butoh

Ankoku-Butoh Workshops: Sep., Oct, Nov. /  by josie j

It was a wonderful experiance working with Koichi and Hiroko Tamano and having them share the Tamano Ankoku-Butoh method. I have been working with the Tamano’s since 2010. I was delighted when they wanted me to facilitate workshops in Los Angeles. Here are some shots of the workshops. Thank you all who participated and thank you to the ones that want to continue to explore this method.

Photos by: Takeshi Kanemura

September

October

November

Ankoku-Butoh Workshop with the Harupin-Ha Dance Theater /  by DBL

The Harupin-Ha Dance Theater will be coming to Los Angeles September 15-16, Oct. 6-7, and Nov.3-4 to share their holistic style of Ankoku-Butoh.

Techniques transcend beyond the dance studio and stage. From daily maintenance, core work, and internal imagery, techniques become useful in daily life and provide a foundation for life long learning and growth. These workshop will culminate with a performance in December.

This is the first of the workshops. Feel free to invite anyone to this that you feel might be interested. It is truly a rare event to have butoh masters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano in LA.

September 15 &16 (Saturday and Sunday) 11am-3pm

October 6 &7 (Saturday and Sunday) 11am-3pm

November 3&4 (Saturday and Sunday) 11am-3pm

Cost: 40 for one day, 60 for both

To reserve a spot email:

josie: info@razethewhitebox.com

*Walk-ins welcomed

We Live in Space

2520 W Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90018

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Harupin-Ha Dance Theater

Koichi and Hiroko Tamano were among the very first to perform Ankoku Butoh, which translates literally to “the dance of darkness.” The genre emerged in the late 1950s in post-atomic bomb Japan. It was created by two dancers, Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, who sought to create a new, uniquely Japanese form of expression that completely rebelled against the Establishment, and both Eastern tradition and Western styles. Koichi joined Hijikata’s dance company in 1960, as did Hiroko a few years later. Hijikata encrouaged the Tamanos to introduce Butoh to the United States. The Tamano’s performance in the 1976 “Japan Now” exhibition at SFMOMA was the first Butoh seen by an American audience and made a big sensation. The Tamanos moved their dance company Harupin-Ha from Tokyo to Berkeley, California in 1979 with the blessings and encouragement of their teacher. For decades the Tamanos lead dance workshops in Berkeley and also operated the restaurants, Country Station and Tamasei, which served as meeting places for the dance and theater communities of the Bay Area. They are known for their holistic approach to the art of Butoh. The Mayor of the City of Berkeley, California declared March 28th, 2017 to be the “Koichi and Hiroko Tamano Day.”

Corporeal Reformation Exploration (@ Zorthian Ranch) /  by DBL

Body awareness, conditioning, and exploration meet up.

Please come join us at the Zorthian Ranch for this exploration. Bring water, a towel, free moving clothes, comfortable athletic shoes (the flatter the better), A yoga mat, if you got it (well be on the floor outdoors), a willingness to sweat, play and explore the environment outside and with-in yourself. Feel free to invite anyone that you feel might be interested.

The session will be divided into three section roughly one hour each.

1.Warm up

2.Flow work

3.Meditative/ Stretch

Heavily influence by butoh techniques, others are welcomed. Feel free to bring in movement ideas that will work in these areas. If you are unsure, come along and see how this session will function.

This is all levels. Listen to your body and keep your own pace.

*Next Corporeal Reformation Exploration will be August 19.

**These sessions will end in a meditative play experience/ photo / video shoot at the end of the month.*

info@razethewhitebox.com

5-10 suggested donation

11:30am-2:30pm

Zorthian Ranch

3990 Fair Oaks Ave, Altadena, California 91001

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josie j:

My movement practice is an extension of my search to unlock internal memory. This "built-in" info I believe will help us function in this planet not as separate individuals but as part of an organism.

I have started to collect exercises and play activities that I believe will help awaken already built in ways of healing, conditioning, and inherent ways of centering yourself.

Some of these methods include: Working with dichotomies, open eye imagining/ meditation, theories of flow, metamorphosis, athletic conditioning (endurance for ecstatic dance) sensation work (meditations to awaken sensitivity) and play (playing with forms {playing within parameters}).

When it comes to body work my background started with performance art, branched out to Butoh and now Martial Arts. I still am actively searching and wanting to learn and share new methods of body work. I am interested in the exchange of these ideas and fascinated with how lineages grow and cross pollinate.

