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.
» April 17, 18: Joan Laage
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.
» April 24, 25: Maureen Freehill
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.
» May 1, 2: Danse Perdue/Death Posture
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."
» May 8,9: P.A.N.
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.
Past workshops
» 2008 Butoh study:
Practice and Performance (click here to start)
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.
» February 2008
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.
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.
» April 2008
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.
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.
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.
Diego offers an open and integrated
view into the realm of Butoh Mexicano
Ritual Dance. In his unique style
of teaching, Diego incorporates over
25 years of experience and practice
in the fields of Mexican energetic
traditions, Japanese Butoh, ritual
dance, contemporary modern dance
and
theatre. Diego has developed techniques
that stimulate, open and recapture
energy from the body and senses.
He guides in how to use perception,
imagination and creativity to develop
personal dances from individual experiences.
Butoh Mexicano Ritual Dance, is physically
challenging and
intense. Diego uses the body to awaken
sensitivity and vital energy to transform
the limitation we normally percieve
in ourselves. This transformation
then propels us to new places in
our bodies' capacity to dance. The
workshop techniques and exercises
provide focus, center and balance
with clear directions and intentions
with which to move the body.
His Butoh Mexicano Ritual
Dance Workshop Includes:
Stimulating body work that incorporates
intense warm ups that circulate
energy also using breath and
sound.
Explorations of the environment
outside through communal and
internal connections.
An emphasis on personal explorations
using the energies of the group
and the space that allow for
personal impulses to "speak" with
the unconscious to expose human
and natural qualities through
dance.
Explorations of physical conditions
to expand and suspend energy
through the breath.
Stretches using the use the center
core for balance.
Excersises that stimulate and
open energetic centers, that
provoke and allow the expression
of different impulses.
A training of the senses, perceptions,
imagination, and consciousness
that open the internal spaces,
sensations, feelings, and extreme
energetic levels.
An exchange with a communtiy.
Support of a personal and ritual
dance.
Creating and energetic exchange
the with an audience.
Aloha!
- Joan Laage one-day workshop August
27
Announcing a special one-day opportunity
to study with Joan Laage, the very special
woman who brought butoh to Seattle years
ago!
Though Joan now lives in Korea, she will
be passing through Seattle soon for a
few days and will be offering a four-hour
intensive at the Chamber
Theatre on Capitol Hill Monday
August 27 from 5:30 - 9:30pm.
Fee is $40. (More information about Joan
and her butoh below.)
To register and/or get further details,
please email
Sheri Brown.
Embodying The Spirits explores questions:
What is the human condition? What is
the body? How can we experience infinity
in the body? We will concentrate on the
marriage of mind, body, and image within
Butoh aesthetics beginning with recalling
the consciousness of our cellular body
and our primal roots. ETS is based on
Joan's Butoh training, her Laban/Bartenieff,
Tai Chi, and Yoga background, and observances
of nature. The training involves vigorous
warm-ups, breath and energy exercises,
exploration of the body as a fetus with
developmental patterning, and primarily
nature imagery. Through continual transformation
we move from chaos to form.
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
1980s. She first saw Butoh in 1982
in Tokyo. Founded in 1991, Dappin'
Butoh had its debut performance in
Seattle, Washington in 1991. Since
then, as a soloist and with her company,
Joan has performed widely in the
USA including the Paris, New York,
San Francisco and Seattle Butoh Festivals,
as well as in Europe, New Zealand,
and in Asia. Joan is featured in
Sondra Horton Fraleigh's book, Dancing
Into Darkness: Butoh Zen & Japan
. She moved to Jinju in September
2006, and frequently performs at
festivals in Korea.
» 2006 Workshops
Vanessa Skantze Assisted by Alex
Haverfield
September 4th, 6th, 11th, 13th,
18th, 20th, 25th, 27th
Performance on September
28th
Butoh workshops
Monday and Wednesday
nights in September
taught by Vanessa Skantze
with Alex Haverfield
Monday classes will focus
on physical sensitivity/possibility.
Moving with energy patterns--
spirals, waves, the motion
of bones -- in kinship
with breath/voice deepens
awareness of the unique
kinesthetic language
of each dancer. Work
with partners creates
extremities of balance,
sensitivity and tension
-- bringing dancers to
the threshold of the
unknown where one is
a vulnerable, naked creature.
Wednesdays will explore
the unique and harrowing
beauty of butoh improvisation
with the musicians who
will be creating soundscapes
for the classes. We will
catalyse natural ability
to move/vocalize in a
ritual opening of body
and spirit to what comes
through the sound as
it pierces, and embraces
us.The willing dancer
is a subtle instrument
sculpting kinesis and
feeling in response.
Vanessa Skantze is a
multidisciplinary artist
whose work embraces butoh
dance, voice, percussion,
writing and spoken word
performance, and metal
and stone sculpture.
She has practiced and
taught butoh dance since
2001 when she co-founded
the ensemble Death Posture
in New Orleans. She arrived
in Seattle in 2004 and
collaborates with local
dancers and musicians
frequently. Both Vanessa
and Alex study and perform
with Jinen Butoh founder
Atsushi Takenouchi. Jinen
dances the manifestation
of the universal nervous
system, the interwoven
cycle of life and death,
time and space.
