Butoh's topics - tribe.net

Installation Perfomer/Aerialist--Call Out

AIRBUTOH — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:03:19 GMT

Hello Movers! Below you will find a description of a project for a production in January. I need a third aerialist who could be integrated for the installation. If interested, please contact me a.s.a.p. We are having a fundraiser for Day of the Dead to benefit the following event:

SAN FRANCISCO COLLABORATIVE BI-CULTURAL ARTISTIC FUSION BOMB- CALL FOR ARTISTS

2010 ART HAPPENINGS

Request for Aerialist/Performance Artist

Deadline: Nov. 5th

Project Benefits: Resume piece. Photographs of your work. Promotion and exposure to new audiences and movement artists. To be a part of inspiring collaborative work.

Eligibility: Open to artists living in the Bay Area

Description:

This is an invitation to enter and exciting collaboration with performance artists experienced in belly dance, butoh, and aerial dance within the San Francisco area for projected local events and in Los Angeles (for benefit events benefiting an Ethiopian village in Africa).

We will have an installation sculpture piece that will suspend from the ceiling and be climbed upon by one to three aerialists. The sculpture will be an animal skeleton design.
We will have a production team to help work out the rigging and tech logistics. We encourage collaboration of resources, networks, and contacts as a group, we desire more exposure and events.
We prefer artists working in aerial, modern dance, butoh, and the likes. A deer skeleton with antlers is our aim for this particular project. The theme will be fusion, and the structure will be structurally sound for aerial climbing. We like the effect of a skeleton with antlers.

The choreographers are Jill Parker & Monikah Barriga. We are loosely working with the theme Fusion for now and that may evolve and change as we go (tribal fusion belly dance, butoh philosophy as it relates to audience and environment, and aerial movement with theatrics). Jill has 22 years of experience as an international bellydance teacher, choreographer, director of Ultra Gypsy and the Foxglove Sweethearts. Monikah has eight years of experience in butoh and a fusion of aerial arts for venues such as Symbiosi, LACMA, Coachella Arts Festival, INBA Museo, Solids sculpture events, Electric Daisy Carnival.

This will be an excellent opportunity to learn how to work with other artists in a collaborative environment for venues we are targeting such as Yerba Buena Center or the Arts, Supper Club, Ethiopian Benefit Events hosted by Marco Guzzardo.

Application Information:

All application materials must be submitted on-line to contacts listed below. There is no
application fee.

Please send the following:

* Pictures of past works and collaborations
* Name, residence, contact info., and a brief paragraph of why you would be interested in this project.

Contact Person:

Monikah Barriga: madamemoxie@gmail.com
415-200-5595

Note: Welder does certified industrial work and has collaborated with
Flaming Lotus Girls for 14 years.

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Diego Piñón - Butoh Mexicano - Open Class in LA this Thursday

Shakina — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:34:57 GMT

Don't miss this rare opportunity to work with Diego Piñón!

Open class - all levels of experience welcome!

Thursday, September 24
7PM-9PM
$15
Foresight Studios
3501 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

$150 loft/studio in attic ~1250 feet^2 -OR- $250 shared room ~175 feet^2 (oakland west)

w.i.m — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:07:39 GMT

My Dears,

I just discovered, to my amazement, that the attic of the new place I moved in has an incredible potential.

Visit the posting at
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/roo/1370066367.html
to contact the person who posted this.

~ 150$ or cheaper for a loft in the attic, in addition to a performance training / massage-therapy / meditation space -- ~1800 feet^2 (OR 250$ for a shared room -- ~300 feet^2)

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Semimaru (of Sankai Juku) Butoh WS August 2009 in Toyama, Japan

rad nelac — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:20:36 GMT

>>this information is from Kokutoh-in official website: http://www.kokutoh-in.jp/

Semimaru Butoh Dance Workshop 2009 in Toyama, Japan
from August 21st to 29th, 2009

Semimaru, who is one of the founders and a dancer of Sankai juku for 33 years , will have Butoh workshop in August 2009 in Toyama prefecture, Japan.
The Semimaru workshop has been made annually for almost 20 years.This workshop is made up of the basic exercises of the Butoh method that Semimaru has elaborated and the public presentation of the choreography work developed through them that all participants will be encouraged to take part in.

Although it depends on each participant to be partof the performance, he/she is recommended to go through the entire course. It's a resident style with 2 very simple meals per day, taking a person-on-duty system for cooking and washing etc... The actual training occupies no less than 6 hours per day( including preparation for costume and stage set etc). Not only beginners but also infants are welcome here. Located in the rich nature of Toyama, AGURI-KAN, a closed-down old elementary school, is also a good place for chill out in the summer.

We are also pleased to have professional and experienced dancers and performers here with us to enjoy the workshop. Come on, join us at AGURI-KAN, Toyama, and enjoy the beautiful summer in the western part of Japan !

Note: *There is no direct transportation service to access to thevenue from any airport. Please see the brochure that we will send toyou after confirming your application for access.

Date: Aug 21nd (Fri) - 29th (Sat), 2009
Purpose: Butoh Basic Training and CreationCanditdate
Age: 16- 55 / sex unquestioned
Workshop place: AGURI-KAN
410 Nonaka, Nyuzen city Shimo-Shinkawa-gun,Toyama-ken, JAPAN
TEL +81-(0)765-78-0072

Note: *There may be no facility for international phone call or internet access.
Performance Venue:Kurobe Internatioal Cultural Center - Colare
http://www.colare.jp/ (Japanese site only)
20 Mitsukaichi, Kurobe-shi, Toyama-ken 938-0031
TEL +81-(0)765-57-1201

Charge:
- all-day participation:30,000yen (resident) / 20,000yen (not resident)
- short participation :7,000/day (resident) / 4,000/day (not resident)
*No charge for rehearsal and performance days

information and application:
email to: kokutohin@hotmail.co.jp

*Email us and we will email back to you with further information.
Kokutoh-In http://www.kokutoh-in.jp/
TEL +81-(0)3-3498-9622 FAX　+81-(0)3-3498-9624

Note:*The performance is a co-production with Colare.
*There is no direct transportation service to access to the venue fromany airport.
Please see the brochure that we will send to you afterconfirming your application for access.
*No interpreter. Language is not important.

posted in Butoh - 6 replies

Th' light sister oph Butoh

ISYS SATKHA SAERIPHIEL — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:38:39 GMT

Samadhic Bliss Illumination Trance
th' light bodhi twin sister oph Butoh was developed in 2001 by myselph, Isys Satkha an yu can read about it or experience it through chanting RA~!

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Butoh NOT in SF

lokifreign — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:07:11 GMT

Anything. Anywhere else. Post it please!

posted in Butoh - 10 replies

message from Mexico

nathan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:12:47 GMT

I got this email and wanted to pass it on.

Dear Students,
It is with great regret that I inform you of Diego’s recent visa difficulties. For the past 11 years, Diego has been granted annual visas that permit him to teach and perform in the US as an artist of unique, cultural value. We anticipated the same for 2009 and scheduled numerous workshops, performances, lectures, and events across the US. Unfortunately, the visa for 2009 has been denied due to technicalities. This means that Diego is not currently permitted to enter the US and must cancel these engagements. We deeply apologize for all inconvenience this has caused and share in everyone’s disappointment. We are working with immigration lawyers to remedy this situation as soon as possible and fully expect Diego’s visa status to be positively re-evaluated. We hope to bring Diego back to the US in autumn but must wait for proper permission. Diego greatly appreciates your continued support throughout this difficult circumstance.
Thank you for your patience and consideration.

Currently Diego is offering 3 weeklong intensives in Mexico for those who wish to continue training.
**New students who have not previously studied with Diego should submit the info as requested below
but write in greater detail about your background and intentions. PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH WORKSHOP YOU’RE INTERESTED IN.

AUGUST 10-15: Summer Intensive, Tlalpujahua, Michoacan, MEXICO
Weeklong INTENSIVE (40+hrs.): $375, $175 deposit (non-refundable)
**Registration DEADLINE: JULY15th**

OCTOBER 26-31: Dia De Los Muertos Intensive, Tlalpujahua, Michoacan, MEXICO
Weeklong INTENSIVE (40+hrs.): $375, $175 deposit (non-refundable)
**Registration DEADLINE: OCT. 1st**

DECEMBER 16-20: Winter Intensive, Tlalpujahua, Michoacan, MEXICO
Weeklong INTENSIVE (40+hrs.): $375, $175 deposit (non-refundable)
**Registration DEADLINE: NOV. 15th**

Please submit inquiry to butohmexicano@gmail.com including:
1) Paragraph describing your background and previous work with Diego.
2) Paragraph describing your specific intentions for this workshop.
Include one day before and one day after dates listed for travel days.
Please do not purchase plane tickets until you have registered with deposit and the workshop is confirmed.
Housing in pre-arranged hostel-style accommodations with kitchens and bathrooms, approx. $9/night.
Fresh food from local markets, estimate $5/day. Local transportation, approx. $25.
Please budget an additional $50 for possible excursions.
Once registered, you will receive complete info and preparation details.

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

NEW! Ongoing Butoh Training (EVERYDAY) in East Bay - Berkeley - http://subterraneanarthouse.org/classes/

kitsunebutoh — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:20:21 GMT

SUNRISE BUTOH
Hiroko Tamano
Every day of the week! 8-9am
(begins April 1st)
Donation

INTRO TO BUTOH
Hiroko Tamano
Sundays 7:30pm-10pm
(begins April 5th)

Weekly training offered by Hiroko Tamano. Open to all of the curious ones.

Hiroko Tamano was born in Fukuoka, Japan 1952 (spring experienced 57 times). She began studying Butoh with Hijikata Tatsumi in 1971 in Tokyo. Moved to Berkeley, California with Koichi Tamano in 1979.

Please join us for on-going butoh training. All levels are welcomed.
Come dance, experience your butoh body.

BUTOH EXPERIENCE
rotating teachers (curated by Christina Braun)
Saturdays 12:30-2:30
BEGINS THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 25th!!

April 25: Christina Braun

May 2: Deborah Butler/Kitsune

May 9: Guest Teacher

May 16 & 30: Iu-Hui Chua

$10 per 2 hour session- cash donation only
subterranean arthouse
2179 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(between Shattuck and Fulton)
Easy Bart Access from Downtown Berkeley

**BIOS AND CLASS DESCRIPTIONS BELOW**

Christiina Braun leads: April 25, May 23, July 25, August 22, Sept. 26, Oct. 24 and other dates including most 4th Saturdays in 2009.

Dance artist Christina Braun's collaborations with composers have been presented regularly since 2002, including the Thailand International Butoh Festival "New Generations" 2006, and the West Wave Dance Festival "World Forms" 2007. Christina has performed with Koichi and Hiroko Tamano's Harupin-Ha since 1998, and Mary Sano and her Duncan Dancers since 1997. Christina enjoyed choreographing the 2007 Woman's Will production of Mac Wellman's play Antigone. In 2008, Christina co-founded BUTOH SanFrancisco to foster the growth of the Bay Area butoh artist and audience communities. SF Butoh LAB is Christina’s project, whose mission is to promote peace through art exchange by producing new dance performances, symposia and workshops. In her creativity and performance trainings, Christina gratefully acknowledges the direct sourcing of specific exercises and concepts. Influential master teachers include Akiko Motofuji, Yoshito and Kazue Ohno, Akira Kasai, Yumiko Yoshioka, Hiroko Tamano and Katsura Kan.

Practice with Christina Braun celebrating the 50th birthday of the butoh body.
Can embracing the butoh aesthetic enliven our daily life and our performance energy? This experiment is open to all levels of movers. Dance makers of any form may especially appreciate this class. Bring a favorite movement to share.
We begin with floor and moving barre warm-ups. Feet and faces get special attention. Weird walks follow. We jump for our breath together. Novel movements are explored utilizing butoh-fu, the poetry of butoh. Transform into something other. Collaboratively improvise and witness. Stretch and breathe slowly.

Deborah Butler/Kitsune leads: May 2, June 20 & 27, July 11, 18 and other dates including most 3rd Saturdays in 2009.

Deborah Butler has been a butoh practitioner for 15 years. She apprenticed with the late doranne crable (Kagami) from 1994-1999 in Olympia, WA. After moving to Boston in 1999, Deborah continued her studies with Akira Kasai, Maureen Fleming, Katsura Kan, and Diego Pinon. Deborah began teaching in 1997 with Art & Revolution and has since taught workshops and performed at The Evergreen State College, Rhode Island School of Design, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and throughout the Boston Metro area, most notably the Somerville ArtBeat Festival. In 2002, Deborah was invited to showcase her solo, lilies & terrors, at the San Francisco Butoh Festival Finale and formed Kitsunebutoh, a collaborative laboratory based company. From 2006-2007, Deborah curated the Boston Butoh Series. Deborah frequently performs at San Francisco’s Bare Bones Butoh. Currently a graduate student in the Somatic Psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Deborah’s research explores the intersection of Somatics, Phenomenology and Butoh.

