Asheville Butoh Festival 2025 

We are excited to announce that Atsushi Takenouchi of Jinen Butoh and composer Hiroko Komiya will be our guest performers for the 2025 Asheville Butoh Festival! This year’s festival is a collaboration with UNCA and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. The Festival is set to take place from October 30th to November 2nd.

We have more info coming soon on ticket sales, but in the meantime, take note of the festival details:

Thursday, October 30th, 2025
Butoh performance by Atsushi Takenouchi, Jenni Cockrell, Julie Becton Gillum, and Constance Humphries
Music by Chris Lynn, Hiroko Komiya
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
120 College St. in downtown Asheville
P.M. performance (exact time will be announced soon!)

Saturday, November 1st, 2025
Workshops and Performances at the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA)
Workshop: 10am – 4pm at the Sheryl Center, UNCA
Performance: Atsushi Takenouchi and Hiroko Komiya, 7:30 pm, Belk Theatre, UNCA

Sunday, November 2nd, 2025
Workshops and Performances at the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA)
Workshop: 10 am – 4 pm at the Sheryl Center, UNCA
Performance: Atsushi Takenouchi and Hiroko Komiya with workshop students, 7:30 pm, Belk Theatre, UNCA

We continue to raise funds for the Asheville Butoh Festival to ensure our costs are covered. We are continuing our GoFundMe from last year and would appreciate your support!

Atsushi’s words on “HANA/Flower,” his current performance:

“Embracing the life of the tribute and the memory of the soul of a billion years, the innocence from darkness to light and death to life is constantly repeated and continues to open. The beginning of the universe is love. The flowers stare at the stars.”

Past Festivals

Asheville Butoh Festival 2024

Schedule for the 2024 Festival

Friday, November 15th: All-levels workshop with Mari from 6pm – 9pm.

Saturday, November 16th: All-levels workshop with Mari from 12pm – 4pm. Performance by Mari and Asheville Butoh Collective to follow at 7:30pm.

Sunday, November 17th: All-levels workshop with Mari from 12pm – 4pm. Performance by Mari and Asheville Butoh Collective to follow at 7:30pm.

All workshops and performances will be taking place at New Studio of Dance / Be Be Theater, located at 20 Commerce Street in downtown Asheville, NC.

Tickets
Tickets for the 2024 Butoh Festival will go on sale on Tuesday, September 3rd. Check back here on that date. Prices are as follows:

Friday workshop: $40
Saturday workshop: $60
Sunday workshop: $60
Tickets for Saturday / Sunday performances: $20

 

We are excited to welcome Mari Osanai from Aomori, Japan and the return of the Asheville Butoh Festival this Fall!

Mari Osanai is an independent dancer, choreographer, and Noguchi Taiso teacher. She is based in Aomori, Japan. She has performed and given workshops in the United States, Canada, and Greece.

We are partnering with the DAIPANbutoh Collective in Seattle, where she is also scheduled to teach and perform at the Seattle Butoh Festival this Fall. We are thrilled to have Mari here the weekend following the Seattle Butoh Fest and to re-start the Asheville Butoh Festival!

WE NEED HELP We need help paying for Mari’s airfare, performance and teaching fees, studio and theater rental, tech staffing, etc. Every donation helps, and we appreciate your support. We hope to see you at the 2024 Asheville Butoh Festival!

We are having a fundraiser on Sunday, October 6th, for the Asheville Butoh Festival. There will be Butoh Performances. The event takes place at Sovereign Kava, 286 Biltmore Ave and begins at 5:30 pm. Follow the event here on FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/1095855452122235

 

The Asheville Butoh Festival is entering its 14th season in 2024! It was established in 2000 by Julie Gillum and the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre and brings internationally renowned butoh artists to our region to educate through public workshops and performances for the Asheville community. The festival has featured national and international dance artists. Artists such as: Diego Pinon (Mexico), Sheri Brown, Joan Laage, Vanessa Skantze (Seattle), Yumiko Yoshioka (Japan /Germany), Vangeline (New York) and Nicole LeGette (Chicago) have performed in downtown Asheville at the BeBe Theatre. In addition to Gillum, local butoh dancers  Jenni Cockrell, and Constance Humphries have made significant artistic contributions to this vibrant and growing festival through the years.

For the 13th Asheville Butoh Festival , in the spring of 2019,  we will be producing Yuko Kaseki and Mari Osanai and will include solo evening performances by Jenni Cockrell and Constance Humphries. 13th Asheville Butoh Festival Guest Artists

Yuko Kaseki is director, choreographer, Butoh dancer, performance artist, improviser and teacher, based in Berlin. She teaches and performs in solo and ensemble pieces and improvisations through out 26 countries. These works are poetic and vivid images that incorporate the spirit of Butoh, performance and live art. Her performance aims to reflect the outsider’s existence. Various International collaborations include inkBoat (SF), Tableau Stations (SF), CAVE (NY), Poema Theatre (Moscow), Salad Theater (Seoul) and more. She is also a key collaborator with mixed ability artists including Theater Thikwa (Berlin). www.cokaseki.com

Dancer, choreographer, teacher Mari Osanai has performed and taught in Japan, Canada, USA, Greece and Germany. Her workshops focus 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. 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. Performances 2013 Constance Humphries: April 25, 8PM Yuko Kaseki: April 26 & 27, 8PM Jenni Cockrell: April 28, 8PM Jenni Cockrell: May 2, 8PM Mari Osanai: May 3 & 4, 8PM Constance Humphries: May 5, 8PM Workshops 2013 Yuko Kaseki: April 27 & 28, 12-4PM Mari Osanai: May 4 & 5, 12-4PM BeBe Theatre 20 Commerce St, Asheville, NC 28801 Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook for upcoming details. If you would like to support the festival, visit our support page. This project was supported by the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. www.NCArts.org. Thanks to the Asheville Area Arts Council for the 2019 GAP grant and our 13th Festival supporters: Ron and Linda Larsen, Edwin Salas, Carole McCurdy, J Gertz, Diana and Richard Brewster, and Bob Lyness.