Asheville Butoh Collective offers ongoing classes and workshops. Sign up for our Newsletter and follow us on Facebook to receive schedule information.
Through movement, we find pathways to explore space, time and place and play with structures for improvising where we can witness and participate. Skills include release techniques and experiential anatomy to better understand the mechanics of the body. Additionally, we work with patterns, imagery and perspective to create dances that are dynamic and alive in the moment.
Delivered in an approachable atmosphere which enables groups and individuals to develop and practice in a positive and challenging environment of exploration, the workshops are suitable for everyone, including actors, dancers, live/performance artists, musicians and anyone interested in exploring butoh as a means of creative investigation.
Warm ups consist of exercises from Noguchi Taiso, Modern Dance, Release Technique, Improvisation, and butoh practice. Practice explores the 3-dimensionality of joints. The body, part by part, experiences being moved by an outside, unseen force rather than by personal will or objective. We work with imagery to allow the body to move with /without weight and substance. We work toward the primary goal of cultivating and sharing intimacy with self, partner, group, and audience.
The members of Asheville Butoh Collective are all experienced Butoh dancers and teachers. Between them, they have trained with some of the best known Butoh masters alive today, including Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, Akira Kasai, Seisaku & Yuri, Tadashi Endo, Yumiko Yoshioka, Yuko Kaseki. The workshops are a synthesis of their training and their own research.