Deborah’s Class:
My approach to teaching explores closely the direct experience of embodying a butoh body through oscillation of experience and reflection: writing, witnessing, individual and partner work are core components. We will move from image, impulse and improvisation. What is the experience of the senses as we move with our breath? What is it to “see” with our whole body? As we access the wisdom of our cells, muscles, bones, fluids and breathe, how does our experience of space shift? My classes are designed for all bodies and levels of experience and aim to provide a safe holding space for fresh perspectives to emerge.

Iu-Hui leads: May 16 & 30 August 1 & 29, Sept, 5and other dates including most 1st Saturdays, 2009.

Iu-Hui Chua studied at UC Irvine’s dance department, later graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a Race and Ethnic Relations Sociology degree. She has performed as a company member with Anna Halprin, Salt Farm, Labayan Dance, and Theaterworks. Her own work has been presented at ODC’s Summerfest, the National Asian American Dance Performances Festival, KSW’s APAture, Mills College, Bare Bones Butoh, San Francisco Art Institute, and Yugen Presents. Her belief in the importance of bringing free and interactive performance to the San Francisco community has engaged her in performing site-specific works throughout the city. Her work is highly influenced by training with Anna Halprin, Karen Williamson, Akira Kasai, Ledoh, Enrico Labayen, Alonzo King and Robert Moses. She is co-founder and co-director of the performance group Nature Theater of Oklahoma as well as founder and artistic director of the Raw Egg Collective.

Please check Subterranean Arthouse website for additional information - check back regularly as new information is being added!
Can't wait to see you there!

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

butoh in San Fran

Sirena — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:10:02 GMT

Hi all,
I'm planning on visiting SF in the beginning of Feb, and don't personally know of any Butoh groups/teachers there currently holding regular classes. Any suggestions? :)

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Yuko Kaseki bay area workshop this weekend.

moolek — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:03:28 GMT

Hello,
Here's some great, albeit last minute, news for Butoh enthusiasts and those who would like to better understand and experience Butoh.
Yuko Kaseki, one of the featured performers with inkBoat in last month's performance of 'c(H)ord' at the Yerba Buena Theatre and Izzie winner for 'Ame to Ame' at the Yerba Buena Center's Forum Room, is back in the Bay Area again from her home in Berlin to teach one of her world renown workshops.

What: 'Time Bites Poem, a Butoh Dance Improvisation Workshop' taught by Yuko Kaseki (Japan/Berlin)
From Yuko's press release: 'This course starts with body training - based on Noguchi Gymnastics and elements of Tai-chi - to reach relaxation and dynamism and to enhance the connection of the inner and outer body. We find the center of our body by concentration on Tanden (center). Development of form and sensation are generated from physical imagination.
'Sharpen up sensitivity, cut the moment, and dive into air. Play with bodies, space and time, all emotion of motion, explosion and stillness. Your body is a poem, to be all ears, eyes and tongue...'

When: Friday, May 23 from 6:00-10:00 pm; Saturday, May 24 from 2:00-6:00 pm; and Sunday, May 25 also from 2:00-6:00 pm You are encouraged to take all three sessions, but drop-in's are okay as well.

Where: Studio 210, 3435 Cesar Chavez (at Valencia). Located three blocks from the 24th Street BART Station and accessible by MUNI Lines #14, #49, #27, and #26.

How Much: $200 for all three sessions, $80 per single session

Who: Yuko Kaseki lives and works as a freelance dancer, choreographer, and teacher in Berlin (1995-present). From 1989 to 2001, Kaseki was the primary dancer in Anzu Furukawa's company Dance Butter Tokio and Verwandlungsamt. Under Furukawa's strong guidance, Kaseki developed a rich vocabulary that is rhythmic and elegant, combining elements of dance technique with music practices to creat her Butoh dance. Considered Furukawa's protege, Kaseki carries on a line of Butoh dance that is both strongly defined and unique to common perceptions of Butoh.
Kaseki founded the dance company cokaseki with Marc Ates (Director, Choreographer, Performer, Visual Designer) in 1995. Various Solo and Ensemble works have been and are performed throughout Europe, Canada, Japan, and the USA. cokaseki's works are based on Butoh and western contemporary dance technique to create concise and precise moving theare. Desperate existence exposes tragedy/comedy in dense time/space to reveal a kaleidoscope of stories.
Kaseki also collaborates with inkBoat (San Francisco), Degenerate Art Ensemble (Seattle), CAVE (New York), and others.
She also organizes and performs various improvisation series with international performers and musicians.
Her work includes: 'Tooboe' nominated for Outstanding Production by the Dora Mavor Moore Awards 2007 in Toronto; 'Let My Fish Loose' nominated for the 'No-Ballet' award by the International Dance Competition 2007 in Ludwigshafen; 'Ame to Ame' received the Best Ensemble Performance Award and was nominated for Best Choreography, Best Composition, and Best Design by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (Izzies) 2004 in San Francisco; 'Kudan' was nominated for the Toyota Choreography Award 2004 in Tokyo.
We hope you'll be able to attend one or all of these amazing workshops.

Please contact Bob Webb at bobwebb20@hotmail.com or 415-821-7124 for registration and to reserve your place.
For further information, please see below:

www.cokaseki.com
www.youtube.com/user/cokaseki
www.myspace.com/cocokaseki

Local contact: Bob Webb
bobwebb20@hotmail.com
415-821-7124

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Body Weather Farm

marielle — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:25:38 GMT

Hi,

This summer I was planning to go to Japan, And i really want to follow body weather laboratory at the Farm. Does anybody have some contact information, not the emailadress from Min Tanaka, that doesn't work. Thank you so much,

best

Marielle ( the netherlands)

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

The last creations of subbody butoh school Himalaya 2008

rhizomelee — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:02:52 GMT

Now Subbody Butoh School Himalaya 2008 has finished.
10 students trained at Himalaya to transform the subconscious body (subody) for one year and have performed each last subbody piece.

You can taste the depth and diversity of them which student digged out from the darkness of body, with overcoming the crisis of facing the edges.
You can see what is the real weakened body butoh through videos and photos.

Visit our site: www.subbody.net

Also you can apply the Subbody School 2009 and 2010.
The remain space is only two person for 2009.

Subbody Butoh School Himalaya

Rhizome Lee

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

new butoh site

Dr-Bob — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:45:56 GMT

Many of us are gathering at butohdance.ning.com . Small, not as fancy as tribe, a place to post events, some quiet discussion lists which could be enlightened by your presence, photos and videos. Free.

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Have you seen the real weakened body butoh?

rhizomelee — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:39:46 GMT

Weakened body technique has been reborn!

Do you know what is the weakened body of Hijikata Butoh?
It was essense of Hijikata Butoh.
The other characteristics which are welknown as butoh are just surface fenomena of butoh; like a white painted, like a Ganimata walk, like a slow motion, and so on.
Because Hijikata did not teach the secret of weakened body technique to any students.
After Hijikata had died, we could not see the weakened body butoh at all.
Nobody could performed it.
The secret of weakened body was sunken for a long time from this planet.
I continued to investigate in it for these ten years at the Himalaya India.
Finally the hidden method is going to be reborn now by students of Subbody Butoh School Himalaya.

You can confirm by your eyes what it is.

Now video clips and photo flips are on going.

visit the web site: www.subbody.net

Rhizome Lee

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Butoh in the bay area?

Vulgaire — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:42:25 GMT

Any suggestions? Classes? Exhibits?

posted in Butoh - 3 replies

Butoh San Francisco 80/08: Celebrating Tatsumi Hijikata's 80th Birthday EVENTS

kitsunebutoh — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:32:40 GMT

Fri Jun 27 - Sat Jun 28
BUTOH San Francisco presents
80/08: Celebrating Butoh Founder Tatsumi Hijikata’s 80th Birthday

Website: www.butohsanfrancisco.net
$15
Tickets

Location

Date and Time
School of the Arts
555 Portola Dr.
San Francisco, CA 94131 map
district: Twin Peaks/Diamond Heights

Fri Jun 27 (8pm)
Sat Jun 28 (8pm)

Description
Butoh Dance Performance

Friday, June 27 at 8:00pm
Koichi & Hiroko Tamano of Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance Company
Ledoh of SALT FARM
Christina Braun of SF Butoh LAB
Martha Matsuda of Jomon Butoh
Bob Webb of Bare Bones Butoh

Saturday, June 28 at 8:00pm
Koichi & Hiroko Tamano of Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance Company
Shinichi Iova-Koga of inkBoat
Molly Barrons of Metropolitan Butoh
Christina Braun of SF Butoh LAB
Bob Webb of Bare Bones Butoh

Each night:
Pre-show film at 7:30 & post-show artist talk
Tickets: $15 (each night) purchase tickets

School of the Arts Theatre (SOTA)
555 Portola Dr, San Francisco, CA 94131 map
24th St Bart, then Muni bus 48; Muni bus 36, 44, 52

BUTOH San Francisco
This new organization’s purpose is to promote the Butoh art form to San Francisco, bring international artists to our community, and produce performances and workshops to foster the growth of the next generation of artists and audiences. BUTOH SanFrancisco is a fiscally sponsored project of Dancers Group.

Koichi and Hiroko Tamano/Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company
Koichi TAMANO: Born in Shimada, Shizuoka, Japan 1946. Debut in "Bara-Iro Dance" (Rose Color Dance) by Tatsumi Hijikata 1965 in Tokyo. The first Harupin-Ha performance "Nagasu-Kujira" (Finback Whale) by Tatsumi Hijikata,1972 in Tokyo. US debut in "Japan Now" exhibition at SFMOMA in 1976.

Hiroko TAMANO: Born in Fukuoka, Japan 1952. Debut in "Gibasa" by Tatsumi Hijikata 1972 in Kyoto. Joined Harupin-Ha 1973 in Tokyo. US debut "Isamu Noguchi" exhibition at SFMOMA, 1979. artist website

Shinichi Iova-Koga/inkBoat
Shinichi (born 1968) entered the life of Butoh dance in 1991 initially through Akeno Ashikawa and then consistently through Hiroko Tamano and Yumiko Yoshioka. In 1998, he founded the performance company inkBoat. Shinichi has also collaborated intensively with Cokaseki (Germany: 2004-present), Yumiko Yoshioka and TEN PEN CHii (Germany: 1996-2001), Do Theatre (Russia: 1997-present), Minako Seki (Germany: 2001-2005), Shadowlight Theatre (SF: 1993-1997), Degenerate Art Ensemble (Seattle: 2001-present), and often creates improvisation evenings with longtime production collaborators Yuko Kaseki, Sten Rudstrom and Cassie Terman. Named one of the “25 to watch” in 2008 by Dance Magazine and awarded a “Goldie’ award by the SF Bay Guardian in 2007. Shinichi and Yuko Kaseki won “Outstanding Performance” from the Isadora Duncan Awards for the production of Ame to Ame in 2004. artist website

Ledoh/SALT FARM
LEDOH (Artistic Director) was born into the Ka-Ren culture indigenous to Burma and Northern Thailand and emigrated to the U.S. in 1972. As a soloist and member of Katsura Kan's Kyoto-based dance company, Saltimbanques, in the early 1990s he traveled and performed throughout Brazil, Europe, Thailand and Japan. In 1998 he founded SALT FARM, a performance collective based in San Francisco. Ledoh and SALT FARM generate series of site-specific performances that integrate choreography with original electronic scores, mobile set designs, and video projection. Past SALT FARM projects have focused on themes of collapse (Abacus Series, 2000-2002) and displacement (River of Sand, 2002-2004). Current project COLORMEAMERICA is the culmination of a two-year exploration titled Signature Required: Life during wartime (a project of Creative Capital). Ledoh continues to research and record the stories, dances, and rituals of his native Ka-Ren culture as raw materials for performance projects, and as a result is a featured artist in a current Berlin-based film production titled Burma Diaspora. artist website

Christina Braun/SF Butoh LAB Choreographer
Christina’s collaborations with composers have been presented regularly since 2002, including the West Wave Dance Festival 2007 and the Thailand International Butoh Festival 2006. As a dancer, Christina Braun has been a member of Mary Sano and her Duncan Dancers since 1997, the Tamano’s Harupin-ha since 1998, and Katsura Kan’s Saltimbanques since 2004. artist website

Martha Matsuda/Jomon Butoh
Since Martha Matsuda “discovered” Butoh in 1994, she has performed with Harupin-ha, Metropolitan Butoh, SF Butoh LAB and at the Bare Bones Butoh performance series. In October 2007, she joined Harupin-ha in New York City to celebrate Kazuo Ohno’s 101st birthday. Her performance project, Jomon Butoh, regularly collaborates with vibrational master Mark Deutsch.

Bob Webb/Bare Bones Butoh
Bob Webb likes to divide his time more or less equally between theatre and dance, with the odd opera, rave, and/or street performance thrown in for good measure. He makes most of his living as a stage manager, but he is also an Equity actor and a butoh dancer who has performed literally all over the U.S. (including Hawaii), France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Japan, and Thailand. When not on or behind a stage, he reads a lot, models for artists, and spends as much time as possible outside with a pack on his back.

