Between Flesh and Spirit: The Philosophy of Ken Mai’s Butoh Meditations

Butoh, in Ken Mai’s approach, is less a form than a field, an energetic commons where breath meets cosmos, and where performance dilates toward a meditative state. 

His recent three-day Butoh workshop unfolded as an extraordinary journey through movement and philosophy, inviting participants into a liminal territory between flesh, spirit, and cosmos. This article intertwines first-person workshop observations with insights drawn directly from an interview with Mai, hoping to portray his distinct blend of movement with ancient philosophies rooted in Indian Samkhya philosophy (a principle that identifies reality as duality between consciousness and matter) and Pranayama (energy circulation and expansion).

Imagination and Dance Meditation On the first day, participants were guided through imagining subtle energy (Qi) flowing/being directed throughout the body. Movements were generated from the rhythms of tension and release by picturing puppet strings being snipped. The room reoriented itself through the revolving partner works upon light physical contact: an elbow became a pivot; a fingertip turned into a center of orbit. Bells and ambient sounds served not only as sonic guides but also created invisible waves rippling across the space.

Attention-training in pairs transitioned into individual dance meditation. At first, bodies took up the space by stomping and expansive movements, followed by the introspective state where minute gestures such as toe-twitching and fingers undulating with the beat of the Buddhist temple block (muyu). Drawing from Kazuo Ohno's teaching, Mai then introduced the idea of nurturing the "universe between our fingers and toes" as if seeds sprouting from darkness. Kneeling or seated, the group looked after their proximate cosmos. As dusk fell, bodies collapsed to the floor of the Chisenhale Dance Space (CDS), evoking a union of inner and outer worlds. Participants’ feedback revealed a mix of fear and revelation when exploring the internal darkness.

The evening culminated in imagery inspired by Auguste Rodin's The Cathedral, a sculpture of two cupped hands that belong to different figures. Participants were split into two groups. The first group oscillated between tending and becoming a flower. The white noise gradually swelled to violin melodies, as participants’ breaths connected human and floral realms. The second group was greeted by robotic vocals and instrumental strings, keeping participants’ cognitive restraint and grounding them in human sympathy towards a flower, their breaths expanded human consciousness outwardly. The difference in movement qualities raises questions about how soundtracks influence the intention and meaning behind the movements, and whether performance itself can be a form of meditation.

The Paper Flower and Emotional Catharsis 

Shifting to a smaller, darker venue at Deli Theatre on a Virgo new moon — an evening symbolizes introspection — the second day rehearsal room deepened into creation and Ma, the Japanese concept of in-betweenness. Pair work resumed, evolving into solo exercises that honed body awareness: imagining the sun in the chest and moon at the back during cat-cow poses, or air currents propelling pelvic movements.

Later, a simple A4 paper was introduced as a profound tool. Participants precariously balanced it on their bodies, striving to prevent its fall, resulting in elegant, oscillating descents. No longer an object, the paper gained agency. Its whispers and subtle trajectories in Ma inspired participants to ask "Where do you want to fall?”. Mai prompted tracing its history from a Helsinki stationery shop to forest, tree, wood: a cycle of life and death danced collectively between human and the paper. This evolved poetically: folding papers into flowers, participants held them with stretching gazes to imaginary distant oceans, performing slow Butoh walks across the room and back. Evoking Ohno's floral motifs, the exercise resonated with personal and ancestral emotions, bodies laden with generational histories. The room brimmed with intensity; unexpected tears danced in the air.

The climax involved tearing these flowers during a final walk. Some bit the flowers savagely, others withheld with delayed violence. I couldn't partake as I was bonded too deeply to the flower that made its destruction unbearable. Emotions surged, culminating in group hugs and freestyle dances — an emotional purge where movement cathartically released baggage.

Metamorphosis and Collective Creation

The final day revisited string-snipping collapses, now incorporating infinity signs drawn with hands. The ∞ was not about limb coordination but energy circulation, infusing Tai Chi’s cyclical energy and Shaolin’s mindful breathing. Pair work upon mere points of gentle touch triggered involuntary spirals, joyously regressing some to childlike play.

Attention turned toward the face: leaning against CDS’s iconic brick wall, dancers shifted expressions by Mai’s cues, peeling back habitual masks and exposing deep-seated characters. Then, Mai presented da Vinci's Mona Lisa, inviting participants to experience metamorphosis through internal decay. They melted masks of daily life, some collapsing in stillness, others crying with fixed gazes. This proved to be a liberating exercise as their feedback spoke of expression beyond the self, by allowing centuries of pain and grief behind the enigmatic smile to surface. 

The workshop ended with group improvised creations titled Flesh to Ashes. One group traced pre-formation chaos through to solidification and back to dust, visualizing breath as a scatter-and-gather of bodies. The other marched ritualistically, tribal ceremony reframed as a score.

Philosophical Artistry bridging Flesh and Spirit

Mai’s journey into Butoh began unexpectedly. Sharing his personal beginnings into the practice, his first encounter came via a television broadcast that left him shocked rather than enchanted. Yet, the poster of Butoh pioneer Kazuo Ohno in a cafe in Germany reignited a memory: the first Butoh festival program his sister kept, with an image of the established Butoh dance company Dairakudakan.

Synthesis and lifetime seeking of gothic aesthetics, Zen calm, and Samkhya's teaching have laid the foundation of Mai’s philosophical artistry. Critical to his worldview are the Samkhya concepts of Purusha (pure consciousness, unchanging aspect) and Prakriti (material reality, the active, changing force). If Butoh’s artistic enquiry in 1950s-60s Japan circled spirit and flesh, Samkhya gives the terms a precise polarity that can be acted on.

Prakriti’s three qualities: Sattva (clarity and harmony), Rajas (activity), Tamas (inertia and darkness), give an analysis for reading Mai’s Flesh to Ashes. The celestial coordinates Mai traced in this work were the terrain between Sattva and Tamas, while the Ma becomes animated, not as an empty interval but as a vital Prana energy.

Drawing not only the techniques of Pranayama, Mai believes that movement is essential in reaching the purification of the body and also Samadhi, the superconscious unity where the ego merges with the higher self. Inspired, too, by Osho’s active meditation, Mai advocates for a bodily release of tension, nurturing dance as embodied liberation. Therefore, cultivating awareness as a prelude to energy circulation/expansion is often seen in his teaching. Such awareness could lead to a deeper letting go in a meditative state, enabled by subtle energetic navigation through intricate movement, fatigue or trance. 

Also deeply influenced by Animism, Mai positions Butoh as an embrace of non-anthropocentric consciousness, echoing Tatsumi Hijikata’s call to “abandon the human condition”. Techniques drawn from martial arts such as Wing Chun, where strength coexists with delicacy, and the forms learned from nature’s creatures, define Butoh’s physical vocabulary as much as philosophical intent in his practice.

Mai’s workshops and performance practice point towards a philosophical experimentation, which is at the heart of Butoh’s ethos of becoming: the dancer does not pretend to be the image; the dancer is the image. As someone who believes in spirituality, I deeply resonate with Butoh’s capacity to connect us to a greater whole while releasing the ego in pursuit of the higher self. The “universe between the fingers” becomes not just a metaphor, but a lived, moving truth — a space where grief, transformation, and joy can meet and be recognized in their fullest complexity. *** This reflection draws on Ken Mai’s Butoh workshop, held in August 2025 by The London Butoh Dance Company, and incorporates insights from an interview with Ken Mai conducted during the event. (https://www.posthumantheatre.com/workshops)