Book Release and Performative Lecture with Michael Sakamoto - An Empty Room: Imagining Butoh and the Social Body in Crisis

Thursday, September 22, 2022 at 5:00pm
College of East Asian Studies Seminar Room, Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown

FREE!

Celebrate the release of the new Wesleyan University Press book An Empty Room: Imagining Butoh and the Social Body in Crisis by interdisciplinary artist, scholar, educator, and curator Michael Sakamoto. The author will speak about his journey through the history, theory, and practice of butoh dance, a seminal post-World War II Japanese art form now performed worldwide, and its potential relationship to other arts and cultural contexts. Sakamoto will perform and show excerpts from his work, followed by a Q&A and book signing.

Michael Sakamoto is active in dance, theater, photography, and media. His works have been presented in fifteen countries worldwide, and he currently serves as Performing Arts Curator as well as Director of the Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Fine Arts Center. He earned his M.F.A. in Dance and Ph.D. in Culture and Performance at the University of California Los Angeles. Sakamoto has published articles for numerous journals and book anthologies, including Routledge, Palgrave MacMillan, McFarland, and others. For more information, please visit www.michaelsakamoto.org.

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