Outlined below is a Summary of events reported to us. In addition to the below we received a petition to stop this abuse, signed by 200 of
Rizome Lee's former students .
Katsura Kan is a regular guest teacher in this center, he was alerted about this abuse, which he totally ignored as per reports to us.
YouTube Videos:
https://youtu.be/r8wMhmNMXIg
https://youtu.be/RSWmucLE7VY
"Summary of The
Beginning
On September 18, 2019 in the evening, Subbody Butoh School
facilitators Özerk Sonat Pamir and Robert Montilla (also known as Adam Koan,
his stage name) confronted
Rhizome Lee (real name
Ryuji Oka, a Japanese national
living here in Dharamsala, India on a tourist visa) about some information that
came to us from Dara (former student, email below) about Lee engaging in
abusive behavior. The Subbody facility is located at MDR 44, Jogibara Rd,
McleodGanj, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh 176219, India 50 meters behind Illiterati
Cafe.
What he told us is that the stories we were hearing were
true and that he had a problem with
pedophilia, which he calls "Lolita Syndrome."
He told us he
sexually abused three underage girls over the last 15 years.
Right after we heard this statement, we contacted a psychologist
who gave us advise on the steps to take (Rajita Ramachandram) to report this
because we were concerned about future victims and that there were currently 2
children still living in the space. The 2 children belong to the Indian family
that works for Lee.
Two women from the family that work for him were molested
when they were underage (victim 2 and victim 3). Victim 3 explained this condition
to school manager of the time (Vishal) and Vishal told Dara and Piyu
(Priyadarshani-email below). Soon after, Victim 3 died from Malaria, though not
everybody agrees she actually caught Malaria. That there are holes in that
story.
Also: Lee asked a former student to have sex with him as a way for him to cure his pedophilia. She declined. She also does not wish to reveal her name at this time.
Details of His Talk
with Ozerk and Adam
That same day, September 18, Robert and Ozerk asked him if
these were only sexual fantasies or if he acted upon them. He told us that when
he moved to Jogiwara from Japan (we don’t know the exact year but it should be
around 2002-2004), he loved a 5-year-old girl that lived in a near-by village.
He said he wanted to turn this child into his ideal wife and since he loved
her, then whatever he did was okay.
We asked for the details of his actions with this girl and
he told us he was having sexual gratification from touching her and she was on
his lap when they were playing together and he was enjoying that. We learned
from him that this situation continued for 10 years until she was 15. She was a
Tibetan girl. Priyadarshani has made contact with this girl before, but she
refuses to reveal her name for India social ramifications. She is no longer in Dharamsala, but in a city
(maybe New Delhi).
Oka told us that he now feels guilty because he believed at
that time he was in love with her and now realizes it was sexual desire. He
explained that he confused love and sexual desire. After she left, he attempted
to stay in contact with her, as she was suffering mentally and emotionally from
this experience. In 2019 he encouraged her to write her traumatic past in novel
form so that she could transform her suffering into creation. Oka also told us
he was teaching how to write to Victim 1 when she was young. He told us he
believed only he can cure her from her suffering.
When this young woman left the village, Oka said he fell in
love with another 15-year-old girl whose family worked for him. The family
father was also Oka's best friend. He asked to marry her but was rejected. She
soon married to another man, and is now a mother. She still works for him as
his assistant at the studio and he claims he is no longer attracted to her
because she is a mother. Her child plays around Oka and during the day they are
generally in Oka’s workroom/ livingroom.
Oka turned his affections to the other daughter of the
family (we don’t know her age). At the end of 2018 she complained about the
situation with Oka to the Indian manager of the studio (Vishal), as he was
taking her (victim 3) to the hospital in another town. Shortly after this
event, she died from complications of malaria so the story goes.
After she died, Oka said he began to feel guilty about his
behavior through the years. He also expressed that he cannot function sexually
anymore and that he is no longer attracted to young girls. He described his
affliction as the "Lolita Syndrome" as stated above.
