Selected Quotes
"Sakamoto creates expressionist theater that evokes the mysterious, the withering and the tongue-in-cheek."
- The San Francisco Bay Guardian
"A contemporary pop spin on the classical discipline of butoh."
- The Seattle Stranger
on The Rite of Spring, etc.
"Shades of Pina Bausch crossed with Woody Allen." - Donna Perlmutter, Los Angeles Times
"Sakamoto's gift for physical nuance lends a quiet evocative grandeur to the maelstrom of performance elements and nutty script of his Rite." - LA Weekly
"Compelling...Sakamoto the choreographer approaches the unsparing power of perhaps the starkest, most pitiless "Rite" thus far created." - Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
on Doctor Chi!
"Fierce, diabolical, but human and vulnerable at its core... In swell foop, Sakamoto has rewritten film history and introduced Chi Theory into the larger discourse." - Peter Frank, LA Weekly
"Mesmerizing...rare and strange and somehow beautiful." - Sasha Anawalt, KCRW Dance Notes
on Glorious Day for an Unknown Woman
"Seductive...poetic...transformative...wistful... A commanding performer with large, expressive hands... a dramatic tour de force."
- Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"Unquestionably compelling...fascinating...Sakamoto speaks entire passages with a single movement, subtly striking deep chords...an intelligent, emotionally stirring story that's wrought with pathos."
- LA Weekly
"Excellently demonstrates butoh's potential."
- Rita Felciano, San Francisco Bay Guardian
on Amai
"A glimpse into an act of heroic transformation."
- Allan Ullrich, The Voice of Dance
on Fugue
"Satirizes the commodification in today's sound-bite culture. Sakamoto moves like a marionette with stylized syncopation, continually molding his face into different expressions for each character as if organically donning and shedding masks."
- LA Weekly
"Sakamoto contributed the most cannily-crafted piece...drawing connections between the soul and physicality of different kinds of musicians strung out between ecstacy and pain."
- South Florida Sun-Sentinel
on Blue
"An intriguing interaction...Starkly macabre...For fellow dreamers, a hypnotic, provocative tidbit for the senses."
- The Easy Reader
on Don't/Leave
"Transcendent... dreamlike... riveting."
- LA Weekly
on Don't Take It/Personally
"Satiric...savvy...spot-on"
- Peter Frank, LA Weekly
"Sets up a dialectic between the high gloss commercial art world and unmediated, 'authentic' human expression and interaction."
- Flash Art International
(As featured soloist/choreographer with The Rachel Rosenthal Company)
"Blissfully ambivalent, unsullied by a lesson plan."
- Los Angeles Times
"Remarkably moving...sensual lyricism."
- Chicago Reader