By Susan Reiter

Whatever specific images many people associate with Butoh—the influential contemporary dance form that originated in the work of several seminal Japanese dancers of the 1950s—they are probably based on a few, high-profile exponents whose work has had broad exposure. But Jeff Janisheski, a co-founder and co-curator (as well as performer) of the Third Biennial CAVE New York Butoh Festival, wants people to finally experience the range of the vibrant dance form.

“Butoh is an international form; it’s incredibly diverse in terms of its aesthetics and its style,” Janisheski explains. “So one can’t pin down or represent it through one group or one aesthetic alone. It needs to be represented in all its diversity.”

The festival, organized by CAVE, a Williamsburg performing arts venue, is a sprawling month-long series of performances, as well as numerous workshops, lectures and film screenings. The sheer number of events on the schedule is almost daunting, with performances—by veteran masters of the form as well as emerging exponents—taking place at four venues: CAVE, Theater for the New City, Japan Society and The Noguchi Museum.

“We cast a very wide net when we’re curating the festival. We accept and embrace all the various manifestations of Butoh, from those with a more Zen-like quality, to more gritty, punk-like performances,” says Janisheski.

In addition to providing a forum for contemporary exponents who are taking the aesthetics and principles of Butoh in novel and individual directions, the festival will celebrate the 101st birthday of Kazuo Ohno, one of the legendary founders of Butoh who continued to perform until 1999. The Oct. 27 event at Japan Society also includes a Butoh Marathon of various performers followed by the first local performance in 11 years of Yoshito Ohno, the master’s son, who will perform the solo, Emptiness (Kuu).

“The amazing thing about Butoh is that it is a form in which you don’t have to necessarily have trained. It’s really about discovering yourself and your own unique dance. Even some of the most famous Butoh performers, like Min Tanaka, never studied with anyone. He really created his own form. There are people who certainly have studied, and there are people who have just followed their own path,” explains Janisheski, who has trained in, and performed, Butoh since 1989, and studied with Ohno.

The intensive two- and three-day workshops are a crucial component of the festival, a means “to pass down the technique that has been evolving over the past 50 years,” Janisheski says. “But another purpose is to educate the public one of the most important dance forms to emerge in the 20th century. It is a misunderstood form.”

The festival overlaps with Japan Society’s “Kazuo Ohno 101: 3-Week Butoh Parade,” which concludes with the October 27 Ohno event. The series continues this week with the world premiere of Mourning, a collaboration between the masterful choreographer/performer duo Eiko and Koma and pianist Margaret Leng Tan, and next week with Akira Kasai’s Butoh America, a commissioned new work.

Oct. 21-Nov. 21. For info. call 212-561-9539 or visit Caveartspace.org. Oct. 27, Kazuo Ohno 101: Three-Week Butoh Parade at Japan Society, 333 E. 47 St. (betw. 1st and 2nd Aves.), 212-715-1258 or Japansociety.org.