A week of workshops, lectures & performances by pioneering women of the dance. (Open to all levels of experience).
With Butoh Master NATSU NAKAJIMA (Japan)
Joan Laage “kogut” (Seattle)
& Nicole LeGette (Chicago)
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Workshops: MARCH 31st-April 5th
link for information & registration
______________________________________________Performances: Friday & Saturday April 4th &5th; 10pm
$15 general/$10 students & artists
Natsu Nakajima (Japan): This is an extraordinary and rare opportunity to study with one of the original Women in Butoh. Ms. Nakajima studied directly with both Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, progenitors of the expressionist and ritualistic dance form. Her choreographic visions have been presented in highly technical, total theatre events– to multinational audiences, on several world tours. Nakajima is noted for bringing the female/shaman to the stage and for bringing dance off the stage– to diverse populations of elderly, children, and people with disabilities. In 1969, she founded the company Muteki-Sha, whose work has been seen and celebrated throughout the globe. Today, she most commonly works with dancers with disabilities, and in dance therapy settings. Much scholarship has lauded Nakajima for her inherently refined style and success in universalizing the personal through the intimate and cyclic confrontations found in butoh. This is an EXTREMELY rare visit to the west.
Joan Laage “kogut” (Seattle): Laage is noted for bringing Butoh to the Pacific Northwest and Seattle. She studied under Butoh Masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa, and performed with Ashikawa’s group Gnome while living in Tokyo in the late 1980s. She founded Dappin’ Butoh in Seattle in 1991. As a soloist she has performed and taught at the New York and Paris Butoh Festivals, and throughout Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. She is featured in Sondra Horton Fraleigh’s book Dancing Into Darkness: Butoh Zen & Japan, and along with Dappin’, appeared on KCTS Channel 9’s Current Series profiling Seattle artists. She wrote a dissertation focused on the body in Butoh. Since 2006, she has been performing under the name kogut. Joan recently resettled in Seattle after 2 years each in Poland and South Korea.
Nicole LeGette is a maverick of Chicago’s dance and performance art scene, being the only local artist dedicated to performing, presenting, and teaching butoh. Blushing Poppy Productions was created to encompass these endeavors. Nicole has trained with master butoh artists in Japan, Mexico, Canada, and across the US; and has presented several of these artists in Chicago. Ms. LeGette was awarded the prestigious Chicago Dancemakers Forum grant in 2007-2008 to pursue Landscapes Of Uncertainty, a comprehensive project investigating butoh dance technique and application for people with vision impairment.
