SEATTLE BUTOH FESTIVAL
DAIPAN is pleased to announcement the return of its annual festival featuring Vangeline (NYC) with performances and workshops
SEATTLE BUTOH FESTIVAL 2021: FEMALCHEMY
November 19-21, 2021
Yaw Theater (Seattle)
in Seattle’s Georgetown (6520 5th Ave S, 98108)
Featuring Vangeline (NYC) + works by DAIPANbutoh Collective: Robyn Bjornson, Sheri Brown, Dhyana Garcia,
Joan Laage, Kaoru Okumura, Helen Thorsen and Alycia Scott Zollinger
https://www.facebook.com/daipanbutoh
SAVE THE DATE
Performances: 7:30 pm Friday, Saturday & Sunday
Workshops: 12-4 pm Vangeline (Saturday) & Joan Laage (Sunday @BASE)
*** In accordance with the latest Public Health—Seattle & King County order, all audiences age 12 and older must show proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR test in the last 72 hours to enter the museum. Additionally, masks are required over the age of two regardless of vaccination. ***
photo by Marko Poolamets
This fall’s festival DAIPAN brings Vangeline to Seattle for the first time. Vangeline presents Eternity 123, which is the third installment of a feminist dance triptych choreographed and performed by Vangeline (Elsewhere–2018, Erasure–2019, and Eternity 123). Eternity 123 traces the symbolic journey of women's emancipation across time. With this piece, Vangeline also celebrates the impact of women on the art form butoh, exploring the link between women, butoh, and “cabaret.”
Behind all significant cultural movements and changes in history, the lives of countless women can be found, as well as countless voices that have been silenced. As we challenge our collective memory by telling their stories, we redefine the importance of women's participation in society.
VANGELINE
Guest Artist
Performance: SUNDAY Evening
Workshop: SUNDAY Noon
Eternity 123 is the third installment of a feminist dance triptych choreographed and performed by Vangeline (Elsewhere–2018, Erasure–2019, and Eternity 123). Eternity 123 traces the symbolic journey of women's liberation across time. With this piece, Vangeline also celebrates the impact of women on the art form butoh, exploring the link between women, butoh, and “cabaret.” In the 70s and 80s, women butoh dancers danced in “cabarets” to make a living in Tokyo”, says Vangeline. “This history has led to unique methods and contributions by women in our field–contributions that have typically been overlooked. In the 1990s, I also made a living in New York as a go go/burlesque/vaudeville dancer. In this piece, I celebrate women trailblazers while playfully exploring these layers of history.” Behind all significant cultural movements and changes in history, the lives of countless women can be found, as well as countless voices that have been silenced. As we challenge our collective memory by telling their stories, we redefine the importance of women’s participation in society.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
photo by r.nihiline
DAIPAN WORKS
For Seattle Butoh Festival 2021
… a brilliant solo performance, elegantly woven into the fabric of this evening’s loss, yet still transcending its sadness to deliver a whimsical tribute to the woman’s body and menstrual cycle...dramatic and gripping performance
Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh performed Rivers Running Red with a commissioned score by Michael Shannon and Joey Largent. The piece is greatly inspired by an article exposing the practice of sending women off to the mountains to remain in huts and, often not surviving the harsh conditions, fueled by the belief that women are unclean while menstruating. It is also a reflection on this monthly cycle being celebrated as a sacred passage in other cultures. RRR was performed as a duet in Milan, then as a solo in Pontedera and Frankfurt.
The facial expressions, bodily movements, costumes, and sound effects alike make this an excrutiatingly bizarre, yet thunderously captivating experience never to be forgotten.
Helen Thorsen’s new dance Pearl included dancers Mary Cutrera and Amy Ward. Pearl is inspired by imagery from Kaoru Okumura from her choreography for Luminous. Imagine each of our souls a perfect pearl separate yet connected on a lovely string stretched out to infinity in the dark cosmos. The tension between individual will against the benefit and burden of our connectedness informs our times and the choreography of Pearl.
The child does ultimately give way to the adult, but as to the mysteries of wisdom and delight this universal woman’s heart conveys, we can only turn to the solo debut of this magnificent performer to illuminate and demonstrate for us.
In Robyn Bjornson's solo debut Grandmother’s Hands, she offered a dance to commemorate the life of her grandmother, weaving the journey of her grandmother's lineage into her own path of becoming. Weaving the past, present, and future with ritual and the natural world. She was accompanied with live music written and played by Christopher Arnett and Stephanie Wood on gongs.
