DAIPANbutoh Training: Feb. by Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh
Sat, Feb 17
|Seattle
Embodying The Spirit: the body finds its way Taught by Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh
Time & Location
Feb 17, 2024, 11:00 AM – Feb 18, 2024, 4:00 PM
Seattle, 115 Prefontaine Pl S, Seattle, WA 98104, USA
About the event
Embodying the Spirit: the body finds its way
Taught by Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh
Feb 17 & 18, 2024, 11AM to 4PM
Location: Community Room, TK Artist Loft, 115 Prefontaine Pl S, Seattle, WA 98104, USA
This workshop is a process of erasing and re-experiencing the body through guided
improvisation largely inspired by nature imagery.
Experience training methods towards a supple body and mind and investigate aesthetics
common to butoh through creative explorations. ETS explores endless questions: What is life?
What is the human condition? What is the body? In this workshop we will focus on imagery
from the Earth Tomes Project, which has been performed in collaboration with local artists in
Germany, Italy, England, Norway, an upstate New York residency and in the NW in Seattle and
Port Townsend. Earth imagery – earth, trees, roots, stones – will be layered with explorations of
the elemental body (water, wind, etc.) 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 Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa in Tokyo and her
background as a Tai Chi practitioner and professional gardener.
Bio:
Joan Laage (Kogut) studied under butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa and performed with
Ashikawa’s group Gnome in Japan in the late 80s and has enjoyed training with Atsushi Takenouchi for
many years. After settling in Seattle in 1990, she formed Dappin’ Butoh, a company known for its
appearances in Seattle’s fringe theater and dance festivals. Joan has performed and taught at national
and international butoh festivals including the Seattle and Salish Sea festivals. She was a featured artist
at the UCLA Butoh Symposium in May 2011 and has been an adjunct faculty at Cornish College of The
Arts (Seattle). She is featured in Dancing Into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, And Japan and Butoh: Metamorphic
Dance and Global Alchemy by Sondra Horton Fraleigh and Tanya Calamoneri’s Butoh America. Her site-
specific “Wandering & Wondering” is an annual event at the Seattle Japanese and Kubota Gardens.
Photo by r. nihiline