Douglas Ridings
October 2nd, 4th, 9th, 11th,
16th, 18th, 23rd, 25th
Performance on October
28th
Butoh workshops
Monday and Wednesday
nights in October
taught by Douglas Ridings
Ridings has trained and
performed with Katsura
Kan(SALTAMBIQUES), Joan
Laage (DAPPIN BUTOH),
Kathleen Hunt(SAMADHI
YOGINIS), P.A.N, Dr.
Ratna Roy (URVASI) and
many others. During the
month of October 2006
he will lead a series
of butoh classes which
will culminate in a performance
on Saturday, October
28th. Classes will be
held Monday and Wednesday
evenings from 7-9pm.
Though open to all levels
of experience and ability,
vigorous physical training
should be expected.
Performance, will be
entitled SAVIORESS OF
THE CEMETERY. Contact
206.850.5390
Haruko Nishimura
November 6th, 8th, 13th, 15th,
20th, 22nd, 27th, 29th
Dress rehearsal on December
6th
Performance on December
7th (1st Thursday)
Butoh workshops
Monday and Wednesday
nights in November
taught by Haruko Nishimura
Haruko's teaching stems
from many years of her
own outrageous and unique
explorations in dance
and theater and are influenced
by her study of noguchi
gymnastics, Tadashi Suzuki's
Physical theater and
many years of private
study in Butoh with Shinichi
Momo Koga, Minako Seki,
and Yumiko Yoshioka among
others.
This class will emphasize
going beyond the external
by finding specific ways
of embodying dance, imagery,
and our often undiscovered
limitless energy hidden
inside us, and its journeys.
Images mined from our
imagination and physical
memory become tools in
our explorations of body
states,movement, and
choregraphic process.
Since co-founding Degenerate
Art Ensemble (formerly
The Young Composers Collective)
in 1993, Haruko has produced
a consistent stream of
original and adventurous
works combining physical
theater and butoh dance
with live experimental
music. Many of these
pieces are large scale
works involving up to
5-15 performers and the
Degenerate Art Ensemble's
10-17 piece orchestra.
Haruko's choreographed
works have been commissioned
by On The Boards, City,
County and State Arts
Commissions, as well
as a number of private
foundations and have
appeared in ten countries.
dk pan and Sheri Brown
January 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th,
17th, 22nd, 24th, 29th
Dress rehearsal on January
31st
Performance on February
1st (1st Thursday)
Butoh workshops
Monday and Wednesday
nights in January
taught by dk pan and
Sheri Brown
In January, Sheri and
dk will focus on partnering & body
relations, transformation &
metamorphosis utilizing
meditations on the body-
its motions and motivations,
presence and physicality
as they relate to self,
space, and 'other'. Body
architecture and 'light
weaving' will also play
major roles in the course,
as well as seeding the
new year.
Sheri Brown has performed
extensively both as a
solo artist and as a
core member of the butoh-inspired
troupe P.A.N., where
she began working with
dk pan in 2001. Sheri
holds a BA in Theatre
from Arizona State University
and a Master's in Education
from the University of
Hawaii; her Butoh teachers
include: Shinichi Momo
Koga, Akira Kasai, Joan
Laage,Su-En, Minako Seki,
Katsura Kan,Diego Pinon,
Jay Hirobashi, Yoshito
Ohno, Kota Yamazaki.
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.
Alan Sutherland and Helen Thorsen
February 5th, 7th, 12th, 14th,
19th, 21st, 26th, 28th
Performance on March
1st (1st Thursday)
Butoh workshops
Monday and Wednesday
nights in February
taught by Alan Sutherland
and Helen Thorsen
The focus of this series
of classes will be Rupture/Rapture.
Emphasizing image based
movement, we will explore
common assumptions of
what Butoh is and seek
to distill its essence
for individual use. Using
the basic physical and
spiritual principles
of butoh such as: acceptance,
clarity, nature, imagery,
alignment, poetry, stillness,
meditation, and rhythm
as tools, we access and
develop the integrity
of one's creative process
.
Alan Sutherland began
his dancing career in
the mid 80's. Through
Helen Thorsen he was
introduced to butoh in
the early 90's and began
studying and performing
it in 1995. He has danced
with Dappin Butoh, the
Degenerate Art Ensemble,
lowcrawlershighflying,
and PAN. He has shown
solo work in New York,
Philadelphia, and extensively
in Seattle. He has taught
butoh since 2001.
Helen Thorsen, has a
BA in dance from Columbia
College, with a background
in contemporary dance,
dance therapy, and counseling,
began the study of butoh
dance in the early 80's
with a workshop with
New York choreographers
Eiko and Komo (former
student of Ohno) . She
was a founding member
of Dappin' Butoh from
'93 to '02. She is co-founder
of the dance company
Lastleg into Flightime.
Her choreography, much
of which is site-specific
to outdoor locations,
has been seen since the
80's in Seattle venues
around Seattle.