We welcome Yumiko Yoshioka for the 16th annual Asheville Butoh Festival
August, 2026
Photo by Francisco Amaral
We are excited to announce that internationally celebrated butoh dancer Yumiko Yoshioka will be performing and leading workshops for the annual butoh festival here in Asheville!
Performance and Workshop Dates, August 2026
Exact dates and times of performances and workshops are still being finalized, but you can pencil in this date range: August 17th – 24th. Stay tuned to our website, newsletters, and Facebook page.
About Yumiko
Dancer, choreographer, teacher, art director
Born in Tokyo, 1953.
Based in Berlin since 1988.
Yumiko Yoshioka is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer. Yumiko is a former member of Ariadone, the first female Butoh company, which was founded by Ko Murobushi and Carlotta Ikeda in 1973. In 1989, she started to develop and teach her own form of bodywork. The approach became a pillar of her career as a reflection of her profound understanding of the importance of deepening consciousness of the body, not only in order to dance and express, but also to illuminate our daily life, opening ourselves to the deeper layers of our inner world and rediscovering a subtle beauty in each moment. The strength of this perception led her to create her own method of bodywork, called “Body Resonance.”
Photo by Francisco Amaral
About Yumiko’s Workshop
Body Resonance – based on Butoh and Organic Movement
The main focus of this workshop is a conscious research of our body/mind/soul unification, so we can deeply enjoy the intrinsic process of metamorphosis in the spirit of dance. Through a continuous exploration of our past collective memories, we can strike a vein of abundant creative resources, enriching the essence of our life. The body is a receptacle of time.
Body resonance is a key to opening up the doors of an ever-changing world inside and outside of ourselves, which helps the body to unfold its secrets, holding them up until they shine and tremble.
Everything is in resonance with each other. Through a dialogue with our body, we can learn to be moved by inner and outer forces, thus realizing we are a part of the Universe. A dance of metamorphosis inevitably appears.
Workshop Content:
- Organic Movement (release exercises), inspired by Noguchi Taiso (Gymnastics), Taichi and Yoga such as figure 8, waves, water ball rotation, hanging body,
- Breathing exercises AUN
- Dynamic training for the flow of energy
- Butoh-related work (sensitization, combination of image and movement with antenna exercises, such as animal, insect, snake, witch and fairy, the creatures inside us, walking, dialogue with a partner etc)
- Structured improvisation and choreography
Bio
Photo by Francisco Amaral
Yumiko was a former member of Ariadone in 1974, the first female Butoh company, founded by Carlotta Ikeda and Ko Murobushi. In 1978, she performed with Carlotta and Ko in Paris ” Le Dernier Eden- Porte de L’Au-Dela “, the very first Butoh performance to be presented in a public theater outside Japan. In 1988 she became a co-founder of tatoeba THÉÂTRE DANCE GROTESQUE with Minako Seki and delta RA’i in Berlin (1988 – 1996). Between 1995 – 2015 she was a core member of TEN PEN CHii art labor, an interdisciplinary and experimental art formation as a dancer and a choreographer along with JoaXhim Manger (visual artist) and Zam Johnson (composer and musician).
Since 2015, she has been working as a solo dancer and a choreographer. She has also set up various collaborative projects across Europe such as “eX…it!, Dance eXchange Festival” at Schloss Bröllin in Germany, (the last one took place in 2019), dance projects with Gest-Azione, with Annalisa Maggiani from Italy; and dance creations with Rena Konstantaki from Greece. She has been a superviser of
“Butoh Lab Camp” project in Romania since 2021. Her workshop “Body Resonance, based on Organic Movement and Butoh” is invited to many countries across the globe.
Additional info about Yumiko
(From Salish Sea’s Website: https://www.salishseabutoh.com/workshop-teachers )
In 1988, Yumiko founded THEATRE DANCE GROTESQUE with fellow Butoh artist Minako Seki and delta RA’i in Berlin (1988-1996). Between 1995-2015 she was a core member of TEN PEN CHii art labor, an interdisciplinary and experimental art formation, as a dancer and a choreographer along with JoaXhim Manger (visual artist) and Zam Johnson (composer and musician). Yumiko is also the key founder of the storied eX..it! Dance eXchange Festival at Schloss Bröllin. Many decade-long collaborations with interdisciplinary artists encouraged Yumiko to unfold her own personal style of dancing called “Body Resonance.”
