SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL BUTOH FESTIVAL: Hidden Histories of the Body

DAIPANbutoh Collective is pleased to announce the Seattle International Butoh Festival 2017, a year of an international artist exchange with DAIPAN and Compañía Ruta de la Memoria (Chile) plus a special afternoon focusing on local and visiting Japanese artists.

Ken Mai (Finland/Japan)

DAIPAN continues to be the only group consistently bringing national and international butoh artists to Seattle, and producing an annual festival that features both guest artists and local performers. From its birth in Japan nearly 60 years ago, Butoh has proven itself a vital and innovative global genre. Join us in discovering these unique tricontinental voices in our 2017 festival, which opens the gate to the Hidden Histories of the Body.

For more information & photos contact:
Joan Laage [davidthornbrugh@hotmail.com] or www.daipanbutoh.com
For workshop information/registration contact:
Helen Thorsen: 206-723-2315
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2851548

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

March 6-April 14  
Photo Exhibition featuring the photography of Bruce Clayton Tom & others
plus paintings of Kaoru Okumura by Ruthie V. Hours 8:00-5:00 pm.
March 7  4:00-6:30 pm Exhibition opening with performances by DAIPAN
Also 4-5:30 pm performances by DAIPAN & friends – March 14, 21 & April 4
Venue: Shoreline Community Art College Gallery.
16101 Greenwood Ave N, Building 1000, Lobby, Shoreline 98133
Free

March 31 – April 2
Workshop with Compañía Ruta de la Memoria
Friday 6-9 pm; Saturday 12-6 pm; Sunday 10-4 pm with a free informal evening of performances and “meet the artists” 6:00-8:00 pm.
Venue: Taoist Studies Institute, 225 N 70th St, Seattle 98103
Workshop information/registration contact: Helen Thorsen: 206-723-2315
Full workshop $250 (discount by March 1 $200); Friday only $70; Sat/Sun only $200

April 8
Workshop with Ken Mai
1:00-5:00 pm. Venue: UW Dance Program / 256 Meany Hall
4000 15th Avenue NE. Seattle, WA 98195-1150, Studio: 266
Workshop information/registration contact: Helen Thorsen: 206-723-2315
$75 (discount by March 1 $60)

April 7 & 8
8 pm  Performances of Compañía Ruta de la Memoria
& DAIPAN (Friday: Joan Laage & Sheri Brown; Saturday: Helen Thorsen & Diana Garcia-Snyder)
Venue: Shoreline Community College Theater, 16101 Greenwood Ave N, Building 1600,
Shoreline 98133
$15/$20/SCC students free

April 9
3 pm  Performances of Ken Mai & Kaoru Okumura
Venue: Shoreline Community College Theater, 16101 Greenwood Ave N, Building 1600, Shoreline 98133
$15/$20/SCC students free

Kaoru Okumura (Seattle/Japan)

About DAIPAN and our festival

In 2017, DAIPAN is planning its most ambitious festival bringing international dance artist Natalia Cuellar from Chile with her group Compañía Ruta de la Memoria to perform and present workshops. In exchange, Natalia has invited the DAIPAN Collective to perform a group work in Santiago in the FiButoh Festival Internacional de Butoh and to teach workshops. In addition, DAIPAN will tour individual solos in other Chilean cities. DAIPAN will also present Ken Mai, a Japanese butoh artist residing in Helsinki, Finland, to perform and conduct a workshop for the 2017 festival. April 7 & 8 will feature Compañía Ruta de la Memoria and works by DAIPAN, and April 9 will feature Ken Mai and DAIPAN’s own Kaoru Okumura.

This is an extraordinary opportunity to bring never seen before international artists to the northwest community, and the opportunity for DAIPAN members to travel on tour together for the first time. The 2017 festival, running March 31 through April 9, is partnering with Shoreline Community College Theater and Gallery. SCC will host the 2017 festival performances in the theater at the college, and present a showcase of butoh photos featuring well known photographer Bruce Clayton Tom and other photographers with performances by DAIPAN and friends in the college gallery. Themes for our festival are the body as politics, hidden histories revealed, and personal primordial journeys and journeys of acceptance.

Snow in the Seattle Chinese Garden

photos by Dewey Webster
About a week ago  beautiful snow fell on Seattle - the Asian gardens look especially interesting under snow...  We haven't have anybody to take the pics in the Japanese Garden, but Dewey took a stroll in our sister-garden: the Seattle Chinese Garden 西华园  (Dewey is a docent in both Japanese and Chinese Gardens),  and he shared these images - thank you, Dewey!

