By Tova Green.
Kevin Starbard, currently the Ino (Head of the Meditation Hall) at City Center, began introducing Butoh performances to the SFZC community in 2022. Since then, he has produced ten Butoh events at SFZC, most of them at the Conference Center at 308 Page Street.
Butoh is an avant garde form of Japanese dance that began in the early 1960s, as a reaction to Western influence into Japanese culture. Like Zen, it doesn’t deny any feeling, but embraces all, including the darkness. The journey from Kevin’s first encounter with Butoh in Japan to its current pervasive significance in his life is fascinating.
When Kevin moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco in 1984, he was interested in political theater as a tool for transformation. After seeing Signals Through the Flame, a documentary about New York’s Living Theater, “I was “blown away. The film showed how theater could be used to enact social change. Upon leaving the Roxie, I saw a flier for a [street theater] workshop led by two members of the Living Theater, Stephan and Maria. I [attended and] loved the workshop, and continued to study and perform with them.”
After Stephan and Maria left San Francisco, two other members of the Living Theater, Serge and Suzanne arrived and, with Kevin, formed Tribal Warning Theater. Kevin lived with them in the Mission. Serge, who was fifteen years older than Kevin, became his guide and teacher. “He showed me a book about Butoh which piqued my interest. Not long after, we went to a Butoh performance in Berkeley with Harupin-Ha and Koichi Tamano and his wife Hiroko. I was enthralled.
“I was drawn to Japan. When I first went there in 1989, after participating in the Fall Practice Period at City Center in 1988, I thought I had lived there in many past lives.” Kevin lived in a temple in Tokyo and got a job teaching English. He thought about creating a magazine, and landed on the idea of a Butoh magazine titled tsubushi butoh journal (tsubushi literally means “to crush”). He published five issues over a three year period. Kevin began going to Butoh performances to photograph the performers.
He returned to the U.S. in 1992. Kevin’s daughter was born a year later and his interest in Butoh was put on the back burner for a long spell. Then three years ago, he saw that there was a Butoh Group on Facebook with over ten thousand followers. He joined the group and began posting his photos. He thought of creating the magazine again.
Instead, in late 2020 he created his own Facebook group and called it Tsubushi Butoh Journal. “I shared my old photos and there was a lot of interest. I wanted to get to know some of the performers in the Butoh world, so I made a Butoh-seeking questionnaire: What was your first experience with Butoh and what impact did it have on you? Performers responded. I would post about two bios each week.Through these bios I met a lot of dancers all over the world.”
In January 2022, Kevin moved to City Center from Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. “I looked at the Conference Center adjacent to 300 Page Street and asked, could we do performances here? I reached out to Hiroko Tamano and we looked at the space together and agreed that it could work.” Kevin rented the space with the assistance of David France, a City Center resident who also loves Butoh. The first performance was in November, 2022. Kevin started inviting other Butoh performers he had met. He and David hosted the events, renting the Conference Center. Soon, San Francisco Zen Center began presenting the Butoh events. The audiences have grown through promotion in SFZC’s newsletter, social media, and website.
Kevin also arranged for a concert with Yogetsu Akasaka, a Japanese monk known for his Beat Box performances and musical renditions of the Heart Sutra. The concert was held in March 2024 in the 300 Page Street zendo and was a huge success, with ninety people attending. Akasaka had visited San Francisco Zen Center a year earlier, his first experience of Zen outside Japan, and was happy to be invited back to perform. He also gave a Dharma talk in the Buddha Hall. During his visit to City Center he recorded the Japanese Eko (dedication at the end of a service) for the Suzuki Roshi monthly memorial to help City Center students learn it, and a group of students recorded the Heart Sutra in English for him.
In recent months Kevin has been involved in publicizing a new film about translator and writer Red Pine, Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation. Kevin noted, “I have been a reader of Red Pine for years, both his translations of Chinese poetry and sutras, and his writings on his travels in China. When I saw this film was coming out, I wrote to the director, asking if we could show the film at San Francisco Zen Center. He said they wanted to do a bigger event in San Francisco, and asked if SFZC would like to help promote it.” As a result, San Francisco Zen Center is co-sponsoring two screenings of Dancing with the Dead on August 11 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
Kevin has plans for Butoh performances at SFZC in October and November, with dancers from Mexico, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. The October performers are both Zen students who will stay at City Center as guest students for several weeks. Kevin will also make his performing debut in the October events. “At one time, Butoh was practiced only in Japan. Now it has expanded and is much more international,” said Kevin.
