matsu

matsu is an emergent Butoh dialogue between ancestor and place. matsu draws from the gaps between migration stories of dan’s grandmother Yukie, as well as dan’s annual visitations to Yukie’s former home site, steadily being reclaimed by forest, in Southern U.S. tobacco country. Through solo performance, integrated with poetry reading and video documentary, dan imagines their body as a conduit for a politically and ecologically-rich unearthing of global familiarity and difference – ritual and change entangling across generations and lands. The first short iteration of matsu premiered at the Queer Butoh Festival at The Brick in June 2026. The second short iteration will be shown through the FOCUS: Innovative Choreography Series at Art House in Jersey City in October 2026. Photos by Alex Gramma at The Queer Butoh Festival.