Production Team
Jeff Brown, Christina Braun, Claire Duplantier and Bob Webb.

posted in Butoh - 3 replies

Vashon Island Workshop Sept 3-7, 2008

Dr-Bob — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:32:17 GMT

I am forwarding this from my friends Maureen and Shinjo. Both are expressive performers I have seen on many occasions:

hello dancing and meditating friends,

i am very excited about this upcoming event that i am co-leading with zen monk butoh dancer Shinjo.
the attached pictures are her dancing at the amazing hand carved indonesian pagoda that graces the exquisite land we will be gathering on.
would love to connect with you there or anywhere in the dance!
happy solstice...be well, maureen

ROOT AND FLOWER: Life and Butoh
A 5-Day Dancing Meditation
with teachers Shinjo and Maureen Freehill

September 3-7, 2008
At An Exquisite Vashon Island Sanctuary
with Indonesian Pagoda, Beautiful Gardens with Asian Antiquities,
Meadows, Ponds, Indoor and Outdoor Studios and Stages

Practices Include:
Butoh
Zen Meditaion
Dance in the Landscape
Body/Mind Training
Contact Improvisation
Live Performance

Join us in this exquisite Vashon Island, WA sanctuary as we dance between studio and temple; daily life and spiritual practice; awakening both mindfulness and vibrantly playful presence. We will share nutritious meals and all aspects of "temple" life in this deep exploration of non-seperation with self, other beings and all of life. We will close with a public performance on Sunday.

This intensive retreat is designed to enrich and enlighten our daily lives and practices of butoh, performing arts, bodywork and/or meditation. Contact us for an application--enrollment limited.

Program Fee: 300 dollars if registered with paid deposit before August 6. 400 dollars after August 6. Food and lodging 100 dollars. Work study discounts available for low income students and artists.

ALSO: Attend a Full Moon Performance at the Sanctuary on August 16 (contact Shinjo for more information)

For questions and application please contact:
Maureen at www.maureenfreehill.net

About the Teachers:

SHINJO is an ordained Zen monk who lived at Sogenji Monestery in Okayama Japan for 11 years studying under Shodo Hirada Roshi. Shinjo trained in Butoh under Kazuo Ohno, Katsura Kan and Min Tanaka. She formed her own butoh group "Stillwater" before entering the monestery where she continued dancing and began solo work and performances. She has taught butoh classes and workshops in Paris, Poland, Japan and currently on Vashon Island, WA, where she is beginning a life of integrating butoh with Zen practice.

MAUREEN FREEHILL is known for innovative ways of fusing eastern and western practices of somatics and spirituality and viewing performance as a vehicle for personal, cultural and global awakening. She has been a performer and somatic/dramatic art instructor for over 25 years. She holds an MFA in Directing/Asian Performance Yoga Teacher Certification. She lived, studied and performed for 5 years in Japan with butoh masters Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno. She teaches and performs locally and internationally including events with Katsura Kan, Akira Kasai, Koichi Tamano, and Noh master Kanze Hideo.

PS...feel free to forward this to interested others...

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Camp CONTACT at Burning Man!

CeruleanShine — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:17:56 GMT

Registration for Camp CONTACT at Burning Man 2008 is now open!

Contact Camp has been a fixture on the playa for the past three years, and we're bringing it back in style for 2008. We've got some new infrastructure, a distributed leadership team, and a new on-line registration system. We plan to better coordinate work party participation and work shift participation prior to the event so that we're not spending valuable time on the playa figuring it all out.

Camp CONTACT will host 80-100 Contact Improvisators for the ten days spanning Saturday, August 23rd to Monday, Sept 1st. We'll start off by building a kitchen, a common area and the dance spaces. We'll also have shade structures to keep your tent cool, with the possibility of other amenities. We come to the playa to offer the gift of Contact Improvisation. Mornings, we'll be able to jam in Burning Man's Center Camp; afternoons, we can teach or take beginners and advanced classes. Each evening we will share in community meals and then glow in all that Black Rock City has to offer at night, including some of our own jams.

If you're into Contact, and up for the adventure of a lifetime, check us out! If you've camped with us before, we welcome you back.

More details, commitment requirements, and on-line registration are available on our website at http://campcontact.org/burningcontact

Questions? Email me at burningcontact@gmail.com

Yours in Contact,

--Darrell

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Butoh... Where do you think it is headed in the American landscape?

Ledoh — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:41:50 GMT

I know it's mostly peripheral here... but where is the respect?

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

COLORMEAMERICA short clip on YouTube

Ledoh — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:58:02 GMT

Just something to share after the premiere in April.
Enjoy the summer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8_R2vKPUgY

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Seeking dancers who wish to teach in Portland~

Kaia — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:56:44 GMT

Want to teach in Portland?
Olympia?
We want you to too!

I'm here to try to help make it happen for us all.

Kaia Selene
meow_mani23@yahoo.com

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cHord by Inkboat

Liz — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:10:04 GMT

I just saw this show last night at Yerba Buena Theater. It's a new piece by Inkboat, www.inkboat.com. It involves a wonderful collage of butoh, physical theater, modern dance, voice and sound. The imagery that manifests out of the bodies on stage is amazing. For tickets go to www.ybca.org.

Cheers!
:-)
Liz

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Katsura Kan coming to Seattle... also Portland?

Kaia — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:10:13 GMT

He's coming to teach a workshop in Seattle. The info is below, but does anyone know if he's also doing one in Portland?

Performance Tue May 06 CAPITOL HILL ARTS CENTER 1621 12th AV door-7:30, show-8pm

Workshop Fri May 02 and Sun May 04 from 6-9m Chamber Theater (Velocity studio 2) 915 E Pine

For more info, please contact Douglas 206-271-4541

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who may be interested

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Lecture about Butoh and Edin Velez at Harvard 4/19

Soplisist — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:42:22 GMT

April 19 (Saturday), 2:00-5:00
Room 515, Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway St.
Space and Performance in Japanese Modernism
"Blinded by Darkness: The Power of Image(s) in Edin Velez's Dance of Darkness and Butō"
BRUCE BAIRD, Assistant Professor of Japanese, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
"From Space to Environment: The Origins and Development of Japanese Kankyō"
MIDORI YOSHIMOTO, Assistant Professor of Art History, New Jersy City University
"Yayoi Kusama's Filmic Selves: Identity Construction in Kusama's Self-Obliteration"
PHILLIP BLOOM, Ph.D. candidate in History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
New England East Asian Art History Seminar co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Reischauer Institute

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

butoh in Humboldt area?

Root — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:39:03 GMT

hi, i have been living in arcata for about a year now, and was hoping someone might know of any butoh classes (near future?) that would be coming up this way.

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Butoh Sculpture

AaroTrot — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:13:56 GMT

Live at the Seattle Art Museum...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3VPgAWaArQ

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Hijikata's 8oth....

mizu — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:40:42 GMT

(that which might have been) Birthday...is march 9th.
i know the tomano's and others are gathering somewhere in the bay...
but perhaps, for all of us throughout the globe, we should take a moment to roll our eyes back into our heads, stick our tongues out, grow a flower from our chests and offer it to this great ephemeral master whose form we dedicate our lives in some strange fashion too.

Happy Birthday HIJIKATA!

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Butoh in prison: the Dream a dream project

Vangeline Theater — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:35:45 GMT

"The Dream a Dream project, movement workshop for incarcerated women, Vangeline theater, New york
As many of you may know, I have started a project with incarcerated women last year.
I teach them Butoh every week and they perform every five months in front of their peers and an audience form the outside.
I wanted to share with you the transformational power of Butoh in this environment.
Jump to my blog if you are interested!
Beyond artistic expression, there are many people who can benefit greatly from this training. It is healing Arts!
best to you all!
Vangeline

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looking for artists in NJ / NY

Thomas — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:22:45 GMT

Hi, I'm new to this group. I have a limited experience of butoh, but plenty of background in other physical disciplines. Anyway, I would like explore butoh more and would like to meet performers/ artists in the NY/NJ area (I live in NJ). I'm open to collaborating or participating in projects, or just exploring and practicing stuff privately. Tom

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new butoh website--seeking links

momo — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:29:54 GMT

please visit www.maureenfreehill.com and let me know what you think. i just created and launched the site days ago so it is still in infancy. i intend to include a new page soon with as many links as possible to other butoh and alternative dance and performance sites as possible so please send me your suggestions....thanks!

posted in Butoh - 5 replies

Intorduction to Butoh class in LA (East Side)

Shakina — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:40:47 GMT

Discover a new level of authenticity in your creative work,
and a new depth of understanding toward your physical, emotional, and expressive body.

Introduction to Butoh
for Actors, Dancers, and Artists

Sundays 11AM-2PM
Feb 3, 10, 17, 24

$140 advanced registration required

Lalo Guerrero School of Music
at Art in the Park
5568 Via Marisol
Los Angeles, CA 90042
Hermon Park on the Arroyo Seco
http://www.artinthepark.us

Class size limited to 16
No previous experience necessary

Butoh is a form of dance and performance art with roots in Japan's post-war avant-garde movement. It has since become a major tool for artists and performers across genres, to harness the energies of the body, the environment, and the universal mysteries of life.

Shakina Nayfack is a theatre director and third-generation Butoh artist, trained beneath the founder of Butoh Ritual Mexicano, Diego Piñón. His approach integrates traditional Japanese Butoh exercises with new, inter-cultural explorations in improvisation, guided meditation, text-based imagery and ensemble driven action.

email shakina.nayfack@gmail.com for more information or call 323.236.7747

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

ahoyhoyhoy. asian art museum jan 24

moolek — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:53:52 GMT

http://www.asianart.org/performances.htm

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Searching for seattle butoh performances in February.

johnny — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:20:32 GMT

Would anyone have any information for me? I've been searching online and haven't found anything. Any links, or information would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Johnny

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Death Posture Presents FLOOD Jan 19th!!!! Seattle

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:05:33 GMT

Death Posture presents a new butoh performance work, FLOOD, at the Chapel performance space at Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford on January 19th.

Dancer Vanessa Skantze lived in New Orleans for over a decade, where she cofounded the ensemble Death Posture in 2001. Less than a year after her arrival in Seattle to join her dance partner Alex Ruhe, Katrina fell upon the Gulf Coast. Vanessa began conceiving of this piece after her first return to New Orleans in July 2006. FLOOD journeys through invocations of the spirit of the land and the city of New Orleans with all her revelry and anguish, as well as imagery drawn from the catastrophe of the storm and the wrenching loss and devastation in its wake. FLOOD is danced by Death Posture (Vanessa Skantze and Alex Ruhe), Sheri Brown, Helen Thorsen, Azrael, and Lin Lucas. Original score is created by celadon and natazatan of In the Deep Museum along with percussionist Dean Moore.

Saturday, January 19th at 8 p.m.

The Chapel performance space at Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford
4649 Sunnyside Ave. N. near 50th

$5- $15 donation

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Las Vegas Butoh

MarcoPolo — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:43:24 GMT

... Any?

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

butoh in the netherlands

Arya — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:41:48 GMT

Hi, As a fusion belly dancer in the Netherlands with a huge interest in butoh I am organising a workshop with Mieke Verhooren in Utrecht.
if you are in the neighbourhood you are more than welcome!

About Butoh:

Butoh is Japanese Movement theater, closely related to dance. It is based on the western and eastern philosophy of dance. The most important principle of butoh is that it takes the contents as a starting point, not the shape it eventually receives. This means experience and imagination determine the shape. It keeps on searching for the original impulse of the movement, a process for which it uses the language of the body. To reach this material several basic principles are used to train the body to relax to create space in mind and body. By slowing down mind, body and movement the dancer experiences a greater concentration and a higher level of consciousness. The tranquility and spaces this creates makes it possible to open up to images and impulses from inside and outside what results in the material for improvisation.

Butoh en Tribal Fusion Belly Dance:

Of all belly dance styles tribal fusion belly dance is one of the most tranquil, quite and powerful styles today. It demands technique, vision and inspiration. To meet these demands fusion dancers train in multiple disciplines. In this form butoh is an important source. The common ground between these two art forms consists among others of slowing down movement and the transformation of internal images to external shape without losing the pureness of the emotion/ impuls.
In this workshop you will work on your own dance, movement quality and contents of your dance by deepening your understanding of movement and the connection between the internal and external realities. Truly a unique experience!

The workshop will focus on the following butoh principles:
• Awareness of the current state of the body
• Slowing down movements
• Giving and receiving impulses by manipulation
• Transforming from images and improvisation

Wear comfortable clothing, black preferred, no shoes or jewelry’s:

Teacher: Mieke Verhooren: www.miekeverhooren.nl
Date: 16 maart 13.30 tot 17.30
Location: De Dansvloer (Balkstraat 31 te Utrecht)
Cost: 40 euro
Information and booking: Arya: www.arya.nu 06-14246491

Hope to see you there!
Arya

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L.A. BUTOH?

7synergy — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:30:06 GMT

HEY i just moved from san francisco to l.a. and im looking to see a butoh performance. are there any coming up ??

posted in Butoh - 5 replies

Butoh in Austin, TX

MYu — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:16:30 GMT

Anyone know of any Butoh dancers or students in Austin TX? I am looking to put together a small performance at my studio http://thejadegate.org/
Any connections or info is greatly appreciated.
Thank, M.Yu

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NY Butoh Fest

kitsunebutoh — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:37:37 GMT

Any news to report or experiences to share from those who participated in this year's New York Butoh Festival?

