TWO EVENINGS OF BUTOH TRAINING

September 26/27 6-9:30pm

@Outerspace!! 1474 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Register online



Embodying the Spirit: Butoh Training with Joan Laage

Experience training methods towards a supple body and mind, and investigate aesthetics common to Butoh through creative explorations. This workshop is a process of erasing and re-creating the body through guided improvisation largely inspired by nature imagery. ETS explores endless questions: What is life? What is the human condition? What is the body? How can we experience infinity within the body/mind? The workshop structure includes exercises and explorations of physical body, nature body, and transforming body. Group and partner work will facilitate participants’ individual and collective journeys. The workshop draws from her training with Butoh Masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa and her background as a Tai Chi practitioner and professional gardener.

Joan Laage (Kogut Butoh) studied under butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa and performed with Ashikawa’s group Gnome in Japan in the late 80s. After settling in Seattle in 1990, she formed Dappin’ Butoh, a company known for its appearances in Seattle’s fringe theater and dance festivals. Joan has performed and taught at national and international butoh and dance festivals, and was a featured artist at the UCLA Butoh Symposium in May 2011, and has been an adjunct faculty at Cornish College of The Arts (Seattle). She is featured in Dancing Into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, And Japan and Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy by Sondra Horton Fraleigh. She performs frequently at the Seattle Japanese Garden where she is a docent. Joan is known as a NW butoh pioneer, and is a founding member of DAIPANbutoh Collective which produces an annual butoh festival in Seattle. www.seattlebutoh-laage.com www.daipanbutoh.com

Please direct any questions to butohchicago@gmail.com. Thank you for your interest!