My hopes is to build a way to become fully the animal we could be. In a way a universal way of approaching movement that is approachable and helps in everyday life, work, self defense and in play. Not animal as reactionary but adaptable and intellect, contributing to the graciousness of our ancestors.

I don't see myself as a teacher but possibly a facilitator that wishes to learn as well.

I personally use the term Corporeal Reformation, a way of saying at this moment my body needs a reevaluation, a reorganizing, a re-shifting that is deep and spiritual.

Butoh Workshop in Ireland with Hiroko Tamano /  by DBL

Butoh Workshop in Ireland with Hiroko Tamano.

April 9-12. 

Full workshop (4 days): 100 euros

one day (drop ins): 30 euros

Work Shops Dates: 11AM~4PM , April 9th,10th, 11th

Location: Olympic Karate Club, 81-83, Shandon Street, Cork, Ireland Telephone:00-353-21-439766

6

Performance at same location : April 12, 2PM~3PM ( we may work Noon~4PM )

Work Shop :

Introducing " AnKoku- Butoh ( Dance of Darkness ) 12hr Workshop.

Through learning Butoh Master Koichi TAMANO's Method, you will know what body is, what mind is, why you are here in this life, a life with a limited time, a life that is in constant limbo between vitality and death, beauty and the grotesque, Joy and sorrow.

Performance : One hour performance based on Work Shop's vocabulary.

Please share if you know anyone that would be interested in this once in a lifetime opportunity to study with Hiroko Tamano Sensei, one of Hijikata Tatsumi's early bright students when he started out.

Raze the WhiteBox- DivineBrick in Collab. w/ Mike Meanstreetz and Z.Vital @ Human Resources, Chinatown, LA, Ca /  by DBL

Raze the WhiteBox

from

Eon Mora

on

Vimeo

.

Raze the WhiteBox

DivineBrick in Collaboration with Mike Meanstreetz and Z.Vital @ Human Resources, Chinatown, LA May 10, 2016

Video By Eon Mora

www.razethewhitebox.com

Click on Title of Vid to Enlarge

Four Direction Prayer /  by DBL




One Human being presented on this Planet (under his feet=Earth, above
his head=Outer Space).

Standing toward to East (Sunrise, Future, Possibility, make things better).

on his Back=West ( Sunset, Past, Ancestors).

on his Right=South ( symbolized an old lady carry basket full eggs &
seeds. Nurture, Next Generations ).

on his Left=North (symbolized an old man with wisdom through his

experience. Teachers, Elders)

His body deform to Bird (to cross the sky), to Monkey (Hug a Tree), to be a Tree (Gather Energy of the Earth).

He release the Energy of the Earth through his body to the Sky, Carry back Sky into his body (Emptiness).

He presents himself to each direction, through his empty body, the
element of the direction blow through his body and exchanged to
opposite direction.

Dance of Life= Four Direction Pray
taught by Txi Whizz in Vancouver 1983

—Hiroko Tamano

Tuesday Night Post #2-16 /  by DBL



Aspiring Artists,
Let it rain let it pour, is that gorgeous girl on the corner a whore? Will it wash the stain away? Doubt it can cleanse what permeates from Laurel Canyon to Ed Ruscha.  My lovely town what a hound, now downtown smells like canine drown.   Much better than the human waste that once could levitate.  Just some hometown lovin.
-DBL

