Category: butoh teachers

100 Light Years of Solitude

Wednesday, April 25 *One Night Only

Following Yumiko Yoshioka’s acclaimed solo “Before the Dawn”, this is the second part of her trilogy “From 1 to 100”. 100 Light Years of Solitude is inspired by Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” to explore a state of solitude Yumiko dances the life of a unique creature, born on a planet 100 light years away from ours. Imagining that this creature is the only one of its species on that planet, it enjoys unfolding its life until it realizes its destiny… to exist in solitude. Yumiko says, “In my childhood, I was always fascinated by the imaginary creatures and monsters of fairy tales. Butoh, a dance of metamorphosis, helps me to explore this imaginary world, and make something invisible visible.”

Direction/Choreography /Dance – Yumiko Yoshioka
Co-direction – Miguel Camarero
Costume – Pablo Alarcon
Light design/ technical direction – Spiros Paterakis
Music composition – Tomas Tello/ Zam Johnson

7:00pm @Links Hall, 3111 N. Western Ave.
Get tickets early!

Interested in learning more about Butoh?

Check out Yumiko’s workshops at the Japanese Culture Center April 19-22

Make the Brutal Tender

Eryka Dellenbach leads Butoh Body March 18 & 25 12-2pm @OuterSpace Studios $15 walk in, or FREE with JIM membership

In this 2-part workshop we will consider the ‘threshold’ as both a personal or subjective limit[ation], and as a border between that-which-is and that-which-is-not. In part through repertoire born out of Eryka’s present performance project, entitled Make the Brutal Tender, we will attempt to explore the qualifiers tender and brutal corporeally, and learn directly from the body using what is immediately available to us:

Physical Space: Floor, Wall
Body: Ours and other’s
Energy: Ours and other’s

Accompanied by sound artist Hanna Elliot (HOGG, Goad Deimos), she will lead us through simple and greatly variable exercises that will allow us to cultivate miniature, sensual (as opposed to verbal) dialogues around comfort and discomfort, pain, impulse, effort, nurture and hopefully, fear. In addition to butoh, activities in the workshops are also culled from her experience in capoeira, flying low, flamenco and play-fighting techniques, and reinterpreted.

Everyone is welcome! These workshops are about exploring your own threshold(s).

Please wear comfortable clothing. We will work barefoot.

*Alternative tasks can always be provided for those who wish to work alone during partnering exercises.

The Threshold:
The brink of being a thing (border, barely)
The limit of a thing (capacity, furthest)

MA間 :
Space between objects
Silence between sounds = ‘palpable absence’, ‘pregnancy’, ‘potential’
Stillness between movements

Sillage:
Lingering scent
Impression left in a sheet or pillow

Link to Make the Brutal Tender project: https://www.makethebrutaltender.com/
Link to Hanna Elliot’s music: http://www.thebrvtalist.com/hogg/

per erez drops in

Welcome this personal gift from the surrealist wellness gods ❤
Next UP: Sunday March 11, 12-2pm

per is a private practice based Yoga Therapist with an educational background in theatre arts. Per’s journey into learning Butoh dance have culminated as a perfect melting pot into which 30 years of his personal movement practice in yoga, tai chi, and bodywork all feel quite at home rubbing against each other. His earliest exposure to performance-visual arts included a fascination with physical theatre, Surrealism, and the writings of legendary artist, such as Jerzy Grotowski and Antonin Artaud.

Erez’s personal work in wellness has served him as a deep dive into the tantra of engaging our human bodies as a living intrapersonal, interpersonal, and impersonal experience– to be shared– through rituals of conscious movement. He has personally found that in these rituals, creative friction/frustration often catches fire, setting ablaze old notions that would separate healing from art, distinguish the body from the mind, or elevate a “higher self” beyond some mere mundane existence commonly experienced.

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Yumiko Yoshioka BODY RESONANCE

Body Resonance
The body as a receptacle of time.
A dance of metamorphosis inevitably appears.


The main focus of this workshop is a conscious research in the unification of our body/mind/soul, so that we can deeply enjoy the intrinsic process of metamorphosis through the spirit of dance. Through a continuous exploration of our past collective memories, we can strike a vein of abundant creative resources, enriching the essence of our life.

Body resonance is a key to opening up the doors of an ever-changing world inside and outside ourselves, which helps the body to unfold its secrets, holding them up until they shine and tremble. Everything is in resonance with each other. Through a dialogue with our body, we can learn to be moved by inner and outer forces, thus realizing we are a part of the Universe.

