Embodying the Spirit explores endless questions: What is life? What is the human condition? What is the body? This workshop is a process of erasing and re-creating the body through guided improvisation inspired by nature imagery. Experience training methods towards a supple body and mind and investigate aesthetics common to butoh through creative explorations. 

Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh
Butoh Workshops February 20-23, 2025

Thursday, Feb 20 8-10pm at Visceral Dance, 3121 N Rockwell St
Friday, Feb 21 6-9:30pm at Movement on Montrose, 2951 W Montrose Ave
Sunday, Feb 23 11am-2:30pm at Movement on Montrose, 2951 W Montrose Ave
Discount for Early Birds until February 9, use EARLY to get 15% off the listed price for tickets.

 In this workshop we will focus on imagery from the Earth Tomes Project, which has been performed in collaboration with local performers in the US and in Europe.  In this age of an increasing use of technology to direct and control so many aspects of our daily lives, a disconnect to nature can easily result. Earth Tomes is a welcome revelation of the body as earth and, through continual transformation, reveals the changing landscape of the body. Images of earth, trees, roots, stones will be layered with explorations of the elemental body (water, wind, etc.) and animals as we celebrate the body as nature. Partner work will facilitate participants’ individual and collective journeys. The workshop draws from Joan’s training with butoh masters and her background as a Tai Chi practitioner and professional gardener. 

“Through the exercises I toiled with my mind and body in such a subtle way that things began to shift on a deep level. Being back, moving and dancing feels better than it has for a long time. Everything feels purposeful and full of small beauties.” Workshop participant

“The vulnerability we explored felt like the only means of honest listening to the earth, to its tales of growth, of life and death… Your words and direction were impactful and fueled my hunger to learn all there is to know about my body, the earth, and their entwined paths.” Genevieve, Director

Residing in Seattle WA for many years, Joan/Kogut is known as the Northwest butoh pioneer. She is one of the few non-Japanese to study with and dance under Yoko Ashikawa in her Tokyo-based group Gnome in the late 80s. She also studied with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno.

Joan has performed and taught at many festivals including the first New York butoh festival,Seattle and Salish Sea Butoh Festivals, Vienna’s Hybrid Butoh Festival, Butoh Festival (Tenri) and En Chair et En Son Acousmatic Festival in Paris, and at the Amsterdam and Warsaw Butoh Festival in 2024. Brought by Vangeline, Joan presented her solo Rivers Running Red in New York City. Her work has been presented in Chicago by Nicole Legette. She wrote a dissertation on the butoh body and is featured in Tanya Calamoneri’s Butoh America. Joan directs an annual site-specific event in the Seattle’s Japanese gardens. Since living in Krakow 2004–2006, she has been known as Kogut (rooster). http://www.seattlebutoh-laage.com

Produced by Sara Zalek and Butoh Curious Chi.