Yumiko continues to be a key figure of the global Butoh scene and she has served as the Artistic Director of the B.I.G. (Butoh International Gathering) convergence, teaching and activating local and international Butoh communities. A chapter highlighting Yumiko’s career is featured in Bruce Baird’s newest book A HISTORY OF BUTŌ in which he writes that “Yumiko is an important proponent of mixed media butô through her dance company TEN PEN CHIi, and one of the dancers who has most embodied what it means to practice butô as an itinerant woman. Yoshioka keeps up a gruelling schedule of international travel teaching butô workshops around the world and also organized the eX..it! butô festival, bringing butô and dancers of other styles of dance in contact with each other…Whether by artists traveling to her, or as is much more often the case, Yoshioka traveling to artists, she has provided numberless dancers and artists with chances to ‘ex- change, ex- perience, ex- plore, and ex- it’ out of themselves and be changed in the process.”
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Past Festivals and Events
2026
Workshop: Saturday, April 11th, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
New Studio of Dance (Be Be Theatre)
20 Commerce St., Asheville, NC 28801
Performance: Sunday, April 12th, 7:30 p.m.
Be Be Theatre
20 Commerce St., Asheville, NC 28801
The 15th annual 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 15th annual Asheville Butoh Festival. They will be performing a piece titled “HANA.”
There will also be an audiovisual butoh performance by Jenni Cockrell, Julie Becton Gillum, Constance Humphries, and Atsushu Takenouchi in a piece titled “Frequency in Motion.” Dancers will be accompanied by live sounds, field recordings, and objects by Chris H.Lynn and Hiroko Komiya.
This year’s festival is a collaboration with the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. The Festival is set to take place from October 30th to November 2nd
Workshops
Atsushi Takenouchi will lead all workshops. All experience levels are welcome.
Saturday, November 1st, 2025
11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
The University of North Carolina, Asheville (UNCA)
The Sherrill Center
Get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-butoh-workshop-with-atsushi-takenouchi-tickets-1653008365519
Sunday, November 2nd, 2025
11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
The University of North Carolina, Asheville (UNCA)
The Sherrill Center
Get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sunday-butoh-workshop-with-atsushi-takenouchi-tickets-1653040611969
Those who attend the workshop on both days will be invited to perform in Life of Flower, directed by Atsushi Takeneuchi, with accompaniment by Hiroko Komiya, on Sunday, November 2nd, at 7:30 p.m. at the University of North Carolina Asheville’s Sherrill Center.
Performances
Thursday, October 30th, 2025, 7:30 p.m.
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
120 College St. in downtown Asheville
Frequency in Motion
An audiovisual performance featuring butoh dancers Atsushi Takenouchi, Jenni Cockrell, Julie Becton Gillum, and Constance Humphries. Dancers will be accompanied by live sounds, field recordings, and objects by Chris H.Lynn and Hiroko Komiya. Visuals, including Super 8 and digital film, are by Chris H.Lynn.
Get tickets here: https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/events/butoh-dance-festival/
Saturday, November 1st, 2025 , 7:30 p.m.
The University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) – Carol Belk Theatre
HANA – A solo performance by Atsushi Takeneuchi wth accompaniment by composer Hiroko Komiya.
Get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hana-a-butoh-solo-performance-by-atsushi-takenouchi-tickets-1653071063049
Sunday, November 2nd, 2025, 7:30 p.m.
The University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) – Carol Belk Theatre
Life of Flower – performance by workshop participants, directed by Atsushi Takeneuchi, with accompaniment by Hiroko Komiya.
Get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/life-of-flower-butoh-workshop-student-performance-tickets-1653111333499
Artist Reception
Meet Atsushi at the Artist Reception: FREE
Friday, October 31st, 2025 , 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
The University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) – Carol Belk Theatre
Meet Atsushi, ask questions, and learn more about his work.
