Tom Johnson: Butoh

Tom Johnson’s remarkable photographic journey into Japanese Butoh reveals performers as both otherworldly spirits and deeply human beings.

Butoh, the revolutionary dance form that emerged from post-war Japan, transforms the human body into a vessel for primal expression. Johnson’s lens follows these ghostly figures as they navigate between performance and reality, documenting moments both sublime and surprisingly mundane: a dancer savoring a popsicle, figures clustered in a van sharing drinks, bodies intertwined on black sand beaches.

These photographs transcend mere documentation, becoming meditations on transformation, vulnerability, and the thin boundary between art and life. Johnson captures the dancers’ complete commitment to their craft—their willingness to become vessels for something beyond themselves. Through his patient, observational approach, we witness not just the spectacle of Butoh, but its quiet humanity.

Tom Johnson is a renowned photographer whose work explores the intersection of performance, identity, and human connection through intimate portraiture and documentary photography.

With: A conversation between Tom Johnson, Norihito Ishii and Gem Fletcher.