*     *     *     *     *
Disconnecting

I have recently have had this want to disconnect.  It’s not really a new feeling but a feeling that I have been actively acting on.  Let me be more specific, disconnection from the art world, the “fine art “ world.  Granted one main reason is the hollowness that is the LA art world.  I am not being harsh or bias, I have come to terms with this.  Hollywood permeates though out LA.  I call this permeation “Hollywood” for lack of a better description.  Some might call it LA or superficial but to me, the LA I grew up with was not superficial.  It was not even Hollywood.  Only until I was old enough to get around on my own did I start to go to the “Hollywood” scene, you know punk rock, Hollywood blvd, clubs, Goth what ever you want to call that dope show.  That was a different world.  I am from LA not Pasadena, Santa Monica or any of the out skirts that we call LA county or sub division.  Born and raised and seen the many sides of LA and recently have started to fall in love with it again, but that’s another story.
Let me get back to the art world I speak of.  There is another reason for this want and action.  Like in every scene I have witness or been part of, it only satisfies one facet of my interest at a time.  The art scene is way to “Scene”, and way to pretentious and full of isms that by its own accord disconnects itself from the viewer (specifically the viewer but the artist to, but I know most artist are fluent in isms, at least enough to get by).  I am interested more in the viewer.  When I go to a show and the only creative phenomenon I see is the artist finding new ways to stroke themselves, their peers or worse their predecessors. I find no transcendence of concept into light. 
In the last few years I have been around a lot of performers (and in the past have always surrounded myself with more musicians than artist) I have noticed a comfort there for myself.  Not to say I feel at home, far from that.  Being backstage at an event has been something I have taken with a casual stride, but if I stop and think about it, its terribly artificial and would make me incredibly anxious…so I don’t.  I’m just there for the snacks.
 I think it’s the value the performer gives the audience that I find honorable.  Without them there could not exist any dialogue or reason.  An audience is just an extension of an experience.  They will laugh, cry, set the energy levels of the event or just tell you something after the experience.  They are not just going to show up for the wine and cheese or show up just to been seen (hey I am guilty of that too, been going to art openings since I was in Jr. high), and if they do it’s a big price to pay, sitting or experiencing something they have absolutely no interest in. 
Let me clarify what I mean when I say audience, an audience is not a static sitting mass.  For example I know of a Butoh performance in a cave in which only dancers were at attendance, but no “audience”.  There was no need for audience, but the dialogue that must have occurred between performers must have been intensely profound.  Each dancer was part of the “audience” essential part of the experience.  We can have an argument about if any audience is needed to make art, but that argument is none sense unless we are talking about self-exploration.   Have at it if it is, does not include anyone else so why even argue that with someone if you don’t care who knows.  Why would anyone engage in a discussion like that for any other reason than a thought exercise is something I am not sure I really understand, with my reasoning Self. 
Yes you can argue that in a very arty dogmatic sort of way, but I am losing interest in that forum.  Its like having a argument with a significant other and forgetting why you even started that argument but for what ever reason neither side wants to subside…maybe just for the simple reason to have a reason to have a reason.  It’s sorta a hollow profound venture.  Feels like something epic is being conjured, but is it really? Again I am not opposed to pushing the limit or opposed to the Avant-Garde.  What I speak of is masturbatory incest that CAN be institutional investigation in art.  Its like if every one sat around bored because every one of life’s questions had been resolved and some one just needed something to do (and from experience few higher level art is really like this.  It just seems like that when you peel the first layer of the onion, it validates it as a intellectual investigation, the true meaning is much more coded and far removed from the uninitiated… but again that’s a different story).  Don’t think we are quite there just yet.
The Nor Cal art scene is the only scene that I have seen, as of now, that was more focused on the artist to artist to audience dialogue.    Everyone was really about the making.  Every one for the most part was willing to get down and dirty and collaborate or experiment.  And it was good art!  Who would of thought?  Of course this required you as an artist to step up to the plate.  Make! 
I think a lot of LA artist talk about making or wish they were making.  Hey its not a put down its hard to make in LA or anywhere.  After all there is a nightlife for every one of you out here.  God knows how hard it would be to make in NYC.  Not really interested in knowing really.  And again I am talking in broad terms I know folks that are making in NYC and folks that are not making much in Nor Cal and folks that are making for themselves and no body else. Everything is what you bring to it.  Plus or minus what you have at your disposal. 
Even when we disconnect we hopefully connect with something else.  I think that is what I am trying to say.  Mostly now I am connecting with corporal transformation and the many ways that can manifest.  The art scene at times is not cerebral enough for me.  I get that in science, spirituality, yes religion, tech and in people that are being creative and are profoundly investigating truly fascinating things but are not part of the art world.  I know there are groups and artist that do not fall into the pit that I am describing, but those artists might have some similar thoughts or they might be dead or extremely stoned. Unplug to re-plug.
This is not really a put down to LA.  Mostly to the established art world.  As of this moment LA is one of the centers of it…
Oh, lets not forget there is…A SHIT LOAD of moneys in this establishment (I’m not even going to touch on how this discolors it all). 
And yes performers in LA are a horrible breed they should all be made to wait on us, bring us delicious food, drinks…oh yeah, right…

Honestly sarcastic and profoundly foolish,
-Ass-piraling Farce-rest

Bare Bones Butoh Presents: SHOWCASE #23 /  by DBL

 If you are in the S.F. area.

