butoh“Butoh is a Japanese avant-garde contemporary dance. After graduating from university in Madrid, I entered the world of Butoh by coordinating a Latin American tour for the theater-dance company Bufons. Years later in New York, I experienced a performance by Sankai Juku at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and participated in a workshop by Atsushi Takenouchi. Then, I contributed to introduce Butoh to the National Center for the Arts in Mexico. Ongoing projects blend Butoh and immersive media.” — PV
Madrid Bufons theater-dance company I New York Atsushi Takenouchi I Mexico City National Center for the Arts
“Butoh lies in its radical embrace of the body as a bridge for memory, transformation, and the unseen. As a filmmaker, Valiente connects with its raw silence and power. It taught him to trust gesture, to find meaning in breath and slowness. It continues inspiring his visual storytelling, blurring lines between imagined life and life as it is.”
Listening to Silence
“Pedro Valiente’s connection to Butoh reveals itself as a form shaping his vision as a filmmaker and visual artist. Drawn to Butoh’s meditative intensity —a living landscape where time, memory, and silence collide— his works breathe with a similar force found in this Japanese art form.
MADRID | Valiente’s early training was marked by an encounter with the legacy of Kazuo Ōhno, whose spirit of poetic embodiment left an imprint on his creative language. Collaborating with Bufons theater-dance company on tour in Latin America, he learned to embrace vulnerability, absurdity, and the unseen layers of human emotion. NEW YORK | Later on, he trained with Atsushi Takenouchi, who works on elemental forces of Butoh through organic, site-specific performance —immersed in a vibrant arts scene where practice and creative research intertwined. MEXICO CITY | This groundwork culminated in Flying Fish Over Mexico, a performance mixing film and poetry into an epic visual journey. It pioneered both Butoh at the National Center for the Arts, and a collaboration with Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Valiente’s ongoing projects look at new modes of presence where the human body interacts with visual architectures, and the maps between reality and imagination blur. Storytelling is reimagined in times of digital cultures.” Site I EXTERNAL REVIEW
Photo: PV I © Kazuo Ōhno Dance Studio
FFOM I Tilmun Teatro I Early Work I Training