Soon after he began photographing in the 1950's, Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe saw a performance of "Kinjiki," Tatsumi Hijikata's Butoh dance. Deeply stirred by the dance form's explicit dramaticism, he saw the potential to create an expressive account of his own memories. Hosoe collaborated soon after with Hijitaka on "Kamaitachi," a performance about his childhood during wartime. He subsequently photographed the performance, not only as documentation of the event but as a secondary expressive form. In his essay "Eikoh Hosoe's Photographic Theatre," curator Marc Feustel writes, "whereas the prevailing photography of the period sought to document the real world, with 'Kamaitachi' Hosoe used photographs to recreate memory, exploring not only his personal childhood memories but also the nation's collective memory of the trauma of wartime and of the atomic bombings."
A classic example of courageous innovation in photography, and a must-have.