This DVD contains "Anma (The Masseur)" (1963) b&w, silent, 20 min. and "Rose Color Dance" (1963) b&w, silent, 13 min. Total, 33 min. "Anma (The Masseur)" by the Butoh dance creator and a legendary figure, Tatsumi Hijikata, is a classic piece of Butoh of Japan. Butoh, an original style of modern dance in Japan, had begun with his performance. The film was realized not only as a dance document but also as a Cine-Dance; performance with a camera. The filmmaker "performed" himself with a camera among the dancers on stage in front of the audience. Also with a duet by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the main characters of Butoh, this film had a rare appearance of them in Butoh history.

"Rose Color Dance", another document (or what I call "cinedance") of Tatsumi Hijikata's Butoh dance with Kazuo Ohno. All of the male dancers are dressed up with evening suits and move gracefully, yet an intruder breaks up the whole scene abruptly. The film is worth seeing, even if just to see a memorable gay duet of Hijikata and Ohno. Overexposed, washed out images are sandwiched among normal ones.(T.I.)

"(Through this film,) it became clear that the Black Butoh Dance created by Tatsumi Hijikata is closer to the neo-dada movement taking over the provocative, cynical and absurd forms rather than the German expressionist dance usually connected."
-- Nicolas Villodre, curator of Cinematheque Francaise, Paris.

Collection of Lincoln Center, Performing Arts, New York