@ Japanese Culture Center, 1016 West Belmont Avenue

2018 Workshop Dates:
Thursday/ Friday April 19/20, 12-5pm
Saturday April 21, 1-7pm
Sunday April 22, 5:30-9:30pm

Eventbrite - Yumiko Yoshioka - 2018 Chicago Workshop

Workshop Content:
*Release exercises, inspired by Noguchi Taiso (Gymnastics), Taichi and Yoga
*breathing exercises
*dynamic training for the flow of energy
*Butoh-related work to activate our universal memories (sensitization, combination of image and movement with antenna exercises such as figure of 8, water ball, animal, insect, snake, witch and fairy, the creatures inside us, hanging body, walking, dialogue with a partner etc)
*structured improvisation, free association

Yumiko Yoshioka
Dancer, choreographer, teacher, art director
Born in Tokyo, residing in Germany since 1988

More about Yumiko.

Thanks to our partners for helping to make it happen ❤

JAF_Logo-v1 (1)Japanese Culture Center (JCC Logo) (1)

 

Mitsu Salmon February 18

Butoh Body
Sunday Feb 18, 12-2pm
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave.
$15 

“How are our ancestors held and released in our body? Ancestries of plants, animals, and humans.” Mitsu

Mitsu’s class will draw from Butoh, contemporary dance, and
experimental theater, exploring the connection with body, unconscious
and imagery.

The class will focus on body-weather, Noguchi, mythical creatures and
sultry hands through guided imagery and structured improvisation.
All levels welcome and please wear comfortable clothing.

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Mitsu Salmon creates original performance and dance work. She studied Butoh and has been part of a Butoh company, Ima Tenko and Kiraza, for 3 years in Japan. She studied dance and experimental theater in New York and Berlin for a number of years and has performed and taught workshops internationally.  She has performed solo work at places such Links Hall, HCL, Performance Space 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Highways Performance Space and internationally at Hebbel Am Uffer, the Berlin Performance Art Festival, London Performance Art Festival and Urbanguild in Kyoto, Japan. Learn more on www.mitsusalmon.com.

 

Body Tales – Jakob Maché

Based on the assumptions of various cultural traditions and neuroscience, this workshop aims at awakening old trans-generational memories buried in our bodies and let our bodies narrate it with its own gestures. Our focus lies hereby on our center, the enteric nervous system controlling our bowels, which acts like our brains autonomously. In order to deeply connect with ourselves and our dancing partners through our collective unconscious, we employ Katsugen Undo exercises, fundamental floor work from contact improvisation, atomic shakes and other techniques.

Friday, March 2 3-6pm
Saturday, March 3 12-3pm
@OuterSpace Studios, 1474 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Eventbrite - Body Tales. Jakob Maché

Registration $36/day, or $65 for both days.

The workshop is open to anybody who is ready to explore the whole depth of our existence. Jakob will also be performing at a ONE NIGHT ONLY event March 3 at Elastic Arts, Chicago, Yelling at the Dark!

Jakob Maché was born in Vienna, visiting Chicago for the very first time. Since 2012, he has been teaching workshops in contact improvisation in Austria, France, Germany, Nigeria and Benin. He received his training from teachers like Adalisa Menghini, Jörg Hassmann, Nancy Stark Smith, Anzhelika Doni, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, Frey Faust and in Butoh from Minako Seki, Yuko Kaseki, Imre Thormann, Yumiko Yoshioka, Natsu Nakajima, Masaki Iwana, Ken Mai et Yoshito Ohno. Recent collaborations involve Michael Schmacke (Fake Masters, Berlin), Lynda Ait Amer (Berlin) et Mex Schlüpfer at the Volksbühne Berlin and Illuminate Theatre (Lagos).

 

Holly Chernobyl – Butoh Workshops

“There are as many ways to do butoh as there are flowers in the world.”

This month it’s happening Saturday, February 24th 6:30pm-8:30pm, but this is a regularly scheduled event at the Japanese Culture Center. The two hour workshop focuses on the method developed by one of the founders of Butoh, Tatsumi Hijikata and is taught by Holly Chernobyl, transformer and instigator of dark matter. This method of exploration is firmly grounded in the body, utilizes imagery, and prioritizes form over feeling.

