Kokoro Dance
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Founded in 1986 by Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi,
Vancouver-based Kokoro Dance has become one of Canada’s most enduring and influential butoh companies.
Known for performances that explore the aesthetics of impermanence, asymmetry, and subtle grace, Kokoro has presented
more than a thousand performances across five continents. Their contributions to the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park in
July 2025 brought this lineage into direct dialogue with Rubinoff’s steel sculptures and the park’s landscape.
Performance Residency at JRSP (July 22–25, 2025)
Butoh Workshop (July 22, 1:30–4:30 pm)
Bourget and Hirabayashi led a free public butoh workshop for all experience levels, introducing imagery-based movement,
butoh walking, and the concept of ma—the space between events. The workshop connected participants to the open fields
and sculptures, embodying JRSP’s educational mission.
Wabi-Sabi (July 24, 12:00 pm, former barn/studio)
An improvised butoh work shaped by Zen aesthetics and the principles of simplicity (kanso), asymmetry (fukinsei),
subtle grace (yūgen), and tranquility (seijaku). With music from Joseph Hirabayashi and guitar
improvisation by Jay, each presentation was unique to its moment.
A Simple Way (July 25, 8:00 pm, outdoors by Series 3 sculptures)
Originally created in 2012 as a solo for Barbara and reimagined at JRSP to include Jay, the work distilled themes of aging,
loss, resilience, and yūgen. The sculptures served as co-performers, placing art and dance in living dialogue.
Artist Biographies
Barbara Bourget
Barbara Bourget is the Co-Artistic Director of Kokoro Dance and Co-Founder of the
Vancouver International Dance Festival (est. 2000). She has performed ballet, modern, and butoh for
over sixty years with the Vancouver Ballet Society, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Paula Ross
Dance Company, Mountain Dance, EDAM, and Kokoro Dance. With Jay, she has choreographed 200+ works, including 82 full-evening
stage and site-specific productions. She holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University (2003), received the
City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award in Dance (2011), and was inducted (with Jay) into the
Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame (Oct 2022).
Jay Hirabayashi
Jay Hirabayashi is the Co-Artistic Director of Kokoro Dance and Co-Founder of the
Vancouver International Dance Festival. He has performed contemporary and butoh dance for forty-five years
with the Paula Ross Dance Company, Mountain Dance, Karen Jamieson Dance Company, EDAM, and Kokoro Dance, and has taught
butoh Zen jazz dance for twenty-eight years. He received the Canada Council for the Arts Jacqueline Lemieux Prize (1994)
and a 1995 grant to study butoh in Japan with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno and Natsu Nakajima. He holds an MA in Buddhist Studies
(UBC, 1978) and was inducted (with Barbara) into the Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame (Oct 2022). Jay is the son of
Gordon K. Hirabayashi, who posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012).
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