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Die down your daily mind in Himalaya!

rhizomelee — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:54:52 GMT

Die down your daily mind in Himalaya!

Welcome to Himalaya!

If you want to live as a facilitater of body communication worlshop, you can learn the whole method here.
If you want to become an unique butoh dancer, also you can learn whole creation method here.
If you want to meet your whole self, you can learn how to contact your whole here.

School Guide 2008

One year course: March 17-December 8
Half year course: Available to start flexiblly
Three months course: Available to start flexiblly

●Spring term（Three months course ）: March 17- June 6, 2008

●Summer term（Three months course）: June 16- September 5, 2008

●Autum term（Three months course）: September 15- Decmber 5, 2008

Monday to Friday
AM 10:00 - PM 4:30

Anybody, any age, any sex, any handicaped people; OK!
(But here is the highland of 1800m sea level, on the foot of Himalaya mountains. Regrettably, you can not use wheelchair.)

One year(Three terms): 1300 US$
Half year(Two terms): 1000 US$
One term(Three months): 570 US$

International Subbody Butoh School
(Jogibara, Dharamsala. Himachal Pradesh, India)

Ten　students only (In order of application. Long term student are given priority.)

Send e-mail with your personal information and hope.

to: subbody@hotmail.com

more info.: www.subbody.net

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

In Loving Memory: doranne crable - founder, artistic director Kagami Butoh, Olympia, WA

kitsunebutoh — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:49:49 GMT

I am saddened to inform you of the news of my mentor's passing: doranne crable, founder and artistic director of Kagami Butoh in Olympia, WA passed on July 12th. She was faculty at The Evergreen State College for 25 years in Performance Studies. I first met doranne in 1993 and began studying butoh with her in 1994. She formed Kagami Butoh that same year and I was fortunate to perform with her many times up until 1999. doranne studied with Kazuo Ohno in Japan and was heavily influenced by her studies with him. She always dedicated her work to him and adored him with great love. I remember, after I moved to Boston, I went to NYC to see Kazuo Ohno perform (1999) at the Japan Society. I was in a shop in the Lower East Side and I heard a voice behind me that brought me to a wide eyed halt. doranne's voice - unique, deep, charasmatic, unforgettable. She had flown out from Olympia to see her mentor. I'll never forget what she said to me (in that voice!): "deborah, there is a heart string connecting us tonight, from ohno-san, through me, to you, my dear." She loved to teach, she loved butoh, was at times impossible to deal with (and I say that with great love and respect), was unbelievably supportive, commanded respect and was an amazing and hypnotic dancer. I always thought I'd see her again, that I would dance with her again. . . .rest in peace dear doranne and thank you, thank you for all that you have given in your very unique and inspiring life. You will be dearly missed.

Please, if you were a student or admirer of doranne, please feel free to write your thoughts and memories here. I wish I had photos of her (she was so damn stubborn about media and documentation!) so if anyone out there has images to post, please do so (pf her or of Kagami) - please share. Also, if you have any information on a memorial for her, please share that as well.

posted in Butoh - 11 replies

Become a part of "bAbeL - art project"

seipone — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:38:04 GMT

dear brothers and sisters,

i study art therapy in Germany and work on the arty part of my diploma at the moment - and i invite you to support my work !
Please send me one article of your clothing, which you don`t need
anymore (it doesn`t matter if there is a mark on it, a cut in it, the
zipper is not working anymore etc.) and a word (in your language, a
word, which you like, which you don`t like, which you use often or
never, it can be a name, too) to this adress :

Sandra Becker
Hunscheidtstraße 162
44789 Bochum
Germany

in case you like to send me more material - like little messages,
infomation about you, your life, your country,the article of clothing
( maybe there is a story about it - you never liked to wear it, it was
a gift, you wore it in an important moment) - i will be pleased about
it.
my plan is to put all together in a new way - so that there will be one dress and one poem at the end for one performance/ film/installation, but it is not clear how it will be exactly - at least the most important thing depends on you. maybe the dress and the poem will go on a journey again, maybe they will come back to you, maybe you get a message from them, maybe you won´t see them again, maybe....the ideas become more and more with every package i get from you what ever will happen - i let you know. and be sure; whenever you give something - you get something.
the artwork will be shown at the diploma exhibition of the FH Ottersberg (Germany) on march 21th 2008.
you will find a documentation on my tribe-blog.

i hope that it will be possible to support me,
looking forward to get a message from you,

Become a part of babel !
sandruschka
p.s. and when you ask yourself now :" and what is the connection of bAbeL and butoh?" well, you will know it, when you `ll see the result!

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Simone Forti "Logomotion Writing Workshop" \ project in residence

Rossella — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:14:51 GMT

Caravajal15 residenza dinamica
Orvieto \ Italy
International Projects 2008

Hello!
We are happy to announce that Simone Forti will be again the guest artist of our residence, for giving her intensive residential workshop “Logomotion Writing Workshop”.
The intensive workshop with Simone Forti is in the ambit of our international projects 2008, and will be from March 8 to 15 2008 in the beautiful Etruscan city of Orvieto, in mid Italy.
The workshop is limited to 16 participants.
The intensive workshop will be held at the headquarters of the cultural Association Caravajal15 residenza dinamica, in the prestigious sixteenth century rooms of the Palazzo Caravajal-Simoncelli, in Orvieto.
The fee is 400 euros, which includes also hospitality, reception and meals.
Application for registration is open from October 15th.
For information write to: info@contactfestival.it, or telephone to +39 0763.341479.
Info and texts below.

Simone Forti \ Logomotion Writing Workshop
Intensive residential workshop
8-15 March 2008
maximum 16 participants
7-day workshop, plus one day pause
fee 400 euros (including meals and lodging)
pre-registration: 150 euros

Logomotion Writing Workshop
Sometimes our words don't have access to what we know in our bones.
In this workshop we will be improvising moving and speaking, and we will be writing.
While our writing will stimulate our imagination and support our improvisations, our improvisations will enrich our writing with a kinesthetic timing to phrasing and windows on sudden thoughts and memories.
Our activities will include studio sessions of improvisational moving and speaking, spontaneous writing, walks in town, with partners, for conversations about matters large and small, and private times to write and to craft our writings and to read them to each other.
We will borrow from the writing practice of Natalie Goldberg as found in her books “Writing Down the Bones” and “Wild Mind”, discovering the associations that gather spontaneously around a chosen point of departure.
As our movement work will include many activities in partners and in groups, some of our writing will include more than one voice, focusing on the relationships between the thoughts of different people.
A goal will be to write with wild mind and intention, and with awareness of world.

Jennifer Dunning writes in her 1991 New York Times review: “Simone Forti presented her first dance program in 1960 and has since then had a steadily increasing influence on post-modernist choreographers interested in exploring ‘natural’ or non-formalist movement and dance”.

Info and reservation
Caravajal15 residenza dinamica
Via Malabranca 15
05018 Orvieto (TR) - Italy
tel +39 0763341479
fax +39 0763340669
mobile +39 3391017492
info@contactfestival.it
www.contactfestival.it

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Butoh interactive art hybrid - Seattle 10/13

Dr-Bob — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:40:06 GMT

This is hard to describe, much less imagine, thus it must be seen. We all know of Marco Polo's travels to the East. Imagine the reverse journey, of a fictional Japanese woman, West. Artist Tamiko Thiel has done so in “The Travels of Mariko Horo”.

It is a 3d virtual world in which you, the viewer, experience the journey from Mariko's point of view. The story takes place between the 12th and 22nd centuries, enabled by time travel.

Tamiko Thiel's piece opens this evening with a reception, contact the center for details on the show's run.

On Saturday see a video of "In the Land of Babari-an". For this piece, the artist controlled the narrative path of the "The Travels of Mariko Horo" VR offstage, while butoh dancers Shinichi Iova-Koga (inkBoat, San Francisco) and Ishide Takuya (Tokyo) performed in front of the screen.

At 911 Media Arts Center, 402 9th Ave N, Seattle.

Opening reception Oct 11, 6-9PM
Dance-installation video Oct 13, 4:30PM
Both Free.

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Butoh in S. America

Sirena — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:08:45 GMT

I know Butoh exists in Mexico (Diego Piñon), but does anyone know if there´s anything going on in S. America? I´m there now :)
Thanks!

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Performance Tonight! Saturday 9/8 Isak Immanuel

one billion faces hold up a sky — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:58:05 GMT

Last night of this work:

ILLEGAL ECHO/untitled echo

"To dance a falling line of recall...between memory and no memory, spectator and spectre, citizenship and sanity... right, left, forward, backward a new question everyday"

A multimedia dance theatre work by Isak Immanuel(Floor of Sky Projects) with contributions from Robert L. Terrell(photography), Kanoko Nishi(piano), and Odessa Chen(voice)

This work is apart of
CounterPULSE’s Summer 2007 Artists in Residence and also featurees “To Mifune” by Christy Funsch/Funsch Dance Experience, September 6-8.

Two dance theatre works delving into the terrain of fantasy and forgotten identity, taking the stage to navigate the foreign and the everyday familiar in two cutting edge works.

Please help spread the word. See below for details:

WHEN: Thurs.- Sat. Sept 6-8, 8:00pm
Post-show discussion following Thursday performance

WHERE:
CounterPULSE, San Frasncisco
1310 Mission St (@9th)
PRICE: $12-$20, no one turned away for lack of funds

TICKETS: www.brownpapertickets.com or at the door (just come!)
INFO: (415)435-7552, www.counterpulse.org

````````

ILLEGAL ECHO /untitled echo

Direction and Performance: Isak Immanuel
Including contributions from Robert L. Terrell, Kanoko Nishi, and Odessa Chen

Illegal Echo / untitled echo finds its origin in an excavation of memory, personal and public, and how in this terrain we can find irrepressible connections in the present world of both movement and images. Integrating dance-theater with photojournalism, the work navigates the intersecting landscapes of peripheral identity, transience and the instability of both body and social standing. To dance a falling line of recall. The distances between myth, allusion, and concrete subject, the missing/searching, outsider/insider, and the internal markers to what is one’s said society or place of origin are dually explored through the medium of dance and visual theatre.

The work contains a diverse landscape of sound from the classical to the urban, from noise to silence, featuring vocalist/indy-musician Odessa Chen and classically trained pianist/new music advocate Kanoko Nishi combined with an assemblage of street/field recordings. It will also feature an image to image dialogue with veteran photojournalist Robert L. Terrell.

In part, this new work has been made from the research, distillation, and trace of a two month movement workshop and impromptu writing engaged with local homeless and formerly homeless individuals here in the SF Bay Area. An extension of this work will be exhibited in the lobby gallery space.

Floor of Sky Projects is supported in part by the Zellerbach family fund and is fiscally sponsored by 21 Grand.

``````

To MIFUNE

By Christy Funsch with K808 and Skorpio
Performed by Glenn Curtis, Leonore Deaton, Christy Funsch, Jennifer A. Minore, Phoenicia Pettyjohn, Noel Rokswel, Sarah Sass, and Skorpio

Inspired by the charismatic Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997), To Mifune tells the story of a cowgirl’s (Christy Funsch) journey to meet her samurai idol (Skorpio). The characters for this work are drawn from Mifune’s roles, as well as from roles in acclaimed Japanese film-maker Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, Stray Dog, and The Seven Samurai. Funsch’s work examines how one’s individuality shifts through interactions with others: movement is borrowed, shared, exchanged, and exaggerated among all of the characters. The protagonist’s idea of who she is changes as her context changes, and by the time she meets the person she thought was her idol, she has come to appreciate the perhaps less grand---though certainly not less admirable---heroics of those she has met on her journey.

Hip-hop DJ K808 mixes live original beats with samples from both Kurosawa’s film Yojimbo and country singer Patsy Montana into a living sound score for the work. The result combines multiple voices with a hip-hop sensibility, which Funsch defines as “an assertion of individuality”. Funsch’s idiosyncratic collection of performers for To Mifune exemplifies her fascination with style as a way of linking the personal with the collective. According to Funsch, “When we create a little truth for ourselves, a way we want to be seen, we are usually seeking empathy. The commonality of this impulse connects us, regardless of the diversity of our movement choices.”

