Embodying the Spirit: Butoh Workshop This training explores questions of existence philosophically and physically. What is life? What is the human condition? What is the body? Reduction of the physical body and ego-self allowing fluidity and transformation are fundamental to Butoh. We will concentrate on the marriage of mind, body, and image through a process of simultaneously uncovering and creating the body through the power of the mind. Recognizing the body as a carrier of ancient history and the consciousness of our cellular body, we seek an interweaving and balancing of the universal and individual selves. The body is deconstructed to reveal the universal self and expose our primal roots through heightening the elemental or nature body, after which the self is recreated in a revitalized journey of individuation. WWW.SEATTLEBUTOH.ORG

Friday 5 -8 p.m.,
Saturday 10-3pm;
all levels of experience warmly accepted

Sliding Scale Suggested Donation: $10 -$50 Friday night;
$25 - $75 Saturday; $35 - $105 both days.
Trades also possible.

Choose a date from the list below to see instructor information.

Joan Laage studied under Butoh Masters Ohno Kazuo and Ashikawa Yoko, and performed with Ashikawa's group Gnome while living in Tokyo in the late 1980's. She founded Dappin' Butoh in Seattle in 1991, and is noted as a pioneer in bringing Butoh to the Pacific Northwest. As a soloist, and with her company, she has performed throughout the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Asia. She is featured in Sondra Horton Fraleigh's book Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan, and performed and taught at the New York and Paris Butoh Festivals. Joan is a member of the recently formed Daipan Performance Collective.

MAUREEN "momo" FREEHILL, MFA 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 instructor for over 25 years and holds an MFA in Directing/Asian Performance from University of Hawaii, Yoga Teacher Certification and Dance Therapy training at Naropa Institute. She lived, studied and performed for 5 years in Japan with butoh masters Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno. She leads workshops and performs internationally including past events with Katsura Kan, Akira Kasai, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, musician Kitaro and Noh master Kanze Hideo. The Pacific Northwest is her current springboard for touring and teaching nationally and internationally. In 2008 Maureen founded the website "BUTOH," a virtual international gathering place for butoh enthusiasts at http:// butohdance.ning.com. In celebration of the 50th anniversary

In 2008 Maureen founded the website "BUTOH," a virtual international gathering place for butoh enthusiasts at http://butohdance.ning.com. In celebration of the 50th anniversary Year of Butoh: 2009 she will present at least one butoh dance daily and post it at http://dailydance.net. Her other websites include: http://maureenfreehill.net and http://lifeartmastery.com. of diverse energy patterns in the body--spirals, waves, the motion of the bone body, strings, the elements--each dancer intensifies their awareness of their own unique kinesthetic language. The breath/voice will be explored intimately to deepen evocation and to generate movement that breaks out of the human and allows for subtle shifts and a multiplicity of speeds/rhythms.

COMING TO OUR SENSES: wellspring for life and butoh practice. A workshop inspired by Butoh founder Kazuo Ohno, EROS and the ever nourishing wellspring of SENSUAL EXPERIENCE. Maureen will guide an initiatory butoh journey through our 12 senses to enliven and enrich your performances, creative ecstatic practices; awaken both mindfulness and playfulness; engage in deeply moving connection with self, other beings and all of life. You will leave the workshop with a sensual "tool kit" of practices that will support and ripen your artistic, and everyday awakenings for a lifetime. Appropriate for every BODY and SOUL.

We will seek to always arrive at the threshold of the unknown, where one is naked, vulnerable, open to the spirits yearning to move through us borne on sound and erupting within cells, memory and possession fusing into spontaneous creation.

Danse Perdue/Death Posture (Vanessa Skantze and Alex Ruhe)
"We will work in deep communion with the breath, its myriad intensities in rhythms, as a means of access to the inner space of the dancer's body. From the breath and guided imagery a richer awareness of the intricacy and power of the somatic instrument is gained. Through exploration of diverse energy patterns in the body--spirals, waves, the motion of the bone body, strings, the elements--each dancer intensifies their awareness of their own unique kinesthetic language. The breath/voice will be explored intimately to deepen evocation and to generate movement that breaks out of the human and allows for subtle shifts and a multiplicity of speeds/rhythms.

