Experience Butoh Lovers
April 10-13, 2025
Joyously supported by the Community of Partners through a 3AP (3Arts Project) and a subsidized program at Dovetail Studios. NextGen Butoh Lovers Showcase highlights a multicultural and diverse range of artists working to carry forward the lineage and curious path that is Butoh into the Future. From flamenco to clown, improvisation to deep listening, step into the world where we dance with bowels of the Earth. We are humbly and gratefully supported by donations through this platform and ticket sales, which will be largely subsidized so all can attend. Please consider supporting the community if you are able.
A very special Thank You to individuals who generously support NexGen Butoh Lovers Showcase through our 3AP campaign: Jenn Guptill, Kathleen Rooney & Martin Seay, Aurora Tabar, Logan Berry, Roman Susan, Elaine Lemieux, Chris Zalek, Bryan Saner, Teresa Pankratz, Lindsey Snyder, Heather McClelland, Cristal Sabbagh, Carole McCurdy, Norman W. Long, Nora Sharp, Raul & Jenny Espinosa, Joan Laage, Rika Lin, Nirmesh Gollamandala, Brian Zahm, Amy Wilkinson, Katinka Kleijn, Mabel Kwan, Jen Karmin, Lorene Bouboushian, Michael McStraw, Johanna Wiesbrock, Sharon Udoh, Wannapa Pimtong Eubanks, Kevin Sparrow, Keiko Johnson, Geoff Guy, Kinnari Vora, Shalaka Kulkarni, erin kilmurray, Ayako Kato, Preeti Veerlapati, Robin Reid Drake, Ivan-Daniel Espinosa, Eliza Fernand, Tina Lafauve, Elizabeth Thompson, and many more who prefer to remain Anonymous. This list is growing, and we have met our 3AP Match ❤
Butoh Lovers Showcase Performances
TWO NIGHTS ONLY
Friday April 11 & Saturday April 12
Dovetail Studios, 2853 W Montrose Ave., Chicago
7:30pm
Artists and show order listed below:
Friday April 11 Showcase:
Opening improvisational soundscapes with Norman W. Long, Chicago, IL
Cristal Sabbagh and Helen Lee, Chicago, IL
Elaine Lemieux, Chicago, IL
Sophia Solano, Newport, OR
Peter Redgrave, Baltimore, MD
Sara Zalek Chicago, IL
Saturday April 12 Showcase:
Kim Nucci, Chicago/SF, Opening Soundscape
laaura goldstein, Chicago, IL
Luciana Arias Atlanta, GA & Luc Mosley, Chicago, IL
Sara Zalek, Chicago, IL
Iván-Daniel Espinosa & Co.
Workshops by Visiting Artists
Luciana Arias 
Thursday, April 10 6:30-10pm
Movement on Montrose, 2951 W Montrose Ave
Join us for an intriguing exploration into the enchanting world of somatic practices for composition! 
– An answer seeking a question
– A solution searching for a problem
– How do we reside in the space of unknowing, knowing everything we know? When actions come and go… How long will you stay?
Cheating the Score: A workshop on scores and improvisation
Saturday, April 12 3-5pm
Movement on Montrose, 2951 W Montrose Ave
Peter Redgrave will introduce participants to his PROP series; books that are dances, that are books dancers hold. This series explores how reading and text are performed and embodied knowledge. We dance with the objects in our world when we let ourselves. We will use PROP 6, a duet, as an introduction to producing and performing scores for improvisation.
Sophia Solano Ritmos Del Cuerpo (Body Rhythms)
Sunday, April 13 12-4pm
Movement on Montrose, 2951 W Montrose Ave.
An Investigation of Musicality in Movement In this session we will examine the naturally occurring rhythms of our somatic experience, including breath, heartbeat, footstep, asking: what is happening physically and metaphysically during these motions? We will explore percussive tendencies and potentials of our bodies drawing from traditional flamenco palos of 4- and 12- count rhythms (compás). We will practice flamenco “palmas” (clapping) and intentional use of other body parts to mark compás. This class is designed for dancers, musicians, and any other artist interested in enhancing or incorporating rhythmic elements in their works. It is also appropriate for people who may not identify as an artist, but want to connect deeper with they rhythms of their body, increase awareness of movement potential, or simply learn more about the rhythmic laws of Flamenco from within a butoh perspective.