To Mifune is supported in part by the Zellerbach family fund, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Funsch Dance Experience is a fiscally sponsored project of Dancers’ Group

`````

`````
counterpulse.org
floorofsky.org
funschdaance.org

````

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

doranne: in memorium

elzzadoll — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:53:19 GMT

it was w/ doranne that i first experienced the thrill of guerilla butoh, out in a public space w/ an unsuspecting audience
and so this saturday at 2:30-ish i will pay tribute to her memory in the mlk jr. civic center park in downtown berkeley
at mlk and center st (where the farmer's market is)
dance cry drool
contemplating the imagery she gave to me and so many other dancers
i would appreciate a supportive audience, if anyone can make it, or wants to play...

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Akria Kasia workshop in Portland

nathan — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 01:45:59 GMT

Hello all, I have conformation that Master Kasai will once agian be doing a week long workshop in Portland Oregon. He will be at for a one-week intensive at Portland State University July 30-Aug 3.
Hope to see y'all there.

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

ZEROPLAN Performance Series this Saturday Night in Brooklyn, NY!!!!

Ellen — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:54:57 GMT

For Butoh Dancers and Enthusiasts in the New York City area,

Please consider joining us this Saturday night at 8pm for an evening of spontaneous experimentation:

A couple of months ago Max Lord (a boston-based musician) and I organized a group of experimental sound and butoh movement artists from New England and New York in a loft space in downtown Boston. We invited a small group of friends and family to gather with us to watch us perform spontaneously constructed works. The results were bizarre and highly entertaining!

We had such a good time, that we’ve decided to do it again—this time, in New York! We would love it if you would join us for an evening of performances that will be utterly raw, improvised conjunctions of movement and sound that are 15 minutes each, or less. The musicians form an orchestra that responds to each mover’s material and vice versa. We promise to deliver some surprises!

Participating Musicians include Max Lord, Howard Stelzer, and Matthew Everett. Movement Artists include Deborah Butler, Nathan Andary, Celeste Hastings, Bob DeNatale, and Ellen Godena. Here are the details:

What: ZeroPlan Performance Series
Where: Studio 111, 111 Conselyea Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
When: Saturday, July 28th at 8pm (doors open at 7:30)
How much: 8 bucks at the door

Directions: Take the L-Train to the Graham Street stop, walk down Manhattan Avenue one block, and make a left on Graham. Walk down Graham approximately1.5 blocks. Studio 111 will be on the right hand side of the street (it does not have a big, flashy, sign, but usually has a sandwich board posted on the sidewalk on performance nights).

I'd love to see you next Saturday night!

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

AXOLOTL and PROXIMITY ... two Karl Frost/BODY RESEARCH participatory performance events ... JULY 26 - AUG 12, SF and Santa Cruz

karlfrost — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:37:48 GMT

of interest to Butoh artists...these two participatory shows offer some interesting lenses on the exploration of states, relationship, being ... quite unique events, worth checking out!

----------------------------------------------------

BODY RESEARCH is performing two shows in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, July 26 - August 12

PROXIMITY and AXOLOTL

www.BODYRESEARCH.org/proxax

---------------------------------

AXOLOTL -- A participatory performance experience, psychological and kinesthetic: be blindfolded for 2 hours of exploration of self and other

July 26, August 9, 10 in San Francisco (8PM at Million Fishes, 23rd and Bryant)
July 28, August 2 in Santa Cruz (8PM at the Vet's Hall, 846 Front St)

"I left the theater shell-shocked.
It was easily the oddest, most surprising performance experience I've ever had. And, against all expectations, one of the most rewarding."
BRENDAN KILEY, The Stranger (Seattle 2005)

-----------------------------------------

PROXIMITY (premier) -- an exploration of social distance, connection, and disconnection. The audience wanders a convoluted space witnessing shifting relationships amongst an ensemble of performers. Watch safely from a distance or get a better look up close and risk getting involved.

July 27, August 5, 11, 12 -- San Francisco (8pm at 1800 Illinois St)
July 29, Aug 4 -- Santa Cruz (8pm at 418 Project, 418 Front St)

"... fascinating; awkward, tender, and violent movement combined with snippets of dialog and swiftly built-up characters and
relationships, creating social and sexual conflicts with an almost unnerving intimacy... utterly compelling. "
BRETT FETZER, The Stranger (Seattle April 2004){about research work for Proximity}

---------------------------------

Performers: Isabelle Fortier, Isabella Kirouac, Sasha Klapkin (Canada), Elska Zeidle (Germany), Natalie Heller (Cyprus), Maja Paalsson (Denmark), Munir Rashid, Cammie Kelly, Kevin Dockerty, Karl Frost, Collin Leach (US), and guests

shows $15-$30 sliding scale ... $12 for July 26-29
reservations recommended because of audience size limitations
e to info@bodyresearch.org or call (206) 790 1645 for reservations

www.BODYRESEARCH.org/proxax for info

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Looking for butoh dancers to perform a scene in a play

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:40:18 GMT

Lucid Dream Lounge is producing a play, "The Plucker" (a book by Brom) that concerns the stealing of a young boy's spirit. It's a child's story for adults. The boy projects his spirit into his dolls and that's what makes them real ofr him. An evil spirit escapes from a new doll he receives and tries to steal the boys soul by taking the projections in the dolls one by one.

The part of the play that we envision having butoh dancers is that they would be ticks that emerge out of a giant doll head. The direction and interpretation would be largely up to you.

contact us if you have an interest

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Movement Opportunity for NYC (or those in town) Butoh Dancers

Ellen — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:59:42 GMT

I co-produce an improvisational series, ZEROPLAN, that pairs seasoned butoh and physical theater artists with an improvised experimental, electronic orchestra. Our vision is to create performances which are improvised conjunctions of movement and sound that are 15 minutes each, or less. The musicians form an orchestra that responds to each mover’s material and vice versa. The roster of musicians and movers changes a little from show to show.

The next show will take place at Studio 111, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (right off the L-Train) on Saturday, July 28th at 8pm. This will be a bare-bones production—please feel free to bring raw movement work or no choreography at all. There will be no blocking and a very light tech (read: making sure the lights are cued, and the sound works). Props are okay as long as you can get them on and off the stage with you. There will be 3 hours for us to use the space for set-up, warm-up, and make-up. There is a marley floor and a separate studio room for prep as well as a bathroom (no shower—sorry!).

This is a great opportunity to take some risks in a supportive atmosphere with a very eclectic group of performers -- and an audience. I currently need 1 or 2 more seasoned movers for this performance. Please message me if you are interested.

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Bay Area Workshops?

AIRBUTOH — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:51:21 GMT

I heard recently there is a facilitator in Berkeley and she's been teaching 20 years or so. I can't seem to find her. Many folks are working on private productions and I'm looking to check workshops out. Any leads? Note : I don't have the cash for an expensive rockstar intensive teacher. Looking for something more ongoing with space and moderately priced. I did work out with a facilitator on Wednesday nights--a sort of jam,but it was difficult with random people walking in and out the space. I really just need to brush up on skills and explore different energies.

-Monikah

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Butoh performance or workshops? July 12 to 19

yukitasogare — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 08:26:30 GMT

I am visiting SF from July 12 to 19.
I do Butoh in Japan. I am interested in taking workshops or going to see some butoh performances while I am in SF.
Please let me know if you know something.
Thank you, Yuki

posted in Butoh - 5 replies

predictions

kitsunebutoh — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:22:45 GMT

Inspired by past and present posts -

So, if butoh isn't quite dead, then what are your predictions of how it will manifest in say, 5, 10, 20 years? What will performances be like? What will performers be doing? Let's hear your wildest predictions!

posted in Butoh - 6 replies

is Butoh dead?

Ledoh — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 23:36:05 GMT

i was told butoh was dead so i'd like to hear others opinion.

posted in Butoh - 36 replies

butoh in Slc

roxanne — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:18:37 GMT

Just thought I would post to see if anyone had connections in Salt Lake City, I keep checking my Butoh tribes to keep posted on upcomming workshops that are close to me. Thanks

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

your butoh anima

kitsunebutoh — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:07:33 GMT

What are some of the images you embody while dancing? Feel anything/one arise repeatedly when you dance?

One of mine is obviously the fox, but I also seem to channel insects, either cyborgs or aliens (can't tell yet - or it is both), and my dead grandmother. Other repeated images or instincts (primal urges) that present themselves have been:
sensuality
violence
sex
transcendence
innocence
androgeny

posted in Butoh - 3 replies

Space, Place and Performance

kitsunebutoh — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:13:38 GMT

I was wondering about performing today and wanted to throw out a topic to the tribe:

How do you feel about your performance options? How does the stage feel to you? Is there a radical difference in the spaces you perform in - such as black box vs. outdoor site specific "stages" - and can you describe what those differences are or how you define them? How does the audience change or shift in these different types of settings - either from a performer's or audience's viewpoint? Which do you prefer and why?

If you perform mostly in traditional theatre type settings, how have you worked with the space differently? How have you challenged yourself to work with or see space or how have you challenged the space (including how the audience "sees")?

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Kazuo Ohno Vids!!!

nathan — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 12:11:58 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3hAJSoF3lo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUjhQLB0hXY

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Butoh intensive in Eugene, OR this summer

mika — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:32:44 GMT

Wanted to give the heads up that a Butoh workshop intensive is being planned in eugene this summer, (tenatively )July 17-20 or 19-22. The workshop will be taught by Maureen Freehill, who has studied directly with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, among many others (find more info about her at www.prettyartnumb.com). The workshop will likely begin with a free introductory evening on the 19th, followed by 4-5 hours of practice on the 20 and 21, and commencing in a performance on the 22nd. I am estimating that the workshop will be around $150-200 for the entire weekend.

I will be following this bulletin soon with definite dates and times.

Please contact me if you think you might be interested, and also PLEASE pass this information on to others who might be interested.

thanks

mika
mwatana3@uoregon.edu

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Sunday May 27, Audition/Free Workshop in SF, California for project w/Karl Frost/Body Research

karlfrost — Wed, 23 May 2007 22:34:37 GMT

Audition(Free Workshop) for summer performance project, "Proximity"
Where: Danceground Keriac
1805 Divisadero, San Francisco, California
When: Sunday May 27, 7p-10p

If you aren’t coming to audition, but just want to check out the work, you are very welcome to come … suggested donation in this case $15.

RSVP to (206) 790 1645 or karlfrost@bodyresearch.org

www.BODYRESEARCH.org

I'm working on a new piece for July/August, called Proximity and am looking for performers.

The piece explores interconnection, isolation, behavioral rules, and physical honesty and mixes stage performance with audience interaction. The themes and methodology of the work emerge out of two of Frost’s previous works, Ashes (exploring the juxtoposition of release-based partnering with emotional explorations from Growtowski and somatic psychotherapeutic modalities) and Axolotl (a participatory performance in which the audience is blindfolded for 2 hours and invited to interact with each other and a group of actors and dancers exploring the slippery nature of meaningful experience).

Looking for performers with skills/experience in some combination of…
· contemporary dance/release technique
· physical acting
· the technical sides of contact improvisation
· somatic-psychotherapeutic modalities
· exploring personal interaction / good conversation
· butoh
· martial arts

The audition will be in the form of a 3 hour workshop, half of which will be a training in release-based contact improvisation and the other half working with explorations in interactive performance.

Looking both for Project Members and for “Extras”

Project Members will be helping develop the work and will be full members of the piece. There will be 10-12 of us in all … we are looking for one or two more project members.

Project Members must be available for the rehearsal period of June 25 – July 25 and for performances July 26- Aug 12 in San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Rehearsals will be in wilderness retreat out on the Yuba River.

Money to pay performers is out of ticket sales, so would likely be a token amount only. Food and transport is covered during the rehearsal month, however. Also, Project members can do Body Research trainings for free during the period of the project including
· Dancing Wilderness Project: July 13-16
· Contact workshop at Cabrillo College: July 29 – August 4
· Anatomy Lab: August 11-19

Extras will be incorporated into the transitional elements between proscenium and participatory sections of the work and during the interactive parts will be something like “Prepared Audience Members”. We are looking for about 6 Extras.

Extras must be available to come out for 3 - 5 days of rehearsal out on the Yuba River and be available in the period of July 26- August 12 for performances. The rehearsal period will be sometime in July, specific dates tba, depending on people’s schedules. Due to the nature of the work, there can be some flexibility, if you can’t make all the performing nights. This is unpaid, but some exchange for workshops is offered.

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Looking to recruit performers and musicians for upcoming butoh works in Seattle

danseperdue-alexruhe — Mon, 21 May 2007 17:13:04 GMT

Death Posture

is an arts collective concentrating in experimental, transgressive movement/sound pieces. Butoh, Artaud, etc. We try to create emotionally complex and sometimes visceral work with difficult implications; unease, doubt, are favored over catharsis.

We’re looking for you driven, creative folks to collaborate with on upcoming projects, and maybe expand the community while we’re at it. In the near future we’ll be working on some performances that require more people. We’re especially interested in dancers and musicians, but we like almost anyone who is pushing the limits of their field.