Seattle Chinese Garden - 2/2017 - Main entry gate from inside Knowing the Spring Courtyard

Seattle Chinese Garden - 2/2017: The Welcome Garden welcomes the first snow. 

Seattle Chinese Garden - 2/2017 - Even the fish loves a snow day

Seattle Chinese Garden - 2/2017:
Snow falling on the peaks of the Stone Mountain in Knowing the Spring Court

For more of Dewey's pictures of snow in the Seattle Chinese Garden go to SeattleChineseGardenblog page.

Dewey is in California now, and this an image that he sent along the snowy pics above - YES, the cherry blossoms!  Coming up north, to Seattle soon!

2/19/17 - cherry blossoms in California - photo by Dewey Webster

Kaguya-hime and other Japanese tales

by aleks
Our Japanese book club was recently reading 'Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye' by Marie Mutsuki Mockett.  It was the most excellent book to read and ponder about, and it caused a spirited discussion, but this post is not about the book itself, but something I found in it:  a story of The Moon Princess - a tale as well known in Japan as "Cinderella" or 'Thumbelina' are in America.

SJG • 12/20/16 - winter garden

The legend of Kaguya-hime, sometimes known as ‘The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’ (繪入竹とり物語, Eiri Taketori monogatari), dates back to the 9th or 10th century, and is considered  the earliest surviving Japanese narrative.  There are many short and longer versions of the story of the tiny, beautiful baby girl that an old and poor bamboo-cutter found in the shiny stalk of bamboo on his way home one day.  The childless bamboo-cutter and his wife were overjoyed to raise her as her own and they named her Nayotake-no-Kaguya-hime, the Princess of the Bending Bamboo that Scatters Light.

From the day the bamboo-cutter found the girl, he had been finding a gold nugget inside every bamboo he cut.  In a comfortable, loving home Kaguya-hime grew up to to be a gorgeous young lady of extraordinary beauty and kindness and soon attracted many suitors, including the emperor of that time, who fell in love with her at first sight. But Kaguya Hime did not want to marry anyone.

I will leave aside here what happened to her suitors and jump to the part of one mid-autumn when the bamboo-cutter and his wife grew very concerned about their daughter erratic behavior: they would often find her looking at the moon with tears in her eyes. It was soon revealed  that Kaguya-hime came from the moon, that she doesn’t belong to this world and it was soon time for her to return there. That made everyone very sad.  The bamboo cutter did not want Kaguya Hime to leave and he asked samurais to protect her from the moon people.

Kaguya-hime gave parting gifts to her parents and to her friends, including the Emperor, whom she gave a letter and a small bottle of the Elixir of Life.   On the night of the full moon the moon people came and  took Kaguya-hime back to the moon. The samurai could not do anything.

Her parents were heartbroken, and so was the Emperor, who asked his people to burn Kaguya-hime's letter and her gift at the top of the highest mountain - immortality meant nothing to him without her. The tale has it that this mountain was then named "Fuji" which means "immortality". The smoke from Kaguya-hime's burned letter can still be seen subtly rising form the top of Mount Fuji...

Here is a nice English language illustrated pdf long (72 pages) version of the Moon Princess story translated by Clarence Calkins, 1994.

And there is a 'The Tale of The Princess Kaguya' from Studio Ghibli, 2013, trailer here:

Japanese folktales are very rich and offer a different view of the world than American ones. Some day I'd like to do a children's tour of our Garden where instead of the usual garden narrative I'd just take the children for a quiet stroll around, and stop on the bench here, grass there and in azumaya, and simply share with them Kaguya-hime story and a few others.  Being in a Japanese style garden and listening to real Japanese stories must be at least as interesting and educational as explanations about the look of the garden. Or maybe more. Some other stories I might tell on that tour: Momotaro (Peach Boy) and Yuki-onna (Snow Woman), but there many, many more to chose from.

SJG • 12/20/16 - Polytrichum or 'sugi' (cryptomeria) moss- one of the most prized in Japanese temples and gardens

For adults I have this recommendation  (also from  Marie Mutsuki Mockett's book mentioned at the beginning of the post):  'Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan' by Professor Hayao Kawai,  which 'addresses Japanese culture insightfully, exploring the depths of the psyche from both Eastern and Western perspectives'  (Amazon description). I normally try not to link to Amazon, but the book has only review there and  it's hilariously bad - wonder if I'll agree after reading the book, which is a collection of psychoanalytic lectures.

Seattle Japanese Garden opens March 1st for the public • First Viewing Ceremony Sunday, March 5th, 2017