More about these Esteemed Artists:
Cristal Sabbagh’s performance practice, rooted in improvisation and Butoh, walks a line between the everyday, the divine, the personal, and the political. In embodying in her art transformational memories, while simultaneously celebrating pop culture and the experimental, she challenges power structures and awakens viewers’ senses. Working both in a solo capacity and with collaborators, Sabbagh is equally attuned to individual perspectives and collective structures. In various configurations, these collaborators have regularly engaged in improvised performances, opening up new avenues for Sabbagh’s material and conceptual exploration. She is the creator and curator of Freedom From and Freedom To events that are improvisational performance environments which interrogate movement and sound. In 2021 Cristal was awarded a 3Arts / Make a Wave Artist grant, and in 2023 she was awarded an Individual Artists Program grant from DCASE.
Helen Lee (they/she) is a Queer Asian Chicago-born interdisciplinary artist raised by immigrant parents from South Korea. They received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. They have been teaching yoga, meditation and mindfulness since 2007. That same year, they formed Momentum Sensorium, a project-based company that has created and choreographed in unconventional locations such as lighthouses, train stations, and inside homes. Much of their work focuses on the senses, death, and the entanglement of light/shadow, summer/winter, joy/grief. They have presented works in the US, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Iceland, Finland and Canada.
They have studied and trained with Lori Othani, Eiko Otake, Tadashi Endo and Maureen Freehill. They have been a company member for Khecari’s Tend, The Humans, Tangentz Butoh Performance Group (Lori Othani), Aloha Dancers, Friends of Polynesia and understudied with Iona Contemporary Dance Theatre. They are a frequent performer and improviser for Cristal Sabbagh’s Freedom From Freedom To series at Elastic Arts. They have been an Artist in Residence at Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago Cultural Center, Links Hall and High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary. Helen was selected as a Newcity Breakout Artist in 2022 and was a 2024 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist.
Norman W. Long’s multi-disciplinary practice involves walking, listening, teaching, improvising, performing, recording, and composing to create environments and situations in which he and the audience are engaged in dialogues about memory, place, ecology, race, culture, value, silence, and the invisible. Norman’s practice has been influenced by the emerging practices and thinking of 1970s artists, musicians, critics, and designers regarding landscape and sound- specifically Rosalind Krauss’ article “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” and the development of the acoustic ecology by R. Murray Schafer. The sounds found in his work has its inspirational roots in the Black music of house and techno, ‘free jazz,’ Great Black Music, Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi, Pauline Oliveros, King Tubby, Dub, and the sounds of artists outside and in-between genres. Long’s improvisational and compositional strategies are inspired by Samuel R. Delany’s palimpsest text “Plague Journal ” chapter of Dhalgren (Science Fiction) and Atlantis: Three tales (Fiction) and Mark Bradford’s survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art: Chicago in 2011 featuring Bradford’s process of collecting and collaging, scraping and pasting materials sourced from his community in Los Angeles.
Holding a Master’s Degree in “New Genres” from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Master’s of Landscape Architecture degree from Cornell University (2008), Norman relocated to Chicago in 2008. His artistic endeavors have been showcased at diverse venues, including Experimental Sound Studio, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Renaissance Society, Yale University, Illinois State Univerity Galleries, SAIC Sullivan Galleries, Chicago Artists Coalition Gallery, Links Hall, Elastic Arts, Constellation, and the Arts Club as part of the 2015 Chicago Humanities Festival. Norman is artist in residence at the Hyde Park Art Center for 2025.
Elaine Lemieux is a voice artist, singer, and educator with over 40 years of experience in vocal performance, improvisation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. With a deep foundation in classical singing, she has expanded her practice to integrate movement, theater, and experimental soundscapes.Elaine holds a Master’s and D.E.S.S. in Voice from the University of Montreal and has trained extensively in opera, contemporary vocal techniques, and improvisational performance. She studied at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Orford Arts Centre, and the Johannesen International School of the Arts, working with renowned mentors in voice, theater, and movement. Her artistic path has been profoundly shaped by her training in Dojo for Actors with Pol Pelletier and her certification in Music for People’s Musicianship & Leadership Program.
Since 2016, Elaine has been actively collaborating with Butoh artists, particularly in a decade-long partnership with Sara Zalek. Their performances include Cri du Coeur (2024), Trickster Quartet (2018), Elevate Chicago Dance (2017), and If Not Now, When? (2016). She co-facilitates Voice-Mooove, a workshop exploring voice and movement as a unified expressive force.As a dedicated voice teacher, Elaine has worked with students of all ages and backgrounds, guiding them toward an embodied, authentic vocal presence. Her work invites artists and audiences alike to experience the voice as a living, breathing bridge between inner landscapes and external expression.