We like good improvisationalists and we like classically trained people and we love it if you’re into pushing boundaries, especially your own boundaries (not our boundaries -- we probably can’t handle it). Social acceptability is not of concern, just quality ... no shock, no pop, just what feels as true as possible.

Please go to www.deathposture.org
for photos and info

or for a short video
http://www.xaxiswye.com/
and go to videos ... A Burning Silence

and see if what we’re doing jives with what we’re doing

contact
alex@deathposture.org

food for thought ...

Ladies in waiting and natural disasters.

that’s what’s on the table right now.
talk to me

alex
alex@deathposture.org

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Butoh Body

Ledoh — Sat, 12 May 2007 18:47:19 GMT

As a butoh performer, how do you view your body in relation to your mind???

posted in Butoh - 6 replies

what is the definition of evil?

Iu-Hui — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:11:18 GMT

uh, yeah, just that...

posted in Butoh - 19 replies

An Evening of Global Butoh, May 25 +26, Highways Performance Space

Tue, 08 May 2007 00:50:10 GMT

Highways presents:
An Evening of Global Butoh
Featuring world-renowned Butoh Master
Katsura Kan from Kyoto, Japan -- making his LA debut
with performances by
Corpus Delicti, LA-based butoh performance lab
Black Stone Ensemble from San Francisco.

Friday, May 25th + Saturday, May 26th
Show Time: 8:30pm
Ticket Price: $20.00 + $15.00 (Students/Seniors)

Highways Performance Space
1651 18th Street, Santa Monica
1/2 Block North of Olympic Blvd

Ticket Reservations: www.highwaysperformance.org
Ticket Info call: 310-315-1459

GO TO OUR WEB PRESS PAGE
(for online ticket reservations & more!)
http://www.jungle8.com/globalbutoh/

----------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Performance detail:

"Fable in Two"
Katsura Kan, with duet partner Gabrielle Daris
Live music by Francios Sardi

"Fable in Two" blends Butoh and Western dance. The work is characterized by improvisation, embodiment of character and striking visual images. It investigates ideas about humanity and the environment, the world of technology and nature, and the natural cycle of things. The viewers bring to the performance their own imagination, ideas and questions to find meaning for themselves in the images and ideas presented.

Katsura Kan, a native of Kyoto, is a Master Butoh artist from among the ranks of Japan's first generation of Butoh. He performed with the seminal Butoh troupe, "Byakkosha" (1979-1981) known for its austerity and integrity, rather than the theatrical glamour other troupes became known for. He is a celebrated solo and collaborative performer as well as choreographer. Kan has worked with what he calls "minority dancers" all over the world, in remote locations throughout Africa, Europe and South East Asia for the past 28 years, in addition to his creative works in cosmopolitan culture. Currently, he is researching "Global BUTOH" in NYC and preparing the "ELDERLY" project taking place in the UK 2007.

"Mi Casa Es Su Casa"
Corpus Delicti, butoh performance lab
Alessandra Santos, Heyward Bracey,
Rosemary Candelario, Alvin Gaines-Molina
Directed by Joe Talkington - Soundscape by Rick Potts -
Lights by Gustavo Brum

From the personal to the transpersonal, "Mi Casa Es Su Casa" is an examination of outer war on inner territory. Mind over border.

Da'suqah ya da'suqah, tiri ba'da min al-bayat
Baytuki yahtarq wa atfaluki dhahbu ba'ida

"Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
Your house in on fire and your children are gone.”

Corpus Delicti is a LA-based butoh performance company born out of the historical mass movement to oppose the U.S. Empire. Debuting on February 15th, 2003 with 25 performers - joining over 100,000 protestors in Hollywood for the largest Anti-War march in LA history. Since then, Corpus Delicti has moved with ease and acclaim between the street, the gallery, and the stage. Reflecting the diversity of audiences it attracts, the company has been invited to perform at REDCAT Theater, LACMA, NOH Space in SF, Highways Performance Space, Track 16 Gallery, Hollywood Forever's Annual Dia de los Muertos Festival, Theater of Note, UCLA & Occidental College. Corpus Delicti is the brainchild of Carla Melo & Joe Talkington. www.corpusbutoh.org

"I-Human"
Black Stone Ensemble
Allison Wyper, Bob Webb,
Iu-Hui Chua (guest artist), Misti Boettiger (guest artist)

iHuman explores our relationship with technology at a time when humanity is rapidly succeeding the upright animal homo sapien, and quickly evolving into the cyborgian posthuman.

Using a trans-disciplinary style rooted in physical theatre and Butoh dance, iHuman inhabits the "transhuman" ideology.

We find ourselves aliens on the frontier of new technology.
How do we make sense of what we find here? Of who we become?
How do we cope?

Black Stone Ensemble is a movement-based experimental performance company making original work that is taut, conceptual, stark, filmic, violent, sensuous, absurd, grotesque and recognizeably human. We critique common daily experience in acute relief; a bizarre burlesque of the contemporary moment. Founded in 2005 by Artistic Director Allison Wyper, San Francisco based Black Stone Ensemble’s trans-disciplinary performance style is derived from the artists’ varied backgrounds in Butoh dance, physical anddramatic theatre, Japanese Kyogen theater, Iyengar yoga, and the visual arts. Members of Black Stone Ensemble have performed with Kitsune Butoh Company (Boston), Pilgrim Theatre Research and Performance Collaborative (Boston) and David Dorfman Dance (NYC), and continue to perform in San Francisco and internationally with Koichi and Hiroko Tamano’s Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance Company, and Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s La Pocha Nostra. WWW.BUTOHSF.ORG/BSE

---------------------------------------------------
Additonal 'Global Butoh' Attractions:

"A Corpus Living Room"
An interactive, multi-media installation in Highways Gallery
2 Photo Exhibits:
- Corpus Delicti photo collage by Simone Missirian & Ana Baer-Carrillo
- Photos by Karolina Bieszczad, mixing butoh with classic paintings
Short films & video projections
by Troy Perry, Ana Baer-Carrillo & James Cui

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Zipfestival's video 2005 on line

Rossella — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:40:06 GMT

Dear Friends
As they say, better late than never!
We have published a few video extracts from Zipfestival 2005 on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/
We shall shortly send you the websites (URL) so you can see and download the video extracts.
Or you can easily find it on the festival website’s page
http://www.contactfestival.it/2007/ITA_2006/zip_video.html
In the meanwhile we are working on the 2006 video and in June 2007 (19-24) we remind you the next festival is just around the corner!
Have fun watching and let us know what you think!
Till then
Zipfest

http://www.contactfestival.it/2007/ITA_2006/zip_video.html

OR check one by one on these links:

Documentario Zip 2005 – track 1
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roqpVM-nKRA

Documentario Zip 2005 – track 2
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ADwTz58GY

Documentario Zip 2005 – track 3
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EoUY1KECUU

Documentario Zip 2005 – track 4
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FFfvZe9Qkw

Performance Real Time track 1
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T3NWzqGmG4

Performance Real Time track 2
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHlJotx0U0E

Performance Real Time track 3
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QepglIvIEM

Performance Last Minute track 1
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS2TI6x83gk

Performance Last Minute track 2
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5PVVHJh_ao

Performance Solo in Motion
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uGTf0oA8go

Duo Piano concerto Bollani-Salis
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SefO-o4d29k

Trio concerto Salis-Rabbia-Bellatalla
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch9i-Q1Bfz8

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

10-day butoh workshop with Master Katsura Kan

CAVE Organization — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:44:39 GMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CAVE’s Upcoming Butoh Workshop

CAVE Presents
Ten Day BUTOH WORKSHOP
with master KATSURA KAN, May 7-16, 2007

Katsura Kan is a native of Kyoto and a Master Butoh artist among the ranks of Japan’s first generation of Butoh. He performed with the seminal Butoh troupe “Byakkosha” (1979-1981) known for its austerity and integrity, rather than theatrical glamour. He is a celebrated solo artist, collaborative performer and choreographer. Kan has worked with what he calls “minority dancers” all over the world, in remote locations throughout Africa, Europe, South East Asia for the past 28 years, in addition to performing his creative works in cosmopolitan culture.

Workshop Description
Kan's workshop at CAVE will explore the idea of “transformation”, an idea that brought Kan to his understanding of butoh, what he calls the “surrealism of the flesh”. Kan will guide participants through the origin, history and spiritual philosophy of Tatsumi Hijikata’s butoh. He will focus on Hijikata’s "Butoh Notation" from his Bible of Butoh, YAMERU MaiHime, as well as lecturing on a video that retraces the Japanese avant-garde during the 1950s-60s. This work and study will be geared towards the creation of new dance. The workshop is suitable for everyone, with or without previous butoh experience.

Schedule and Cost for Katsura Kan workshop:
May 7 -16, 2007 Workshop will be held @ CAVE
Monday-Friday 5:30pm-9:30pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am-2:00pm
Total Workshop Cost = $480

For more details and registration please e-mail workshops@CAVEartspace.org or call CAVE 718 388 6780

CAVE is an artist’s collective and organization founded in 1996. It is now one of the longest running experimental art spaces in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY. Our constant goal is to maintain an environment that attracts, provokes and supports exchange, generative confrontation and collaboration among emerging and established artists and audiences from diverse cultures and artistic backgrounds. CAVE strives to provide an explorative arena and support system for the artistic development of its resident artists by hosting studio workspace, educational workshops, exhibition and performance opportunities, and assistance in the realization of projects that support risk taking in the in visual, media and performing arts.
CAVE’s intention is based on the idea that people learn and are transformed through direct experiences that potentially awaken new levels of understanding and knowledge. In addition to our visual arts projects and artist residences, during the past five years CAVE has organized over 35 butoh workshops giving the opportunity to over 200 dancers to study with some of the best masters of this dance form. In 2003 and 2005 CAVE presented and produced two editions of the International New York Butoh festival featuring the work of over 40 butoh artists and also presented workshops, films and lectures. CAVE is led by video artist & curator, Shige Moriya, and theater & dance director/performer, Ximena Garnica.

CAVE Organization Inc. 58 Grand Street Brooklyn New York 11211 T/F (718) 388-6780 www.CAVEartspace.org

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

Highlighted Artists

kitsunebutoh — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:14:54 GMT

Greetings Butoh Tribe Members!

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and wish you all health and positivity in the coming year. I have been really very moved by the increased participation within the Butoh tribe and with the provocative discussions that have been going on. You all make this tribe what it is and I feel really proud of it right now! The thought and care that has gone on in some of the discussions is really wonderful and I just want to say keep it coming! An example I would like to share is the recent post titled "what is the definition of evil?" . . . yeah, just that. It sat for a bunch of days with no response and then all of a sudden, like a flood - as if all of us were sitting on this question and how exactly to approach it or to even approach it at all - the thoughtful responses, some deep and contemplative, some very humorous, poured out. I've really enjoyed all of you and I just want to say thank you!

On another note, in celebration of all of you, I've decided to start a sort of "Butoh Artist of the Month" series. Each month will be dedicated to one artist whose pics will be up and also interesting information about each artist (history of their relationship to butoh, where you can take classes from them, where you can see them perform). I anticipate that this will transform and change over time so your ideas are welcome!

I would like to introduce our first artist - Alenka, for whom I first became interested in after checking out some of her photos (which you will see are quite extraordinary and beautiful). She has an extensive background in theatre and Butoh and I am psyched to have her be the first highlighted artist!

Read about her in the previous post and check out her site. She both teaches and performs so if you feel a connection definitely contact her! She could be in your area! She also has her own site up, so check that out too (the link is in the post on her). I think this will be a great opportunity to network, learn about other Butoh artists and teachers and possibly make some significant connections!

If you would like to be hightlighted or want to suggest someone to me, please do! I didn't really know how to go about this at first so I decided to work as alphabetically as possible (to be fair). I may also contact some of you out of the blue and ask if you'd like to be hightlighted and to provide some information.

Thank you again Butoh Tribe members!
Love,
Kitsune

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

butoh in boston

andy — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:40:44 GMT

im fairly new to the northeast and wondering what groups are performing in the area. id love to know about upcoming performances in boston and/or groups that perform here regularly, or about really stellar performances elsewhere in the northeast (nyc, western mass, new haven, you name it..) that are worth traveling for.

posted in Butoh - 3 replies

Topics vs Events

kitsunebutoh — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:57:43 GMT

Greetings Everyone,

In an effort to organize the Tribe better I would like to request that event announcements please be posted under "Events". I would like to keep the "Topics" page limited to just that - posts that either elicit responses or advice, etc. - more or less, discussion-type posts. So moving forward. . . Thank you for your understanding.

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

The regend of Butoh photo book

rhizomelee — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 19:04:15 GMT

The regend of Tatsumi Hijikata's photo book by Hosoe Eikou

Hijikata said that the photografies by Hosoe Eikou intoroduced me to the world.
1969, Hosoe Eikou's photo book "KAMAITACHI"were published.
That year was the main days of students power,
I had seen the photo book in the barricade of university campus, I was twenty one years old.
Also I had watched his butoh performance in the university campus next year.
It was so deep shock that my concept of human was completely changed.
I realized that nomal human concept was fake, his butoh dance showed the truth.

When I went back to Japan in this winter, I found the famous photo book of "Kamaitachi"by Hosoe Eikou was republished.
I bought it, then I can show the regend pictures with some other pictures (above) to young visitors of this site.
I appreciate to the photographers who took Hijikata's pictures; Hosoe Eikou, Nakatani Tadao, Onoduka Makoto, and Yamazaki hiroshi.