Upon hearing his confession, we told him that he should
immediately stop teaching and that children should not be in his presence. We
told him clearly that this was the end of his school and his subbody dance
method.
Oka said that he believed he should continue teaching and
that he was transforming his condition through his method and he just needed
some more time to heal himself completely. Currently, as mentioned on his
website (www.subbody.net) he has stepped down from teaching, but is still the
owner of the space. Spring semester is beginning on March 9, 2020.
We told him he should be under psychiatric treatment. He
said he didn’t believe in social institutions and no one knows him better than himself.
This conversation lasted around 3,5 hours. When we left the room we told everything
to Julie Becton Gillum (from North Carolina, curator of Asheville Butoh
Festival).
We contacted a therapist, Rajita, who supported us from this
first day and she offered much advice including exposing this condition
publicly. We wanted to guarantee that Oka would not ever hurt a child again.
That he should be isolated from children and should never teach. Rajita found
us the contacts of many NGO’s (including Jagori). She also advised us to
contact Commission For Protecting Child Rights at Shimla. Dharamsala Jagori NGO
was contacted and we had 2 meetings with them in person. The person we were in
contact with at that NGO was the former mayor of Dharamsala. Unfortunately, Lee has not been stopped from
carrying on his school.
After the first conversation with Oka, on different days we
talked to him more than 10 hours (former students and current manager also
joined these conversations). Each time we had to explain again and again why he
shouldn’t teach, and why we needed a legal institution to take care of this
condition.
At one point he asked us why we didn’t believe him when he
told us he no longer feels attracted to children.
We told him he had been lying to all his students for 15
years. People who are interested in dance ended up at his school and no one
would have joined his school in the first place if they knew what was going on.
We told him we didn’t have any confidence in his words about his current
sexuality.
His Confession in
Front of the Class
Two days after we first talked to him about this issue, he
confessed his condition to a group of current and former students (including
Ian, Julie, Harsha, Robert , Ozerk, and other students, and the current manager.
The others were not willing to take action, but among them was Yi (who is a
current facilitator for Spring semester).
Leaving Subbody
After this confession, we decided as a group to leave
Subbody School. We decided that all the students should be refunded (this
process was completed in almost a month). The manager (Naireet Bashak, email
below) which connects Subbody to a legal business entity at the time then said
he was resigning from the manager position, but it was false. He did not resign
and kept supporting Lee. At this moment, we do not know if he is still the
manager.
After two days we left the school, we heard from one of the
current students (Ian) that children were still present at Oka’s room when Ian
went there to sort out his refunding. A day after hearing this information from
Ian, in order to protect children and to stop new students from coming to the
studio, we exposed the information we had in our social media accounts and on
one of the official websites of the school which was www.subbody.in (now no
longer up).
Several former students protested our action of exposing
this condition. Two female students from the community contacted with the
family of the second and third victims and made a voice recording in which the
Victim 2 and her sister (also have a daughter around 5-7 years old and she is
working at the school) denied that anything happened. These recordings,
however, have been gathered from Yi who is in 100% support of Oka. We have not
heard these recordings.
This statement contradicts what Oka had told to us and the
group. It is clear that they are not interested in revealing any damaging
information about their relationship with Oka.
During one of our meetings with the community, Piyu joined
us through video conference, she told us she has the contact of the Victim 1
and showed us a message from Victim1 (by hiding her name) and read it; which
clarified that Victim 1 is experiencing emotional and mental problems due to
her past with Oka.
Victim 1 expressed that she does not wish to bring up her
past trauma publicly by acting as a witness against Oka and hopes that she will
have the power to do so in the future. We asked Piyu to tell Victim 1 we are
ready to support her if she is willing to take action.
Oka also sent a mass email to former students defending
himself against the information on subbody.in, but in the email statement, he
does mention a rather strange line of sexuality and children--"skinship"
(email is attached in word documented and this specific section highlighted,
and the email can be forwarded on demand).
