Bishop and Hoppo Butoh-ha accepted the challenge of presenting their butoh as site-specific, rural performances. While one might consider his experiment in actualizing Hijikata’s mythic northern butoh in the real world to ultimately have been a failure, as butoh has continued to spread throughout Japan and, indeed, all over the world, others have taken up the challenge of localizing butoh in rural areas. Today one can find butoh thriving in both urban environments and remote landscapes. The expansion of butoh reflects its ambivalent combination of urbanity and rurality—on the one hand thematizing the Northern (Hoppo) area as the Urheimat of Hijikata’s “darkness” and, on the other hand, emphasizing a ubiquitous, transnational, and nomadic nature detached from any cultural values. Butoh has remained amorphous and capable of expanding its cultural articulation. G