A 91-year-old Japanese woman sings to life an extraordinary and unforgettable dreamlike tale … something that will transport your mind far away from the grips of normality, and deep into the illusory quality of your own imagination.
Kaoru Okumura & Aoi Lee performed AWAHI as a new piece in "World of Woe, The Pure Land" series, accompanied with live chanting by Kanoh Satoko, Seattle Kanze-Ryū Yōkyoku. A requiem for the Minamata, this piece is a homage to the images Eugene Smith photographed in Minamata 50 years ago. AWAHI, an archaism in Japanese, refers to something in-between, or a vague and faint realm between reality and illusion. This piece is an offering for silent sea and sorrowful souls, as in an ancient folklore about the movement of twin females as a mystic ritual.
… a powerhouse that has torn us all to shreds, and left us the better for it, because we have been free to choose life every step of the way, and used our own innocence to unlock the meaning and the truth of our heavenly existence.
Sheri Brown’s new solo, Red Wolfe Dragonfly, is the exploration of imminent entry into the third day of life, the crone, the elder, the Teacher. Through temporal expression, unmasking the guilt of heartbreak, Red Wolfe Dragonfly is about choosing liberation, accessing holes that are already here to invite the return of innocence. Seeing through illusions of life, we can make great transformation while still in body before death. Music included live gongs by Stephanie Wood, recorded sounds from DJ Moca, Jane MabrySmith and poetry by Alan Sutherland.
Remaining close to the ground, she portrays living close to the earth, and existing permanently with mother nature, nurturing her spirit and her young simultaneously, until finally she comes full circle, and returns to the sacred land, and cocoon which was her birthplace.
Alycia Scott Zollinger performed Murmur, a somatic ode to the complexities of becoming and being a mother. it delves into the currents and pulses of the inner emotional atmospheres and the external social, political, and psychological murmurs mothers have navigated throughout history. murmur is a physical meditation within the energetic auras of sacrifice, courage, and unconditional love mothers embody and a dedication to mothers of the past, present, and future. Alycia was joined by Stephanie Wood on gongs and Leanna Keith on flute.
This abstract piece is uniquely joyful, as the lead dancer (Ms. Garcia herself) wears an unbelievable headpiece, as she moves somewhat clumsily at times, and at other times beautifully in her apparent blindness...
In Dhyana Garcia’s newest group work, Sakti: Exquisite Complexity, she becomes the embodiment of women’s voices narrating what feminine energy means to them and the role it plays in their lives: for them personally, for the Earth and the current world situation. Like Butoh, Sakti does not have form, it is essence and moves by shape shifting. The sound score included music by Chris Gibson and a multitude of voices.
Photos: R Nilihine
Review quotes: Erez Kats, Quixotic Entertainment
WORKSHOPS
For Seattle Butoh Festival 2021
We’ve all had that childhood dream of becoming a famous dancer or a part of a circus troupe. At DAIPANbutoh Collective, you can turn those dreams into a reality with a wide range of educational options. Are you an aspiring artist and looking for a place to unleash your potential? Check out our broad selection of courses, and start your artistic education with us today!
VANGELINE
Saturday 12pm-4pm
This workshop will examine the relationship between breath and tension/relaxation techniques in butoh. Vangeline draws on 18 years of experience as a Butoh teacher and dancer, and has 35 years of expertise in the field of dance. Vangeline is a 2018 NYFA/ NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography, the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance's Beth Silverman-Yam Social Action Award, and the founder of the 15-year running, award-winning program “Dream a Dream Project", which brings Butoh dance to incarcerated men and women at correctional facilities across New York City. She is a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine and teaches trauma-informed butoh classes. Vangeline welcomes students with disabilities, including students who are visually impaired or wheelchair-bound. Classes are open level and beginners are welcome
photo by Susan Stripling
JOAN LAAGE/KOGUT BUTOH
Sunday 12pm-4pm
Embodying The Spirit…the body finds its way
Experience training methods towards a supple body and mind and investigate aesthetics common to butoh through creative explorations. This workshop is a process of erasing and re-creating the body through guided improvisation largely inspired by nature imagery. ETS explores endless questions: What is life? What is the human condition? What is the body? How can we experience infinity within the body/mind? The workshop structure includes exercises and explorations of physical body, nature body, and transforming body. Group and partner work will facilitate participants’ individual and collective journeys. The workshop draws from her training with Butoh Masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa (the major disciple of Butoh’s founder Tatsumi Hijikata) and her background as a Tai Chi practitioner and professional gardener.
photo by David Jennings