We will seek to always arrive at the threshold of the unknown, where one is naked, vulnerable, open to the spirits yearning to move through us borne on sound and erupting within cells, memory and possession fusing into spontaneous creation. With the musicians who will be creating the soundscapes for the workshop we will work with varying approaches/structures in improvisation. We will catalyze natural ability to move/vocalize in a ritual opening of body and spirit to the energies coming to us through the sound as it pierces, and embraces us. Subtle instruments, we will train to sculpt kinesis and feeling in response to sound in the unique and harrowing beauty of butoh improvisation."

Sheri Brown & Alan Sutherland Butoh created by dancers who achieve control of their bodies, created by dancers who can access and clearly display discrete emotional/cognitive states sharing movement deeply connected to being, poets who disciplines their bodies, dancers learning to open their hearts. Towards this end have Alan and Sheri taught, choreographed and performed together for a number of years. It is likewise toward this end that Sheri and Alan present a class that explores both the technique and process of butoh, while honoring the mystery that is at the core of this radical movement form. Believing butoh is mastered not through instruction but through sharing, after warming and awakening the body, we investigate how bodies become empty enough, how souls become transparent enough, for a butoh dancer to touch for good the human hearts.

Sheri Brown is a Seattle-based performer ( www.sheribrown.com) who found butoh in Seattle eight years ago, after 11 years of theatre and street performance. Butoh satisfied her need to explore and express the place between words and dance inside her connection to her innermost self and the world. She began serious study in 2000 with Shinichi Momo Koga in San Francisco, joined the P.A.N. that same year, and has since trained and performed with numerous butoh masters since then including Katsura Kan, Diego Pinon, Akira Kasai, Minako Seki, Yoshito Ohno, Su-En and Jay Hirobashi. With P.A.N. (www.prettyartnumb.com), Sheri has presented work in the International Butoh Festival in San Francisco, the Overseas Arts Convention in Korea, and International Mime Festival in Korea (where her troupe won the esteemed Dokkebi Award for most creative, cutting-edge contemporary work). As a solo artist, Sheri has toured Japan twice with Marron of DubMarronics, based in over a dozen major Japanese cities including Kyoto, Kitakyushu, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo.! Sheri, Marron and Daipan will present work in Seattle in early July.

Alan Sutherland began studying butoh in his early 40's. He has performed extensively in America and a little in Asia. He has danced with Dappin, The Degenerate Art Ensemble, Implied Violence, PAN, as well as showing his own unique solo work. A published poet, he has a degree in philosophy, a granddaughter, and the mad belief that the world can be made a better place if the right dance is performed.

Butoh, evolved in Japan in post World War II as a rejection of the western influences that were threatening to cover up essential, grounded Japanese proletariat culture and also as an outgrowth of the modern dance movement. Certainly the total devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had and continues to have influence in the cultural evolution of Japan, but the direct connection of butoh to the bombings is more of a simplified story than 'the truth.' Butoh's birth can certainly be attributed to Japan, but its lineage and progression are, by definition, not easily boxed. (It has even been said that once you know what butoh is, it is no longer butoh, because butoh is always being born...)

Choose a month from the list below to see details about that workshop.

Led by Sheri on Tuesdays   |   Led by Vanessa on Fridays

Tuesdays and Fridays 7:00 - 9:00 pm
$10.00 suggested donation per class
February 1st - Classes start
March 4th - Dress rehearsal
March 6th - Performance ($5.00 - $10.00 Suggested donation)

Sheri found butoh in Seattle seven years ago, after 11 years of theatre and street performance. She found it satisfied her need to explore and express the place between words and dance inside her connection to her innermost self, the world, and the universe. She began serious study in San Francisco with Shinichi Momo Komo and has trained with numerous butoh masters since that time including Katsura Kan, Diego Pinon, Akira Kasai, Minako Seki, Su-En, Joan Laage, and Jay Hirobashi.