Sophia Solano (1997) is an interdisciplinary dancer living and dreaming at the edge of the Pacific Ocean on the Central Coast of Oregon. She is a sister, daughter, student and teacher who spends most of her time working to build systems of community care and alternatives to police and prison. She is a second-generation flamenco artist and grew up in the sights and sounds of the culture and art form thanks to her father, guitarrista José Solano. She has studied music since the age of six and she continues to make musicality a core element of her dance, positioning the body as a kind of instrument communicating through a universal language. Her primary dance practices are influenced by diverse and globalized interpretations of Middle Eastern and North African styles, flamenco and butoh. Sophia was introduced to butoh by Iván Espinosa in the Winter of 2016 and later deepened her studies through transformative workshops with Sheri Brown, Joan Laage and many other artists collaborating in the Salish Sea bioregion. Her dance work often explores the intersections of tradition and revolution, simplicity and power, the new and the ancient. She has had many influential teachers across a wide range of dance disciplines, to whom her most current solo project MAESTRAS is dedicated.
Born in the city of Buenos Aires in 1988, Luciana Arias works in the intersection of arts, dance, sound and visual creation, and staging. They studied at the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires, Bachelor’s in Choreographic Composition with major in Expresion Corporal Dance in Buenos Aires. They worked as a dancer in the Grupo de Experimentación en Arte del Movimiento, the dance company of the University of the Arts of the city of Buenos Aires as choreographer, performer and part of the lyrical body team, and movement artist for the Atlanta dance company GLO for the past two years. Their research has been presented in numerous international exhibitions and festivals including Argentina’s VideoDanzaBa festival, Art-home Chattanooga, and the Asheville International Butoh Dance Festival. They currently teach Butoh and dance-musician improvisation in Atlanta through their Musicians + Movers program.
Peter Redgrave is a cultural worker, an artist, and educator, based in Baltimore, Maryland. A multivalent performer, his work oscillates between improvisation and score-based pieces, solo practice and collaboration, jest and critique. Redgrave has performed with Mother Country Death Rattle, Smelling Salt Amusements, Breath of the Magi, and Move Move Collaborative among others.
Redgrave worked with zines and artist’s books under the mentorship of Sally Alatalo at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating with a BFA in 1993. He went on to work in manufacturing briefly, before moving abroad in 1999. Peter began performing in musical acts in the Chicago area. He was a founding member of a punk rock marching band, Mother Country Death Rattle and a multi-disciplinary art duo, The Smelling Salt Amusements.
In 2000, Redgrave began working in education, initially as an English instructor in Bu Shi Ban in Taiwan and then an early childhood language teacher in Germany. While living in Taiwan, Redgrave studied double reed music with Liu Chiang-Pin. This exposure to a completely different way of conceptualizing music got Redgrave thinking about scores, interpretation, and cultural pedagogy. Exploring culture and learning as both tools and conditions, remains a significant part of Redgrave’s work. In 2008, Redgrave returned to the US to complete a Masters of Education at the University of Maryland. Since then, he has centered his teaching work in Baltimore, MD. He has worked with age groups from kindergarten to active mature adults.
Kim Nucci (Chicago/Oakland) is a media artist, composer, performer, and technologist. They hold MA and MFA degrees from Mills College in Music Composition and Electronic Music and Recording, and a BA from Bennington College. Their teachers include: Milford Graves, Roscoe Mitchell, Zeena Parkins, James Fei, Fred Frith, Allen Shawn, Liz Deschenes, and Nick Brooke. They are Technical Director of Driven Arts Collective and an Organizer with Center for Concrete and Abstract Machines (CCAM Chicago). Previously, they headed ACRE Residency’s Sound Department. They have performed at SFMOMA, Gray Area, Elastic Arts, Comfort Station, Compound Yellow, BabyCastles, CCRMA, Center for New Music, the Echoplex, and many DIY spaces. They were an artist in residence at Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency, ACRE, Zero1, and Counterpulse. They have played with gabby fluke-mogul, Nava Dunkelman, Sholeh Asgary, Nevin Aladağ’s sculptures, John McCowen, Phillip Greenlief, Alex Cohen, Anastasia Clarke, Madam Data, Gamelan Encinal, Daniel Schmidt, and others.