Five police officers also arrived on the 12th because they
got a hold of the statement from subbody in. When this happened, Oka sent Ozerk
and Robert this following email, in which he is lying to the police about his
condition as the main teacher. In fact he has been guiding this year and the
rest of the years that the facility has been in operation. All the students of
this year can easily tell you he was definitely the main teacher (we can give you
their emails upon request). Oka by law
can't teach or a make a business on a tourist visa. He tried working with a
loophole by attaching a local business entity (Naireet or formerly Vishal) in
order to say he was just hired by them.
The following is the email Oka sent to Ozerk and Adam on
October 12, 2019 (we can share the original email if wanted):
Dear Adam and Ozerk,
How are you?
I hope to calm down and listen to Life.
Yesterday, five policemen visited me, with a copy of your
statement of
subbody.in. I don’t know how they got it.
They interviewed me and checked all the spaces in the house.
Finally, they
demanded me to write a statement. I wrote a statement like
the following:
Statement
12 October 2019
1. I am Ryuji Oka, Japanese. Twenty years ago, I had a
contract to rent this
land for thirty years with my landowner Madan Shing and built
this house.
2. My friend Babul made a foundation “Subbody Butoh
Insititute,” and I
became an employer of the foundation as a facilitator of
Butoh dance.
But, five years ago, the foundation system in India has
collapsed, then I had
to change to a tourist visa. I know that the tourist visa
holder can’t work at all
in India. Then I stopped teaching at all five years ago. The
participant's age
was 20-70 years old.
3. Now I stopped all activity and just meditation and
writing. I will never do
any activity here at all.
Ryuji Oka
March 9, 2020: Spring
Semester Begins
The school is opening for Spring term very soon with the
facilitator Yi (email below) and Honza Svasek (email below). 2 days ago she
wrote Adam an email telling him to come back to the school because she forgives
him and knows all the exposure he did was simply because he was in pain. She
said she was trying to commit suicide in September specifically due to Adam's
actions.
Yi very clearly told Adam in email that the space will accept both pedophiles and even murderers because this
is a space to turn the tendency to hurt oneself or another into creativity
instead.
Take note, neither Honza nor Yi have any experience in social work
or therapy. Yi in the past has recruited students without them knowing anything
about the history of Subbody, and when the information has gotten to them, it
left them shocked and very disappointed.
Yi in October also came up with a false collaboration
between the Tushita meditation space and Subbody Butoh School. They were going
to use the space as an extension of Subbody teaching and never let the Tushita
organization know. Many people reported this to Tushita and Tushita immediately
told Yi to take them off the event.
Honza Svasek is the other facilitator and holder of another
space called Free Butoh School situated in a farm (Durgadahali) 2 hours north of Bangalore, India.
He believes it is all lies. The figure on the right will be the pitch he will
be telling the future students.
Other Teachers Worth
Mentioning or Negligent
Mushimaru Fujieda
according to the Subbody website (subbody.net) is due to teach there this
month. He is a well-known figure in the Butoh world and lives in Japan. Has
traveled a lot internationally. Adam mentioned in message what Lee confessed to
us, but he replied that he finds no problem in simply being in his space
because he is "Lee's friend." Adam also talked to Mushimaru's student
who travels with him and she has chosen to be silent. Note: Mushimaru has
worked with children before in the field of butoh.
A very good friend of Lee, has kept silent about the whole
affair. Adam messaged him with the information and he only replied with a thanks
for the information.
When Adam brought up the situation about Katsura Kan to Lee
in email, Lee wrote back that the Families Against Cult Teachings are wrong.
That it was a "setup" and is due to "the father's failures as a
father being projected onto Katsura Kan".
Gadu Doushin
A former Japanese Subbody student, now a teacher
in Minneapolis. The school name is Heart of Tao Resonance Art. On his website,
it appears he also works with children. Gadu was emailed by Adam, only to get a
very angry reply by Gadu saying everything said was 100% false and never to
email him again."
