Abstract

The article examines the impact of Georges Bataille’s philosophy on Hijikata Tatsumi’s butoh dance. Bataille’s understanding of dance as unproductive expenditure, the concepts of inner experience and communication are being reconsidered and incorporated in choreographic language of Hijikata, extending his technical and conceptual tooling. Bataille defines dance as an expenditure given in a form of sign. The butoh dance-experience is functioning as a metaphor of a speculation, created by a movement. It is experienced by dancers and spectators as an execution.