Master Teacher Workshop!
Yuri & Seisaku Fall Intensive: 5 hours Butoh online Workshop!
Ren Gyo Soh is honored to host our beloved Butoh teachers' workshop online this Fall!
Date & Time
December 10-11, 2021 (US: EST) *The detail is below Participant Fee: Scale Payment One day: $30, $35, $40 Two days: $50, $55, $60 ------------------------ TIME ZONE (US: EST) Friday 10th 8-10:30pm (2.5h) Saturday 11th 8-10:30pm (2.5h) -------------------------- ***Space is very limited. About the workshop:
Yuri-san is a Butoh artist, and the artistic director of an award winning butoh unit, Dance Medium. Seisaku-san is a Butoh Artist, and the last pupil of Butoh founder, Tatsumi Hijikata. They have been collaborating together for years to create, perform, and teach the craft of Butoh all over the world. I am honored to have met them in Japan, learned from them, and worked with them. Huge appreciation to Bob Lyness who introduced them to me/us! We (Bob & I) are delighted to organize their amazing workshop this fall! ------------ Dance Medium Workshop By Yuri and Seisaku If you want to know what Butoh dance is, you should experience it by using your body first of all. There is no given form, so everybody has their own form. We go deeper in our dance than we do in our daily lives. But we use sensations from our everyday life in our dance. For that, we should have an empty body that has no self-consciousness. That is to say that the body doesn't move by itself but is moved by something. Why we should try to have an empty body? For example, when painters paint pictures, they mostly do so on white canvas. For dancers, the canvas is the body. And when this happens, subject and object are as one. If in our dance we hold on too hard to emotion or reason, we risk the danger of dancing only for ourselves, or be limited in what we can bring into our bodies, and where we can take our movement. And this can lead to a colorless dance. But when we have empty bodies, we can be anything. The empty body gives us the freedom to bring in and embody an almost unlimited range of possibilities. We have to know what our body is. Then do we lose our reason? No, we don't. We need to have eyes that look down upon ourself and see ourself from outside. We can see our own body and all of its possibility by having an empty body. When we escape from sudden fears, bodies react by nature. That kind of movement is not habitual one like trained by society but the movement by real emotion. We will introduce various exercises taken directly from, or inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata. The exercises are designed to illuminate basic methods for this Butoh dance we all practice. About Instructors: Yuri is a Butoh Artist, The artistic director of an award winning Butoh Unit, Dance Medium. She has been interested in different body work and practiced such elements as Ballet, Yoga, Noguchi Gymnastics, Noguchi Seitai, Taichi, Karate, etc.. Those practices are helpful to prepare the body to be neutral and energetic. For the first part of this workshop, she will teach her personal physical practice inspired by those body work elements, including ideas of Butoh philosophy. Seisaku is a Butoh Artist. He learned Butoh under Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoko Ashikawa. He has developed his own Butoh method while keeping the most important original essence from those masters. He has many interesting methods for how to make the body empty. You will find the possibility that you can be anything you want if you can become empty. He has been collaboration with Yuri for many years. |
Philosophy "The words for Butoh workshop" by Seisaku
Try to open the body in the workshop.
First, try to open various sensations to outside of the body, then feel.
Watch the stars, hear the sounds of the next room, touch cold water....
That looks easy, but actually we can't do it so easily.
Because we tend to re-create them.
Our body thinking depends on the image,
we try to confirm, arrange, and prepare when we start.
When we behave (do) such a way like that, our sensation and eyes are going to close.
When our hands and eyes touch something, another part of the body has to help them as hard as they can.
We have to use the whole body for doing anything.
There is no room for thought and emotion.
Thought and emotion should come later.
We should first have the desire to touch and ask, “Is that the same thing as love”?
That surely makes the space around you change.
My teacher Tatsumi Hijikata always scolded me,
" Show the invisible things, no one wants to see the things they already can see!!"
The space which is changing makes various forms by the way of the senses.
It's going to be complex forms.
But we should simply practice the first step.
After that, we can mix more elements that we need.
If we put too many elements on the body on the first step, the skin is going to die with noise, the eyes are going to go inside(thought and emotion).
People often talk about "going inside", but it's not so easy, we only can go inside by looking at ourselves from the outside space which already became our body.
The outside body looks at our body as if seeing an unknown thing.
It's not to barricade ourselves inside with a brain or emotion which are familiar to us.
Butoh dancer's eyes are different from the eyes of those that only see daily life.
Some are only looking and seeing themselves with the eyes which are closed by a thick membrane.
That is not good for Butoh dance.
When we have opening eyes, our body already became eyes itself,
so the (real?) eyes don't work as their function.
