ABOUT GUSTAVO THOMAS

Butoh artist, photographer, playwright, poet, stage director and independent performing arts researcher. Taijiquan practitioner and compulsive traveller.

 

Born in Mexico City, he's lived in Mexico City, Beirut, Beijing, Toronto and currently in Guangzhou, China.

 

Being first a professional theatre actor, he's passed through different artistic stages, from realist theatre to physical theatre, becoming a Butohka (A Butoh artist) since 2010. He published a book on the acting technique explored by his teacher Antonio González Caballero, and he has been interested in researching (and trying) acting techniques around the world.

 

He's studied under Yoshito Ohno, son of Kazuo Ohno (who, with Tatsumi Hijikata, was the creator of Japanese Butoh in the 1960's) in Yokohama, as well with others Butoh masters like Ko Murobushi, Natsu Nakajima and Seisaku in Japan and North America.

 

Gustavo’s work is based mostly on the Butoh school of "Dance of light" (Kazuo Ohno’s line of Butoh), exploring personal inner images, trying to reach the soul of the artist himself, and expressing that through free movement, with the aim not of amazing the spectator through technique, but of touching him through a subtle but deep performance. 

 

He’s performed his Butoh in different countries (Japan, Spain, Lebanon and Mexico). In the last three years throughout China (Guangzhou, Chongqing, Dali and Hangzhou). Aside of being an explorer with a project about improvising Butoh on unique natural sites around the world documenting all his artistic travels in photographs and videos.

 

Gustavo publishes a Butoh blog, in Spanish and English,  (https://gustavothomasbutohblog.wordpress.com), showing his daily Butoh training through video, photography and texts inspired on that work.