Embodying The Spirit: Butoh Workshop taught by Joan Laage

Photo by Vincent Brown

Continual metamorphosis… dance becomes a container for chaos and a reflection of true existence.

Annual Intensives-

May 2004 Intensive -- May 21 - 7:00 to 10:00 pm
May 22 - 10:00 to 2:00 pm
May 23 - 10:00 to 2:00 pm

$75 full ($65 if took March or April workshops)
$30 single

Location on Capitol Hill; for location, contact Dappin' Butoh

……..NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY……..

Embodying The Spirit 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 within Butoh aesthetics through a process of simultaneously uncovering and creating the body through the power of the mind. Recognizing the body as 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.

The history of the physical body, in both its universal and individual aspects, consists of its developmental journey. We regain our fetal self by experiencing our body as countless growing and shrinking cells within one cell, and by exploring developmental patterning. This "breath sack" becomes saturated by water until the body becomes a "water sack". We continue to transform from one nature element to another through awareness of the flow of breath and energy…to earth, to stone, to air, to water…recognizing the changing density and texture of the cells, and begin to explore the balance of elemental forces inside and surrounding the body sack. As we turn our attention to gravity, we begin to work with the "hanging body"--the body that is suspended and moved by invisible strings. The layering process continues with the addition of nature and human-constructed imagery (through words and pictures), as we move from chaos to form.

Joan Laage, Artistic Director of Dappin' Butoh since 1991, moved to Seattle after studying under Butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa in Japan, and performing in Ashikawa's group, Gnome. She has taught workshops in the Seattle area for over 10 years, as well as in New York, San Francisco, Portland and in England, Denmark, Poland, and Hungry. Joan has been on the faculty of Seattle Festival of Alternative Dance and Improvisation, Portland International Performance Institute, Florida Dance Festival, Naropa Institute, and a guest artist at Ohio State University, University of Georgia, St. Mary's College of Maryland, and UNITEC in New Zealand. She wrote a dissertation on the significance of the body in Butoh (Texas Woman's University, 1993), is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst, and is featured in Sondra Horton Fraleigh's book, Dancing Into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan. Joan is currently an Assistant Instructor at the Chinese Wu Shu & Tai Chi Academy in Seattle. Joan began a monthly performances series, "intimate stage", in June 2001 to promote solo work and to share her extensive Butoh video library. Joan was a featured artist at the 2003 New York Butoh Festival.