Thier works remain Hijikata's profile to the present people.

visit subbody Butoh School Himalaya Homepage: www.subbody.net

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

ny butoh fest

Iu-Hui — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 07:31:46 GMT

is there a website url for this year's?

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

Uncontrolled movement

Liz — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:03:50 GMT

I put this on my blog, but I thought I should share it with you all and invite you to comment.
I was playing in some space this past weekend and revisited some movement techniques from a past butoh workshop I took with Shinichi Iova-Koga. It was about moving in space with no control but with control. I remember doing an exercise called the "drunken walk" where you're stumbling all over the place and then just as you're about to fall, you don't. of course, keeping it as smooth as possible, he he....i had so much fun with this and have a couple of bruises but it was so great! I felt liberated, refreshed, dangerous, scared, anxious, silly, crazy, yet normal. How fun! has anyone experienced this or something like it?

posted in Butoh - 4 replies

what has butoh been for you?

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 16:00:42 GMT

i'd never heard of butoh til this past week. i was art modeling and the teacher mentioned some of the most fantastic figure models he's worked with were butoh dancers. i wondered what this form was. i've never seen a performace but have now read some interesting stuff on the web and am considering taking a class series here in SF/berkeley. i probably won't be able to catch a performance before the series starts tuesday. so i'm curious:

would you say butoh tends to be "haunting", the dark/shadow side rather than the light/humorous side of things? i'm fascinated lately by improvisational dance that arises from within, particularly if it has to do w/personal growth/understanding.

for those of you who already do butoh dance, what has butoh been for you? what have you discovered? what do you love about it?

thanks for thoughts,
divine eye

posted in Butoh - 24 replies

those who answered the evil question

Iu-Hui — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:29:50 GMT

hey all y'alls,

i'm doing a project which somehow has evolved to incorporate an exploration of my curiosity with evil (???), and was wondering if i could have permission from any of you who answered the question on "your definition of evil" to use some of your answers as text?

thanks!

:D
Iu-Hui

posted in Butoh - 8 replies

February 2007 Highlighted Artist - Bob DeNatale

kitsunebutoh — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:44:00 GMT

Greetings Butoh Tribe,

Please welcome our February 2007 highlighted artist, Bob DeNatale from NYC. I first met Bob in Olympia, WA at Olympia's first and only Butoh Festival at The Evergreen State College. I participated in his workshop there and that was back in '98, so Bob has quite a lengthy history in Butoh, theatre and other mind-body disciplines and a wealth of performing and teaching experience. Please take the time to read about Bob below and check out his links. He recently moved to NYC, his homecity, after living in San Francisco for many years. If you are in or around the NYC area be sure to stay in touch with Bob to see where he'll be performing next. He is currently settling in and establishing himself here so stay on the lookout for when he begins teaching again!

home.earthlink.net/~bdenatale/

Bob DeNatale, February 2007 Butoh Artist of the Month

1) Please tell us about yourself:

I’ve been doing butoh since 1990. On the West Coast until very recently, I have been producing solo and group performances under the rubric of my company, Flesh & Blood Mystery Theater. My main collaborator during this period has been Lenny Gonzalez, an amazing electronic musician/composer who works under the name Chango Feo (you can find him at changofeo.net).

My first butoh teachers were Hiroko and Koichi Tamano who taught very much in the Hijikata style of the late 60’s early 70’s. Having had the good fortune to be living in San Francisco at the time, I was able to study with numerous butoh artists, through the auspices of the San Francisco Butoh Festival and other producers, most importantly, over a period of many years, with Akira Kasai.

Though my first exposure to butoh was in the highly-choreographed Hijikata style, I have gravitated toward the more personalized, improvised style of butoh, exemplified by Akira Kasai and, of course, Kazuo Ono. I find this work more about ritual and personal transformation and finding my own voice, and infinitely more challenging than the more stylized and choreographed butoh, and much more satisfying to me as an artist.

I have also tried to explore Western roots of this type of performance and have been influenced by Antero Ali’s work in Ritual Theater and also Sara Shelton Mann, a modern dancer in San Francisco who is focused on performance as a means of personal transformation. Her work incorporates Body-Mind Centering, Contact Improvisation, and her own explorations in ritual and energy states.

2)How did you first begin to study butoh/why?:

As a performer, I have always been interested in performance as public ritual, influenced by Artaud, of course, and my own Catholic upbringing. I spent many years playing music in theatrical punk/art/industrial rock bands, composing music for dance pieces, and also doing a very talky form of performance art (this being the 1980’s). I began to feel both that I wanted to eliminate the distance I felt between myself and my instruments as a musician, and also that it was too easy to be insincere with words, whereas I felt (and still do) that I cannot lie with my body.

I became convinced that I wanted to use my body as a means of expression, but had no interest in modern dance or ballet. I began to explore the rather fertile Bay Area scene for performance ritual. I began to study with Sara Shelton Mann and her various Contraband dancers, as well as exploring my own approach to using my body in public ritual. This was also when I encountered the work of Antero Ali. who’s Ritual Theater has many similarities to Butoh. This is when I consider that I first started to do butoh, even though it was only about a year later that I took my first butoh class.

I had seen a Sankai Juku video some years before and was blown away by it (as most people are by their first exposure to butoh) but was always intimidated having had no experience as a dancer. But one day I saw a poster for a workshop the Tamano’s were giving (I had seen them perform by this time), and at this point, I thought, what have I got to lose? Even if I never become a great dancer, studying butoh can only make me a better performer. It didn’t take me long to realize butoh is a very different kind of art that doesn’t care you were not dancing since you were seven years old.

3)do you teach? if so, please provide info on your classes and how people can reach you - include a brief description on your teaching style

I have taught and plan to again, but have no current classes planned. I moved back to NYC a few months ago, and I’m still trying to stabilize everything else in my life. I’ll certainly let Tribe know when I am teaching again.

In my teaching I try to balance both the personal transformation aspects of the work and the performance aspects, since, for me, it is the dynamic between the two that makes the art form fascinating and keeps it from lapsing into self-indulgence. I have a restless personality and am always trying to find new avenues of exploration.

4)do you perform? any upcoming performances people can check out?

My only upcoming show I know of is an invitation-only performance in Boston February 17, but I’m actively working to line up some shows soon in the New York City area. I’ll certainly keep Tribe posted as to any upcoming shows I have.

You can keep up with my activities at my website

home.earthlink.net/~bdenatale/

5)any special butoh story you'd like to share?

I visited New York City in December 1999 to see Kazuo Ono perform a retrospective of his life’s work entitled “Requiem for the 20th Century.” It included excerpts from pieces like “Admiring La Argentina” and “My Mother,” and also featured Yoshito Ono doing choreography by Hijikata. Kazuo Ono was 93 years old, and these were his last overseas performances. I went to the performance three nights in a row. Whereas Yoshito danced the same choreography each night, his father improvised, bringing different movements different feelings, even different costumes on the last night, to each performance. The power and emotion and vulnerability and openness of his dance grew each night to a point of being almost overwhelming. He danced to the Elvis Presley song “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and as Elvis sang “Take my hand, take my whole life too,” it was clear that Kazuo was offering us everything that was left of his life, all his heart and skill and energy and memories in a selfless act of loving dance. I feel blessed to have seen it, and it is a memory I will cherish forever.

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Yugen Presents

Iu-Hui — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:54:27 GMT

Yugen Presents

Harupin Ha
San Francisco's own Butoh Masters
Koichi and Hiroko Tamano

and

Hiroko Sadamori
New Work

Monday, April 16 and Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 8pm

TIX: $15/$10 Students/Seniors
Reservations (415) 621-7978

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Tamano's perf. in SF!

Iu-Hui — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:54:05 GMT

Harupin-ha presents

Tamano solos
by Koichi and Hiroko Tamano
January 27, February 27, and March 27, 2007
at 8pm

box office: 510-848-8735

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Shinichi perf. in SF

Iu-Hui — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:53:01 GMT

inkBoat presents

Milk Traces
a solo performance by Shinichi Iova-Koga
February 8 - 11, 2007 at 8pm

The moment before the leap, the wall inside points to the beginning. Sit in this container every day, measuring the space between high and low. She is afraid to fall, as am I.
~Momo

Conception | Performance - Shinichi Iova-Koga

Music - Sheila Antonia Bosco

Poetic Action Sources - Cassie Terman

Lighting - Allen Wilner

box office: 415.621.7978
tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors

Fall: to drop, to be pushed, to choose to descend too quickly, to become paralyzed, to fall asleep, to fall into despair, to fall from heaven or into love, to become fallen, felled, as a tree or an idol or a man in battle. As in, at the Falls he was felled, and the boys fell faster, a maelstrom of limbs over the cascade, the water dropping from level to level like a giant hawk, such a natural act, a falling star, that arc into dark. ~Cassie Terman

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Ohno Kazuo Birthday Celebration January 28,29

Dr-Bob — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 03:23:22 GMT

Ohno San celebrated his 100th birthday October 27, 2006. This weekend, in Yokohama, many esteemed butoh performers are gathering to dance in his honor "Hundreds Flowers’ Blossoms". It is thought that Ohno, who is very frail, may take the stage, albeit briefly, for the last time. He is still full of life and compassion. What a wonder we are involved in a movement form sustainable in the body of 100 years!

For English see http://www.kazuoohnodancestudio.com/english/perform_arc/hyakkaryouran.shtml
Japanese http://www.kazuoohnodancestudio.com/japanese/perform_arc/hyakkaryouran/hyakkaryouran.shtml

Many of you know the story of the passing of Hijikata. He was in the hospital, surrounded by his family and friends, connected to machines, wires and tubes. He rose up in his bed and started to perform his final butoh. Everyone was weeping. But he implored them: "do not weep, applaud!, applaud!" When I last saw Ohno in his early 90's at the Japan Society, he was so moved by the audience, we all have sustained him, and he us.

The last few years he has been focused on images of the flower, the baby, birth and death. Infinity can be learned by that.

I'm sure many here have experience that they can relate of their encounters with Ohno...

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NY Butoh Fest Advice~~Artists Collaborations

AIRBUTOH — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:26:12 GMT

Hello Butoh Comrades,
I am slowly coming back into performance again and I'm embarking on a new project I would like to submit to the NY Butoh Fest. I checked their website a couple of days ago and it's in construction. Does anyone have any idea on what the eligibility requirements are? Please email me back or tribe me by sending a message via my page handle:
http://people.tribe.net/airbutoh
OR
airbutoh@yahoo.com (put NY Butoh in subject line so I don't think it's spam).
Also, this project is going to require a lot of planning. I will need helpful advice from experienced folks who have already done similar projects. Anybody interested in multimedia (video and film), installation, aerial butoh, Japanese contributors, please contact me.

Best,

Monikah Barriga
San Francisco

posted in Butoh - 4 replies

Take a look

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 19:44:31 GMT

Well I'm happy to annouce that I have a website of my own. Its all up and running.
Please check it out, tell me what you think!
www.butohdance.net

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

butoh talk in sf

Iu-Hui — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:30:25 GMT

hey all, i just participated this weekend in a roundtable discussion facilitated by the Noh Space and Sherwood Chen in SF, and we were talking about issues of tradition, fusion, identity in our work and audience development and thought i'd post some of the questions we discussed to see what your responses are. the symposium will be podcast sometime soon and i'll give y'all the link to that when that happens. our group mainly consisted of japanese /japanese american butoh influenced artists, but we did have some musicians, arts administrators, and people of other asian and non-asian ancestory present. it was an interesting blend to say the least!

so i'm just going to start with these for now:

What is butoh for you?
What element of butoh affects your work?
Diversion and connection with form - what factors inform your choices?

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Hijikata and Ono Videos on YouTube

Bob — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:26:52 GMT

Thought you all might be interested in two short video clips I've uploaded to YouTube of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ono in performance. They're short, but it's all I have.

You can watch them here:

Hijikata:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xYsO7OpQkQ

Ono:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUjhQLB0hXY

Enjoy!

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Butoh and the bomb

Bob — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:39:06 GMT

I wa going to post this in response to a comment in the "what is the definition of evil" topic, but it's important enough (to me) that I thought it warranted its own topic.

In that posting, in regards to the issue of whether the definition of evil was a topic that belonged in the Butoh Tribe, Littlefish wrote, " if you would agree that butoh was at least partially inspired by the events at hiroshima and nagaski ..."

I'm sorry, but I, for one, would not agree with that statement. This association of butoh with the horrors of the atomic bomb is probably the biggest misunderstanding about butoh that exists in America. I'm not exactly sure where it started, but I think it it almost entirely without basis.

I have studied with at least 2 dozen butoh teachers from Japan and around the world, and not one of them has ever mentioned the atomic bomb. I have about a dozen publications about butoh on my bookshelf, and in all of them the only reference to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki I can find actually refutes (or at least downplays) the idea of their connection with butoh..

