This new work stems partially from Harrell's research into the life and work of Japanese choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986), and his development of butoh, a dance form he created in part to resist the conservatism he saw permeating the choreography of postwar Japan. Hijikata situated butoh as an outlaw, literary, and surrealist dance form, drawing on themes of death, criminality, abjection, and corporeality.