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Seattle Art Fair 2024 AD_edited_edited.j

SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL BUTOH FESTIVAL 2024

November 22 - 24, 2024

YAW Theater, 
6520 5th Ave S, Seattle 98108

Workshops & performances by 

  • Mari Osanai (Japan)

  • Eugenia Vargas (Mexico)

  • Tebby Ramasike (South Africa/France)

  • DAIPANbutoh Collective members

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11/16

Film Viewing

7:00 pm Tebby Ramasike (South Africa/Netherlands)
Free - Sharing Tebby's work through video, interview, Q/A
Tashiro Kaplan Artists Lofts, Vandenbrink Community Room;
115 Prefontaine Pl. S., Seattle WA 98104
Questions: sheribrown@gmail.com

11/21

Workshop

7-9 pm Special Workshop with Mari Osanai (Japan)
Teatro de la Psychomachia, 1534 1st Ave S, Seattle 98134 (Suite A)
$15-$25 Sliding Scale, Registration: psychomachia.arts@gmail.com

11/22,23,24 

Performances & Workshops

Performances

show starts 8pm​

  • Friday program: Tebby Ramasike (video), Alycia Scott Zollinger, Kaoru Okumura, Eugenia Vargas

  • Saturday program: Sheri Brown, Dhyana Garcia, Robyn Bjornson (trio), Mari Osanai, Helen Thorsen

  • Sunday program: Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh, Tebby Ramasike (video), Eugenia Vargas

    • $20 student/senior

    • $25 general

    • $60 Full Festival Performance Pass

Workshops

  • Saturday 10-1 pm Mari Osanai; 2-5 pm Eugenia Vargas

  • Sunday 10-1 pm Eugenia Vargas; 2-5 Mari Osanai

    • ​$60 Single Workshop

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$225 Full Festival Performance & Workshop Pass

Mari Osanai (Japan)

Mari is known for her focus on Noguchi Taiso, which combines the influences of her early training in Tai Chi, western dance methods and traditional folk dance in Aomori, Japan (her birthplace), and the connection between one’s thoughts and sensation of weight. 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. Noguchi Taiso (Water Body movement) has been widely appreciated and incorporated/integrated into butoh movement practice. Exercises train the body to embrace its weight and heighten sensitivity to move from its most relaxed and receptive state. Movement and form result as participants ingest imagery inside their bodies and allow the changes to shift the body’s interior. Noguchi Taiso training can benefit dancers, actors, somatics practitioners, anyone interested in expanding body awareness and capacity. Workshops are designed for all levels and complete beginners are welcome. 
Mari’s Piece: nesting 
The twitching of the internal organs, the flow of body fluids and blood, the change in weight due to breathing and movement, the situation of space , and my image thoughts are mixed over.


photo by Jenn Shaw

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 Eugenia Vargas (Mexico)
​Eugenia has trained with some of the most recognized butoh dance teachers in Mexico, Japan, and Germany, performing choreographic productions of Natsu Nakajima, Tadashi Endo, and Yukio Waguri. She has performed in Mexico, Japan, Spain, Canada, Colombia, and Chile. Eugenia’s education integrates choreography, dance research, and literary creation. Her artistic interest is based on the question about the body, butoh and the composition of the poetic image on stage. In her workshops, Vargas focuses on the investigation of the electrical impulse as a spark of sensation to delve into the training of nervous sensitivity and transformation body, based on energy and its multiple qualities. She is the founder and director of Laboratorio Escénico Danza Teatro Ritual (LEDTR), a space that has served not only as an incubator for dance and interdisciplinary projects but also as an artistic residence and a formative space for butoh dance, from which several generations of artists have emerged or have been influenced. She is co-founder and director of Cuerpos en Revuelta - Butoh International Festival -, of the Seminar “Thinking from the body with and against butoh”, among several other initiatives focused on the practice and study of butoh. 
Eugenia’s piece: The dream of the moon
Music by Guillermo González Phillips
Produced by Laboratorio Escénico Danza Teatro Ritual
This is the choreography that takes up the first piece of the UMBRÍA trilogy, created collaboratively with Eugenia Vargas and Tadashi Endo in 2018. Now, Vargas recreates this piece to turn it into the preamble to the presentation of what she internally calls "Flowers for the Wolf Girl", a scenic offering for Natsu Nakajima, who died last March in Mexico City.


​​photo by Alberto Guzman

Tebby Ramasike
(South Africa/France) 
video showings of his work & interview
Born in born in Johannesburg in 1965, Tebby came to Europe in 1995. After establishing himself as a dancer, choreographer and dance teacher in Europe, in 1999 he founded TeBogO Dance Ensemble (TBO), with a vision focusing on the role and the spiritual essence of the dancing body as a tool of communication, bringing dance to the people as both a performance, socio-cultural and educative platform. Since its inauguration, he has been invited to perform and teach extensively in Europe and abroad, in countries such as Japan, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Poland and Luxembourg. Since 2004 he has focused on developing the concept of Afro-Butoh, (in the context of the 'New Butoh'), exploring the elements of Butoh and African ritual dances in their spiritual form. His mission is to bring dance to provide educational programs and performances, as well as opening up a platform for an inter-cultural dialogue, artistic exchange, supporting the ideas of - a cross-pollination of dance idioms (in creating a fusion) and finding a connection with one’s inner beauty and humanity through dance and that of storytelling through dance. â€‹
photo by Karoline Jureviciute

Tickets

PERFORMANCES

  • $20 student/senior

  • $25 general

  • $60 Full Festival Performance Pass

​WORKSHOPS

  • $60 Single Workshop

  • $225 Full Festival Performance & Workshop Pass

 

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