That one reference is in the Spring 2000 issue of TDR (The Drama Review), which was devoted to writings by and interviews with Tatsumi Hijikata. In the introduction to that volume, Kurihara Nanako wrote:

"Hijikata's words dispel the misconceptions about butoh and his own work, which have been erroneously essentialized and stereotyped. Butoh is often seen as something essentially "Japanese" or "Tohoku," the northeastern region of Japan where Hijijata grew up. Some scholars too easily try to connect him with Zen Buddhism and other "Japanese" or "Eastern" elements. Others, particularly American critics, see butoh as a direct product of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski ... Yes, the war affected Hijikaya greatly, as it affected whole generations of Japanese artists and writer. And of course, butoh contains a lot of "Japanese" elements. However the origin of butoh is far more complex."

That's it. I've also found a 3 sentence comment by Isamu Osuka, the director of Byakko Sha, in the 1989 butoh documentery "Dance of Darkness" by Edin Velez. Osuka says he was born in Hiroshma after the war. His parents lived there during the bombing and spoke to him about its victims. But Osuka is clearly talking about his own life and not making any generalities about butoh. Velez ends a clip of a Byakko Sha performance by cutting to a clip of an atomic bomb blast, but this is clearly Velez's statement. Sometimes I wonder if the whole history of this Western misconception of butoh can be traced to this one documentary.

There is, of course, also the 1960 film "The Navel and the Bomb," directed by Eiko Hosoe and featuring Hijikata, among other performers. I've seen this film (it was presented by Akiko Motfuji, Hijikata's widow, at the 1996 San Francisco Butoh Festival), and I don't see how this one very abstract film, directed by a photographer and experimental filmmaker who was not himself a butoh performer, can lead to the conclusion that butoh was a reaction to the atomic bombs. Motofuji herself said that Hijikata's intention in the film was to talk about the univerality of the human condition. "Everyone has a navel."

Eiko Hosoe's other well-known connection to butoh is a famous series of photographs he took of Hijikata dancing in the rural Japanese countryside, but for Hosoe this work was very personal, reflecting memories of his own childhood in rural Japan, and not even primarily a document of HIjikata's dance or butoh, and certainly not a universal statement on mankind or the war.

I suspect the prevalence of this misconcecption in America has more to do with unconscious needs of the American psyche than anything in butoh.

If anyone can point me to anything in the writings of Hijikata or Ono or any of the pioneering butoh artists, or even anyone authoritative talking on the matter, that can draw a definite connection between the origins of butoh and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'd love to see it. If I am wrong, I want to know, but otherwise maybe it's time we stop perpetuating this unfounded myth.

Thoughts, comments, opinions?

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Highlighted Artist for January 2007 - Alenka

kitsunebutoh — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:49:23 GMT

About Alenka:

Alenka Loesch has been a dance theatre performer/designer for 2 decades.
She co-founded uRo Teatr Koku with Shinichi Iova-Koga which later morphed into inkBoat. She designed the costumes for the URO projects as well as inKboats' Onion and Cockroach. Additionally, she has designed costumes for Yumiko Yoshioka (DA-PPI), Antagon Theatre Aktion, Do Teatr, and all of her own solo work. She has participated in many international festivals,performances and artist residencies in France, Czech Republic, Germany, US, Slovakia, Poland, Italy and Japan.
Loesch became primarily known as a Butoh dancer after 1991 when she began dancing under Hiroko and Koichi Tamano (primary dancers in Tatsumi Hijikata’s company).
Her dance attempts to shatter habits which limit our bodies and the perception of our bodies. She endeavors to reveal her inner world and achieve absolute presence. She attempts to bare the soul and reveal the human being in all it's banality, ugliness and beauty to expose the sufferings and joys of life.
She has collaborated intensively as dancer and designer with Shinichi Iova-Koga/ Inkboat, Yumiko Yoshioka and TEN PEN CHii Art Factory (Germany: 1996-2001), Antagon Aktion Theatre (Germany:1998-1999), Do Theatre (Russia: 1997-2000), Minako Seki (Germany: 1998-2000), Shadowlight Theatre (USA: 1993-1997), Michael Sakamoto and Mizu Desierto (USA:2005-2006)

Alenka's first introduction to Butoh:

I first saw Sankai Juku in 1987 and felt a strong epiphany in those moments. What is this dance and where can I study? At that time no one (in Texas where I was living at the time) knew anything about Butoh. I had to wait until 1990 while living in Prague. I went to see Devrevo, a Russian Butoh inspired group. I felt that same epiphany; like I had finally found a thread of that which I belong. I came to know Derevo and studied briefly with them before deciding I must return to the States to save money to go to Japan and study (which I did later). Within one week of being back in Berkeley, CA by happenstance I met a man, who, it turned out, was a filmaker and had just made a documentary about Tamano-san. The next day he took me to dinner at the Tamanos and I began my journey with Butoh. Why? Because it is clearly my path and my passion in this lifetime and I have no other choice.

Opportunities to study with Alenka:

I teach on-going classes twice a week in Portland Oregon out of my home studio.
I teach Tuesday’s & Thursday’s 11am-12:30pm.
My class is a deep excavation of the hidden drawers of expression inside our psyche. It is a hard push of physical limitations which activate the body on a cellular level and strengthen the inner core. We train our bodies to achieve a superhuman quality of movement while attempting to erase all tension and ego. We are moved, not moving. We become swamp monsters or hungry baby birds or we dance our personal passions, perversions and passages. We channel our anscestors, those that had the same thoughts and prayers. They are all with us/ within us. We open ourselves to the thread that binds us which is also our track of becoming.

Opportunities to see Alenka perform:

I have just finished a tour of my latest collaboration with Mizu Desierto called ePheMere. We continue to perform this piece around the Pacific Northwest through winter and then plan to take it to Europe on tour in the summer, all the while developing a new piece which will premier in the spring. I am also performing improvised solos locally. For information about my work or booking requests please see my tribe home page or my temporary website (new one underconstruction):
www.nexustudio.net where you will find my CV and more extensive bio etc.

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butoh classes in the bay area?

Angelina — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:16:05 GMT

howdy folks , anyone got any info on butoh classes in the bay area , would love to go to some or connect with likeminded poeple on seeing some performances ....
tanks xx

posted in Butoh - 4 replies

GooSayTen Performance @ Zero Arrow. . . thoughts?

kitsunebutoh — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 03:58:17 GMT

Did anyone attend GooSayTen's performance of "To the White To the Sky" last night at Zero Arrow in Cambridge? Any thoughts, impressions, observations? Curious to hear your experience as well as your perception of the work and choreography.

I found it particularly interesting that the presenters decided to "educate" the mostly academic (Boston University) audience about Butoh with an excerpt of a PhD students' paper on its history before the performance.

The first and last time I saw GooSayTen was inside Purdy Prison in Gig Harbor in 1999. Itto and Mika performed inside a small "reading room" for about 30 female inmates who were part of an arts program that I was interning with. Their movement vocabulary hasn't changed much but the short 15 minute performance they did resonated much more powerfully than what I witnessed last night. The ingredients of audience, atmosphere, place and time play a large part in determining what the experience of Butoh will be like. . .I was quite struck with this last night and am curious to hear what others thought?

posted in Butoh - 4 replies

Buto Classes in SF and Oakland- Sherwood Chen

niki — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:02:03 GMT

BODY WEATHER LABORATORY WINTER 2005
with Sherwood Chen

THURSDAYS at STUDIO VALENCIA
6:30pm - 9:30pm
January 13 through March 17

Studio Valencia located at:
455A Valencia Street between 15th/16th
San Francisco, 94103
* Two blocks away from 16th/Mission BART
* Across the street from Intersection for the Arts
* Right above the Quan Yin Healing Arts Center (ring the Studio bell)

$120 for full series (10 classes)
$16 drop in
$80 for the entire series if you have enrolled for Sherwood's Tuesday night series at Temescal (see below)

CONTACT/INFO: 415.244.1615 or sherwood@1001plateaus.com

************************************

TUESDAYS at TEMESCAL ARTS CENTER

8:15pm - 10:15pm
February 15 through March 22

Temescal Arts Center is located at:
511 48th Street at Telegraph
Oakland, 94609
* MacArthur BART

$85 for series (6 classes)

For the complete Oakland Butoh Winter/Spring 2005 Schedule (Paige
Sorvillo, Hiroko Tamano, Shinichi Momo Koga, Sherwood Chen) and series
package rates contact: paigesorvillo@mindspring.com or 510.601.7494

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

does art create life or life create art?

Iu-Hui — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:31:11 GMT

so, for a topic that i know for sure that Hijikata and Ono both spent years debating (so that's how it's related to the butoh thread... :^) ) i was wondering what all y'alls thoughts are on that one? plus it also addresses the question of "what is an appropriate topic for a butoh discussion thread?" if life and art are intertwined, where/when/how do we distinguish one from the other? i know, it's a bit of a chicken or the egg debate, but i always enjoy the dances that come out of these questions...because isn't that what these answers all are eventually, our own dances of life? or maybe vice versa???

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Butoh NYC

Sirena — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 02:09:33 GMT

Where could I find information on Butoh groups/ classes in NYC? Thanks :)

posted in Butoh - 1 reply

butoh clay

Greg — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:31:36 GMT

Good morning all,
Im currently starting a small production in sacramento and Im interestd in using the the white clay for make up. Though I dont know where to begin to look or what works best. If any one has any advice or knows of good places to begin looking I really appreciate it.

posted in Butoh - 3 replies

HEY I'M NEW HERE!

Eleanor — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 01:58:20 GMT

Hello Everyone!
Just found this tribe thing whilst browsing on my pc...and to my delight a Butoh one!! Wonderful!
Eleanor

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U.S. Premiere of Carlotta Ikeda at UC-Irvine 2/13/07

Richard — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:48:53 GMT

U.S. premiere of Carlotta Ikeda in "Waiting"
Presented by the UCI Chancellor's Distinguished Fellows Series

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 8:00 PM

(Pre-performance Orientation by Professor Susan Klein, Department of East Asian Languages, one hour before the performance)

Carlotta Ikeda is one of the world’s most celebrated performers of Butoh – a contemporary avant-garde dance form which originated in Japan. Ms. Ikeda has performed over thirty cities on four continents, including the major cultural capitals of Paris, London, Vienna, Copenhagen, Brussels, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Moscow, as well as the Avignon and Marseille Theatre Festivals. In 1974 she founded the first all-female butoh company, Ariadone, which is based in Bourdeaux, France. For this, her first American performance ever, Ikeda will dance her acclaimed solo entitled “Waiting.”

“Child, old man, insane witch, broken doll, Ikeda steps beyond time. [Carlotta’s] dance of multiple metamorphoses delves into the very source of life’s mystery and paints the dancer’s fears with the poetry of beauty."
-Le Monde

Also of interest:
Carlotta Ikeda will be giving a Butoh Master Class which is open to the public on Monday, February 12, 3:30 pm, Winifred Smith Hall, Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Free admission.

Tickets: $15.00, $9.00

$15 general
$9 students
Must present a valid full-time student id at the box office in order to pick up student tickets.

IRVINE BARCLAY THEATRE
http://www.thebarclay.org
Box Office (949) 854-4646

posted in Butoh - 0 replies

New Butoh Article

Bob — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 02:06:32 GMT

Hi, folks,

I've just posted on my website an article I've written about the relationship between Butoh and Western performance which I thought might be of interest to members at our butoh tribe, especially those new to butoh and still looking for more info about it.

You can check it out here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~bdenatale/butohandwest.html

I'd be interested in any feedback about it.

Enjoy!

- bob

posted in Butoh - 4 replies

london butoh

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 04:24:52 GMT

hi,
im venturing to london town in a couple of days and wondered if anyone knew any places i would find butoh....information, books etc, workshops, classes, performances or performers, or any people into it.
thanks,
holi

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

a message from kazuo ohno

littlefish — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:56:17 GMT

a friend just shared this with me.
it was written eight years ago,
but yet it seems timeless, just like him.

~~enjoy~~

A Message from Kazuo Ohno on International Dance Day in 1998:

A Message to the Universe

On the verge of death one revisits the joyful moments of a lifetime.
One's eyes are opened wide-gazing into the palm, seeing death, life, joy and sorrow with a sense of tranquility.
This daily studying of the soul, is this the beginning of the journey?
I sit bewildered in the playground of the dead. Here I wish to dance and dance and dance and dance, the life of the wild grass.
I see the wild grass, I am the wild grass, I become one with the universe. That metamorphosis is the cosmology and studying of the soul.
In the abundance of nature I see the foundation of dance. Is this because my soul wants to physically touch the truth?
When my mother was dying I caressed her hair all night long without being able to speak one word of comfort. Afterwards, I realized that I was not taking care of her, but that she was taking care of me.
The palms of my mother's hands are precious wild grass to me.
I wish to dance the dance of wild grass to the utmost of my heart.

posted in Butoh - 2 replies

Butoh music, part 2

pushingair — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:51:13 GMT

I'm interested in making music for butoh. One could look for individuals or companies to collaborate with and/or create music that might be appropriate to choreograph to.

As a dancer, what sort of approach would you recommend?

Thanks,

Diana

posted in Butoh - 5 replies

sankai juku in tempe

eleanor — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 04:21:46 GMT

anyone have any thoughts on the group's performance in tempe last week? this was my first time to see them and i enjoyed it very much. i have mostly seen solo butoh artists on stage versus a group and this is a good one to see. i was disappointed though that there was no intro or leaflet about butoh on the program. after the show, i overheard several comments: "i don't think they knew what they (dancers) were doing" and "that was a waste of money!" i wish they were better informed on what butoh is about, or what "kagemi", the dance itself is about. i felt that these two things could have made it more accessible for people who either do not watch dance regularly and/or are less inclined to abstraction.

posted in Butoh - 0 replies