Butoh Training at JCCCW this November

Seattle-based Joan Laage is pleased to be offering Butoh Training at JCCCW. The sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings November 6-December 4 from 7:30-9:30 pm.

Photo: Jim Coleman

The first class is free and following classes $15 each session. No experience necessary. This class series is sponsored by DAIPANbutoh Collective which is a Shunpike partner.
Register by contacting Joan: davidthornbrugh@hotmail.com

Embodying the Spirit: Butoh Training
Taught by Joan Laage (Kogut Butoh)
“The body finds its way…”

Experience training methods towards a supple body/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 Joan’s training with Butoh Masters Kazuo Ohno, Yoko Ashikawa (the major disciple of Butoh’s founder Tatsumi Hijikata) and her background as a Tai Chi practitioner and professional gardener.

After studying with Butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa in Tokyo in the late 80s and performing with Ashikawa’s group Gnome, Joan Laage settled in Seattle and founded Dappin’ Butoh in 1990. She is a co-founder of DAIPANbutoh Collective, which produces an annual Butoh festival. Joan performed at the New York, Chicago, Portland, Boulder, Seattle, Paris and Santiago (Chile) Butoh festivals, and a Butoh symposium at the University of California (LA). A Ph.D. in Dance & Related Arts from Texas Woman’s University and Certified Movement Analyst, she is featured in Sondra Fraleigh’s books – Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan and Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy. She creates site-specific work for Seattle Japanese gardens annually and tours every winter/spring in Europe. She is an avid Tai Chi practitioner with a background in Asian dance/theater. Since living in Krakow 2004–2006, she has been known as Kogut (rooster). www.seattlebutoh-laage.com; www.daipanbutoh.com