Iván-Daniel Espinosa is a choreographer and Butoh artist that creates interdisciplinary artwork engaged with ecology, climate change, and interspecies performance. He is a current PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder and he also holds a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Iván-Daniel has presented his ecology-themed stage performances and installation art nationwide at venues such as La Mama Experimental Theatre in NYC, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Seattle International Butoh Festival, and at numerous academic conferences including UCLA Center for Performance Studies, Goddard College Interdisciplinary Arts Residency and York University School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design in Toronto, Canada.
Iván-Daniel’s choreographies are highly influenced by his extensive studies of Japanese Butoh. Since 2013, Iván-Daniel has trained with numerous Butoh master teachers from Japan including Natsu Nakajima, Saga Kobayashi, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, Eiko & Koma, and Moe Yamamoto. Iván-Daniel began his formative Butoh training in Seattle with Northwest Butoh pioneer Joan Laage, who continues to serve as his foremost teacher and artistic collaborator to this day. Iván-Daniel is the Founder & Executive Producer of the SALISH SEA BUTOH Festival, an annual dance festival that takes place on the Olympic Peninsula to deepen the study of Butoh with artists from all over the world. For the 2025 NextGen Butoh Lovers Showcase, Iván-Daniel is performing a new choreography with an ensemble of Chicago and Seattle dancers: Harlan Rosen, Wannapa Pimtong-Eubanks, Corin Wiggins, Arlo Sage King, Stefan Bach, and Sheri Brown of DAIPANbutoh.
laaura goldstein‘s first collection of poetry, loaded arc, was released by Trembling Pillow Press in 2013 and their second collection, awesome camera was published by Make Now Press in 2014. They have published several chapbooks with vibrant small presses across the country as well. They began their teaching career in Philadelphia for the Center for Literacy and Poetry for the People and are now are a Senior Lecturer of Core Literature and Writing at Loyola University Chicago doing work in antiracism and serving as faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine.
Sara Zalek is a transdisciplinary artist, producer, curator of Butoh related situations, and other bodily curiosities. Rooted in physical investigations of trauma, resilience, and transformation, their work is intimate, raw, poetic. They make performances combining sound, movement, image and voice, host movement workshops, and dream of large sensing environments to encourage thoughtful interpersonal connections.
Zalek performs very often in both live and online situations. They are a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist (2015), a 3Arts Make a Wave Awardee (2017), and Ragdale Foundation Fellow (2017). The City of Chicago named them an Esteemed Artist in 2022 for a Curatorial Grant Project with Elastic Arts Foundation for Hot Mess! virtual/irl hybrid performance events. They have performed and curated performances at the Chicago Cultural Center, High Concept Labs, Chicago Parks District, Elastic Arts, Ragdale Foundation, Experimental Sound Studio, Links Hall, Lumpen Radio, dfbrl8r, Headwaters Theater (PDX), Philosophical Research Society (LA), Urban Guild in Kyoto, Japan, and many more.
Through Butoh Curious Chi, Zalek connects national and international teaching artists with Chicago art makers across genres in the independent and fringe arenas including dance, butoh, physical theater, experimental and improvisational music. Their teachers include many Butoh greats: Yoshito Ohno, Yumiko Yoshioka, Lori Ohtani, Koichi & Hiroko Tamano, Yukio Waguri, Joan Laage, Tadashi Endo, Yuko Kaseki, Mari Osanai, Natsu Nakajima, Ken Mai, Yumi Umiumare, Diego Piñón, Atsushi Takenouchi, Minako Seki, Ayako Kato. They create opportunities for positive communication and arts integration using workshops, performances, and conversations about personal and collective body.
Another shout out to our sponsors! Jenn Guptill, Kathleen Rooney & Martin Seay, Aurora Tabar, Logan Berry, Roman Susan, Elaine Lemieux, Chris Zalek, Lindsey Snyder, Heather McClelland, Cristal Sabbagh, Carole McCurdy, Norman W. Long, Nora Sharp, Raul & Jenny Espinosa, Joan Laage, Rika Lin, Nirmesh Gollamandala, Brian Zahm, Amy Wilkinson, Katinka Kleijn, Mabel Kwan, Jen Karmin, Lorene Bouboushian, and many more who prefer to remain Anonymous. This list is growing! We still must raise $2,400 in total to get to our goal. Donate if you are able!
Butoh Curious Chi 