Vanessa Skantze began performing spoken word in 1993, touring the U.S. with Lydia Lunch and Exene Cervenka. She premiered her solo piece "Eye of the Beholder" at Zeitgeist Theatre Experiments in New Orleans in 1996.

In 1997, Vanessa founded Teatro de la Psychomachia, Theater of the Soul Struggle, whose name expresses the desire for liberation from self-perpetuated barriers that fetter and frustrate the experiential and expressive freedom of mind and body.

Read more about Vanessa here.

Led by Helen Thorsen on Tuesdays   |   Led by Alan Fridays

Tuesdays and Fridays 7:00 - 9:00 pm
$10.00 suggested donation per class
March 7th - Classes start
April 1st - Dress rehearsal
April 3rd - Performance ($5.00 - $10.00 Suggested donation)

Butoh thrives when the performer is able to occupy the intersection of complete surrender to the moment and complete mastery of that moment.  Both of these modes must be explored fully in a non-performance setting for them to manifest in front of an audience. 

Class with Helen and Alan consists of exercises that instill, through sharing, the deep aesthetic of the butoh body, as well as longer journeys through landscapes of imaginative embodiment.  Helen has danced since she was a little girl, in Seattle since 1983. She was a founding member of the Joan Laage's seminal troupe, Dappin Butoh. Alan began performing butoh in his forties and has danced with Dappin, PAN, the Degenerate Art Ensemble, and Death Posture.

Led by Dk on Tuesdays   |   Led by Maureen on Fridays

Tuesdays and Fridays 7:00 - 9:00 pm
$10.00 suggested donation per class
April 4th - Classes start
April 29th - Dress rehearsal
May 1st Performance at TK VCR (5 - 10 Suggested donation)

"bodies and memories. like the time you fell over backwards and saw the tarantula on the ceiling... or drowned with pennies in your pockets to weigh you down...or choose-your-own -adventure books eaten in an afternoon..."

dk pan was born in Seoul, Korea (1972), moved to the US in 1976 with his family. His mother was born in Pyoungyang and his father was born in Seoul. dk works in the fields of performance, installation art, and media. He has performed throughout Europe, Japan, South Korea, and US, presenting solo works as well as with music & performance groups - Degenerate Art Ensemble and the Infernal Noise Brigade. His work has been supported by a number of government and foundation grants. In 1999, he co-founded an art & performance group, P.A.N., which has produced over 30 original works for theater, galleries, museums, festivals, and site-specific installations.

Read more about dk pan here.

Maureen Freehill is dedicated to the revelation of soul through the body. She has performed and taught butoh, dance, theater and yoga for over 20 years. Her training includes an MFA in Directing Asian Performance and Yoga Teacher Certification. She lived in Japan, performed and studied with butoh founder Kazuo Ohno for nearly 5 years. She is regularly seen performing locally and tours internationally. In the recent past, Maureen was a full-time drama instructor and director of the Seattle Central Community College Drama Department.

Maureen will focus this 4 week series on the heart as a powerul organ of perception and transformation. We will also investigate
impermanence of the body (and all things)
and how that relates to our butoh practice.

This workshop will enhance any performance, creative, healing and artistic practices by exercising imagination and increasing energy flow to reveal hidden gifts of the soul through the body. We will cultivate capacity for freedom of movement, powerful presence and transformation.

Read more about Maureen here.

Performances from each workshop will happen at the first Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square in the Vandenbrink Community Room in the Tashiro Kaplan building.

115 Prefontaine Pl. S.
Seattle, Wa 98104

Dress-rehearsal Tuesdays are in the Vandenbrink Community Room in the Tashiro Kaplan building.

115 Prefontaine Pl. S.
Seattle, Wa 98104

Workshops will be held at Universal Fitness Center

517 Main Street Seattle, WA 98104
(between 5th and 6th Aves., in Pioneer Square; sign on front door reads, "Universal Fitness Center")

March 6th
April 3rd
May 1st

All performances suggested donation $5.00 - $10.00