions that transform Ohno’s movements into visual poetry.
✔ Collector’s format – A 16 x 13-inch hardcover edition that honours the magnitude of this artistic exchange.
The Butterfly Dream is a poetic and unflinching meditation on the fleeting nature of life and art. It is an invitation to step into the liminal space between movement and stillness, where the body itself becomes a work of dreamlike transcendence.
