Butoh dance as death pedagogy practice in a primary school: a mixed methods analysis

This article examines the integration of butoh dance into death pedagogy through the workshop The Great Breath of the Seasons, developed and carried out by the authors in two fifth-grade classrooms in Padua, Italy. The project sought to support children’s meaning-making around death within the elementary school context by engaging them in butoh dance. Drawing on a mixed-methods analysis of the workshop, which involved 38 students aged 10–11, the article highlights the potential of butoh as an embodied practice within death pedagogy. More broadly, it contributes to research on performance practices that use the body as a medium for constructing meaning in relation to death.