That's like a curtain waving at the window,
it waves by another factor (wind, someone pulling...etc) but by itself.
Now I remember the same thing as that.
For example, when a dancer happened to fall on the stage, it gives a strong expression to the audience.
But if he tries to do the same thing again, it cannot have the same effect (has never come back).
That strong power can never come back no matter how hard we try to do the same thing.
We can't get the power of the first time it happens. The first accident makes our body open because that is an unexpected thing.
If we try to do the same thing, our brain begins to work, then the sensation of the body closes.
Tatsumi Hijikata taught us that a Butoh dancer must be able to do each as the first (that) hundreds of times (as each).
So how can we do that?
The answer is "To become".
We become something and jump into the sea which we have to become.
Become the naked soul and jump in.
I think it's very important to throw away thought and usual custom for opening the body.
The thing I really want is one drop of water to the exhausted body.
Try to open the body in the workshop.
First, try to open various sensations to outside of the body, then feel.
Watch the stars, hear the sounds of the next room, touch cold water....
That looks easy, but actually we can't do it so easily.
Because we tend to re-create them.
Our body thinking depends on the image,
we try to confirm, arrange, and prepare when we start.
When we behave (do) such a way like that, our sensation and eyes are going to close.
When our hands and eyes touch something, another part of the body has to help them as hard as they can.
We have to use the whole body for doing anything.
There is no room for thought and emotion.
Thought and emotion should come later.
We should first have the desire to touch and ask, “Is that the same thing as love”?
That surely makes the space around you change.
My teacher Tatsumi Hijikata always scolded me,
" Show the invisible things, no one wants to see the things they already can see!!"
The space which is changing makes various forms by the way of the senses.
It's going to be complex forms.
But we should simply practice the first step.
After that, we can mix more elements that we need.
If we put too many elements on the body on the first step, the skin is going to die with noise, the eyes are going to go inside(thought and emotion).
People often talk about "going inside", but it's not so easy, we only can go inside by looking at ourselves from the outside space which already became our body.
The outside body looks at our body as if seeing an unknown thing.
It's not to barricade ourselves inside with a brain or emotion which are familiar to us.
Butoh dancer's eyes are different from the eyes of those that only see daily life.
Some are only looking and seeing themselves with the eyes which are closed by a thick membrane.
That is not good for Butoh dance.
When we have opening eyes, our body already became eyes itself,
so the (real?) eyes don't work as their function.
That's like a curtain waving at the window,
it waves by another factor (wind, someone pulling...etc) but by itself.
Now I remember the same thing as that.
For example, when a dancer happened to fall on the stage, it gives a strong expression to the audience.
But if he tries to do the same thing again, it cannot have the same effect (has never come back).
That strong power can never come back no matter how hard we try to do the same thing.
We can't get the power of the first time it happens. The first accident makes our body open because that is an unexpected thing.
If we try to do the same thing, our brain begins to work, then the sensation of the body closes.
Tatsumi Hijikata taught us that a Butoh dancer must be able to do each as the first (that) hundreds of times (as each).
So how can we do that?
The answer is "To become".
We become something and jump into the sea which we have to become.
Become the naked soul and jump in.
I think it's very important to throw away thought and usual custom for opening the body.
The thing I really want is one drop of water to the exhausted body.
PAST WORKSHOPS
Fall 2020
FILLED!
Yuri & Seisaku Fall Intensive 10 hours Butoh Online Workshop!
Yuri & Seisaku Fall Intensive 10 hours Butoh Online Workshop!
Date & Time:
November 5-7, 2020 (EST/NYC) *November 6-8, 2020 (Japan)
TIME ZONE (EST)
Thursday 5th 8-11pm (3h)
Friday 6th 8-11:30pm (3.5h)
Saturday 7th 8-11:30pm (3.5h)
TIME ZONE IN JAPAN
Friday 6th_ 10am-1pm (3h)
Saturday 7th_ 10am-1:30pm (3.5h)
Sunday 8th_10am-1:30pm (3.5h)
**Daylight saving time ends in Nov. 1st, 2020
November 5-7, 2020 (EST/NYC) *November 6-8, 2020 (Japan)
TIME ZONE (EST)
Thursday 5th 8-11pm (3h)
Friday 6th 8-11:30pm (3.5h)
Saturday 7th 8-11:30pm (3.5h)
TIME ZONE IN JAPAN
Friday 6th_ 10am-1pm (3h)
Saturday 7th_ 10am-1:30pm (3.5h)
Sunday 8th_10am-1:30pm (3.5h)
**Daylight saving time ends in Nov. 1st, 2020