Toshihiro Asakura - Maro Akaji - 1979

Maro Akaji

Toshihiro Asakura
Les Éditions de Minuit/1979/Japanese/Toshihiro Asakura

In the late 1960s, Japanese photographer Toshihiro Asakura made his debut as a photographer in 1969 with the serialization of “Shinjuku Furaibo” in the magazine Asahi Graph, which was based on the energetic and chaotic city of Shinjuku, a crossroads of various cultures including theater, music, and photography, where many people from the countryside came. He continued to work on “Ryumin Retsuden” and “Shinjuku Furaibo”. Toshihiro Asakura continued to publish serialized works in the same magazine, including “Ryumin Retsuden” (1972), “Wandering Songs” (1975), and “Tenkure Geijinroku” (1978). This book is also a collection of works featuring Akaji Maro, the leader of the Dairakudakan butoh troupe, whose works have been published in Asahi Graph and various other magazines. Eikoh Hosoe's “Kamaitachi” (1969) is another well-known example of a butoh dancer and photographer, but this book also features Maro, painted in white, with an unusual presence. Asakura's afterword to the book describes Maro as “a transparent, supple body full of frenzy,” and the book crystallizes a 10-year journey of intermittent filming in search of “something that can be born when it confronts a single 'landscape. Text by film director Seijun Suzuki and poet Norio Osaki. (Included in The Japanese Photobook 1912-1990)