Baird, Bruce.  Hijikata Tatsumi and butoh: dancing in a pool of gray grits.  Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.  293p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780230120402, $95.00. Reviewed in 2012 Oct CHOICE.

The art of butoh is so diverse and incomprehensible that it can never be completely described by the written word. But Baird (Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst) has come close. He has crafted a wonderful study of the origins, development, and heart and body of butoh by following its growth through the journey of its central founder, Hijikata Tatsumi. Through Baird’s painstaking research and fascinating analysis, the reader gains insight into Hijikata’s choreographies, his aesthetic, and his philosophies. Baird looks at Hijikata’s butoh through “the body” and the “Japanese people,” placing Hijikata’s insanely physical art in time and place, connecting it to the changing society of Japan since the 1950s. Baird’s analysis of Hijikata’s work is illuminating, but the book also offers firsthand accounts and photos of Hijikata’s dances, quotes from his own writings, and samples of Hijikata’s choreographic “movement instructions”–thus allowing readers to make up their own minds about the significance of these performances. Baird’s book is of great importance to anyone interested in butoh, the performing arts, the avant-garde, or Japanese society. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, and faculty. — C. Lanki, University of the Fraser Valley