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As part of a PR campaign to entice people to a new theater to showcase the Japanese avant-garde dance Butoh in Kyoto, JapanVisitor was invited to an invitation-only performance.

The theater is a small "kura" (storehouse) just north of Sanjo in central Kyoto. It is one of the few buildings that survived the 1864 Hamaguri Gate Rebellion, and the ensuing fire set by fleeing rebels that destroyed most of Kyoto from Gosho south to Gojo.

The building is not visible from the street, the only sign of what awaits within a traditional "kabukimon" wooden gate. Once you open the gate, a stone path leads to the storehouse.

After slipping off our shoes, placing them in a rack lined with 16 other shoes, we received a pamphlet (English for gaijin, Japanese for those who appeared to be Japanese), and entered the small first floor room.
A few of the eight people in the room appeared to know each other and were chatting in hushed tones.

Near the entrance was a steep wooden staircase to the second floor. Upstairs was the dressing room and space for musicians, two young women who played the shamisen.

Shortly before the performance was scheduled to begin, the shuffling of feet and "tink tink tink" of pebbles falling on the floorboards above us began to sound. In accompaniment, the shamisen duo started to warm up.

Performance

Then Ima Tenko?????,  whose name means "Now Japanese Marten [a sable] Girl," descended the steps,...