Artist Profiles
Atsushi Takenouchi
Atsushi Takenouchi began his Butoh journey in 1980 with the Hoppo-Butoh-ha company in Hokkaido. His final piece with the company, Takazashiki (1984), was created with the direct guidance of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1986, he created his own path: Jinen Butoh — as a universal expression of nature, earth, and ancient memories, embracing the rhythms of life itself. From 1996 to 1999, embarked on a three-year Jinen tour across Japan, performing over 600 site-specific improvisations rooted in natural landscapes and sacred spaces. Around this time, he learned the spirit of the universe of Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno.
Since 2002, based in Europe, working on solo Butoh and collaboration projects with dancers and actors, with giving workshops internationally.
His presence extends into film, notably ‘Ridden by Nature’, an award-winning environmental art dance film by Kiah Keya.
From 2015 to 2020, he directed an intensive Jinen Butoh school in Italy. Today, he devotes himself fully to transmitting Jinen Butoh through seasonal intensive workshops held both in nature and studio spaces — living his art as a continuous dialogue with life itself. In 2021, Compiling these experiences into a book, he published ‘Atsushi Takenouchi Jinen Butoh’ writing of his Butoh life, workshop contents and his Butoh performance works.
www.jinen-butoh.com
Hiroko Komiya
Hiroko Komiya is a sound artist who transmutes the ephemeral – air, space, movement, bodily sensation, and memory – into boundless sonic expressions beyond conventional melody and rhythm. Since 1999, she has been the principal musical collaborator for Atsushi Takenouchi’s JINEN Butoh, and has provided live accompaniment for his performances and workshops worldwide.
Her artistic reach extends beyond Butoh, engaging in multidisciplinary collaborations with filmmakers, sculptors, painters, poets, costume designers, and performers for exhibitions and installations. In 2022, she performed an 11-hour tribute performance to Félix Guattari (French psychoanalyst and philosopher) in Paris, alongside Ramuntcho Matta’s art music collective and Atsushi Takenouchi. In 2021, she embarked on a new project with US film/sound artist Chris H. Lynn, creating audiovisual performances with Butoh dancers, performed in Vienna,Warsaw,Barcelona,Mexico ciry,Hong Kong, Athens and Kumano,Japan.
https://www.jinen-butoh.com/
Chris H. Lynn is a filmmaker and sound artist from the United States. His digital images and Super 8 films explore the subtle rhythms of movement, light, and sound in urban and rural landscapes that vary from the Eastern shores of Maryland, U.S. to Nanjing, China. His work has been shown at the Librairie Avant-Garde, Nanjing, China, UNZALAB in Milan, Italy, American Film Institute (AFI) in Silver Spring, Md, Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinamericano Habana, Cuba, Goethe Institut, Washington D.C., The Anthology Film Archives, NYC, and a variety of venues internationally. His work was featured in the book Cinema and the Audiovisual Imagination by Robert Robertson. He currently hosts the monthly radio program Beyond Encounters on Camp Radio. His sound works have been published on Impulsive Habitat, Verz Imprint, Green Field Recordings, Kandala Records, Plus Timbre and echOmusic and have appeared on radio programs worldwide.
https://framingsounds.com/
Julie Becton Gillum, artistic director of the Asheville Butoh Festival, has been creating, performing and teaching dance in the US, France, and Mexico for over 40 years. Julie has received numerous grants and awards for her choreography. She was awarded the 2008-09 NC Choreography Fellowship and used the funds to travel to Japan to study Butoh, her primary form of artistic expression. (ashevillebutoh.com/legacy-
Jenni Cockrell of strange daughters butoh is a dancer, choreographer and teacher of butoh and modern dance. She has created and performed her own work in addition to that of Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre, Moving Women, Legacy Butoh and Anemone Dance Theater, and has regularly performed in the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. She received her M.A. in Dance and Women’s Studies from UNC Greensboro in 2002. (strangedaughtersbutoh.
Constance Humphries has been making, performing and teaching live performance internationally since 1987. Her creative practice is based on investigations via butoh dance. She holds degrees from UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Asheville. Recent projects include the Just Gather Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK , Help! at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK and a residency at Experimental Studios, Newcastle, UK. (constancehumphries.com)
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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.”
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.