ABSTRACT
Dairakudakan (大駱駝艦, lit. “The Great Camel Battleship”) was founded in 1972 by actor and dancer Maro Akaji (born 1943) and is now widely recognized as one of the most representative butoh companies in the world. Men and women, half naked and covered in white paint, swarm around a throne on which sits Maro, whose appearance in many of the Dairakudakan’s works, as a formidable man in a long dress with a white face is, according to Maro, an image of a midwife. 1 And that exactly is his role.