Class is $15.00

This workshop has a limited number of spaces available! Please register ASAP through the JCC office by emailing info@japaneseculturecenter.com or by calling the office directly.

Wear clothes that are easy to move in! Bring a water bottle. This workshop is open to all levels and abilities. Total newbies especially welcome!

From Holly: I am committed to creating an environment which is inclusive of many lived experiences and many abilities. That said, the center is not ADA accessible, unfortunately. Many apologies. This may change in the future.

Holly Chernobyl is a body-based performance artist. Holly has presented work in many Chicago spaces such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Links Hall, and Dfb Gallery. Her work has also been performed in Seattle at Velocity Dance Center, Brooklyn at JACK, and shown in Boston, Berlin, the UK, and Quebec. She continues to create solo pieces and collaborate with a talented array of Chicago artists. In 2016, she held four artist residencies, in rural Finland, Wisconsin, Germany, and at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Mari Osanai Noguchi Taiso

@Japanese Culture Center, 1016 W. Belmont Avenue

Thursday/ Friday Feb 8-9 12-5pm
Saturday February 10 1-7pm
Sunday February 11 5:30-9:30pm

Back in Chicago from Battles #1: Ground Work, Mari Osanai’s workshop focuses on Noguchi Taiso combined with the influences of her early training in Tai Chi, western dance methods, traditional folk dance in Aomori, Japan (her birthplace), and the connection between one’s thoughts and sensation of weight. Noguchi Taiso (Water Body movement) has been widely appreciated and incorporated/integrated into Butoh movement practice. Osanai’s approach to movement research and exploration begins with a heightened awareness of gravity’s influence on the body and the body’s connection with the center of the earth.
Mari Osanai is an independent dancer, choreographer, Noguchi Taiso teacher. She is based in Aomori, Japan. She has performed and given workshops in the United States, Canada, Greece.
Exercises in the workshop train the body to embrace its weight and heighten its sensitivity to move from its most relaxed and receptive state. Starting with images, such as washing the body with water, air, sunlight, workshop participants will discover the body’s vital energies rooted in its inherent hydrodynamics. Movement and form result as participants ingest imagery inside their bodies and allow the changes to shift the body’s interior.

Community Dance Class w/Ginger Krebs

Typically on First Wednesdays, 7:30-9:00pm
Next Classes: April 4, May 2, and June 6
at Volta Performing Arts, 2142 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago 60647
$10/class

In these butoh-inspired movement classes we’ll work with specific pressure points (throat, jugular, sternum, femoral artery, instep…)  and the twin impulses to protect (make a beetle of oneself), and to roll over and show your belly.  We’ll also experiment with breath, “porousness” and yielding to gravity in order to invite swooping and acceleration, on the one hand, and steady, continuous movement, on the other.  All skill levels welcome!

Ginger Krebs is a dancemaker, performer, and visual artist whose work has been shown recently in Chicago at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Loyola University, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Hyde Park Art Center, and site-specifically at a traffic island in Wicker Park.  Much of her movement suggests potential energy: the quivering of a body managing, defying, preparing for, or avoiding, rather than progressing decisively through space.  Some inspirations for her new project, Escapes and Reversals, include wrestling, drone warfare, Swan Lake, and an instructional video that explains how to debone a chicken.  Krebs is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Performance and Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

www.gingerkrebs.com     

Ginger Krebs, Oct 1 & 8

Welcome Ginger Krebs back to Sundays Butoh Body class! As part of the OuterSpace Soft Opening, this weeks class is FREE. Welcome your dark side to the dance 12-2pm, October 1 (free), Oct 8 ($15 drop-in, Butoh Body class cards, or NEW OuterSpace Frequent Flyer Cards.

From Ginger, “We’ll work with rhythm, sometimes letting ourselves being carried by continuous loops, and at other times working against rhythm to discover new and surprising ways of moving.

We’ll explore the impulses to provoke and to protect, finding inspiration in our lives and in lesser known predator-prey dynamics.”

Ginger Krebs has been creating, performing and directing multi-disciplinary performance projects since 2005. Her work has been presented recently in Chicago at The Arts Club of Chicago, the Chicago Artists Coalition, the Storefront Theater, and the Hyde Park Art Center. She was awarded a MAP Fund grant for innovation in live performance in 2015, and her 2016 performance, Buffer Overrun, was chosen for the Chicago Tribune’s Best dance of 2016. Krebs is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Performance and Contemporary Practices at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
www.gingerkrebs.com