-DBL


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Hello,

We are happy to announce:

BARE BONES BUTOH PRESENTS: SHOWCASE #23!

(Adventurous Shows for an Adventurous Audience)


WHEN:

Friday Nov 18, 2011, and Saturday, Nov 19, 2011
Both performances are at 8:00 pm


WHERE:
Studio 210
3435 Cesar Chavez St (at Valencia)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Studio 210 is located in the former Sears Building, inset from the corner of Cesar Chavez and Valencia Street. Accessible by: BART - 24th St Station; and MUNI - #12, #27, #14, #49. Plenty of on-street parking.


TICKETS:
Performances: $5-$20 sliding scale. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Additional donations are graciously accepted and gratefully appreciated.


WHO:
This time around, the performers are:

Ronnie Baker, Ron Chornow, Michael Curran, Mark Deutsch (Saturday only), Carolina (Coicoi) Duncan, Liz Filippone (Saturday only), David Flaig (Friday only), Wolfgang Heinle, Martha Matsuda (Saturday only), Ri Molnar (Friday only), Angela (Irretitus Fesol) Newsham, and Bob Webb.
 
Quite a line-up, wouldn't you say? Should be a couple of VERY GOOD SHOWS!

Surprise guest artists may also be performing as well. There are often last minute additions (local, national, and international artists) to the programing, it's that kind of show.


WHAT:
Bare Bones Butoh Presents is a performance Showcase for local, national, and International artists working in the areas of butoh, performance art, and/or ritual performance. It exists for artists to try out new material, show works in process, hone improvisational chops, and redo or revisit previous material. Bare Bones Butoh Showcases employ the grassroots ethic of working together to sustain an artistic culture. We are community building and performance all smushed together into two evenings.


Thank you for your time, and we hope to see you there

Further info:
Bob Webb
bobwebb20@hotmail.com
510-284-7025

Koichi and Hiroko Tamano at the Harrison House- Joshua Tree 08/22-08/24 /  by DBL

Greeting friends,

For anyone venturing out to Joshua Tree or for anyone wanting to experience the last performance and workshops by Kiochi and Hiroko Tamano and the Harupin-ha Dance Theater on the mainland here is the press release from Harrison House Music and Dance.  If I find a ride I will be there and performing as part of the troupe.

-DBL

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Dear Friends and Dance Lovers:

It is with great pleasure that we will host Harrison House artists-in-residence Koichi & Hiroko Tamano for a special farewell Butoh Dance Theater performance on August 22nd followed by a two-part workshop on August 23rd.

Living treasures, international touring artists and Harupin-ha creators, Koichi & Hiroko, have been performing and teaching Butoh for over 30 years and were the first to bring this dance form to the West.  The influence of Butoh originator Tatsumi Hijikata, who performed with and shaped the two artists, has left its imprint on them although the Tamanos have since forged their own style.

Many of you were in attendance when Koichi & Hiroko were last here, and we've received numerous requests for a return visit.  It is an honor to present their final U.S. mainland performance and workshops before they relocate back to Japan.

Performance:
Monday, August 22, 2011, 7:30pm
“A Big Sky" (after the end of the world)
Donation: $15

Workshops:
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
"Create Your Own Horizon"
7:00 am~8:30am - $20
6:30 pm~9:00pm - $35

Workshops/Performance - $60
(Space is Limited)

Performance & Workshops will take place at Harrison House
(6881 Mt. Lassen Avenue, Joshua Tree, CA)


Tickets are available at: Joshua Tree Health Foods
(29 Palms Hwy at Sunset Street, Joshua Tree, CA)

For additional information call: 760.366.4712

Best,
Eva


Eva Soltes
Harrison House Music & Arts
Founder/Director
P.O. Box 416
Joshua Tree, CA 92252




Bare Bones Butoh "Showcase #22" /  by DBL






Greeting,

This week there will be two butoh performances in San Francisco.  July 29 and 30 Bare Bones Butoh Dance Company will present “Showcase 22”.  On Friday you will be lucky to see Koichi and Hiroko Tamano in one of there last U.S. performances before they head back to Japan.  And on Saturday butoh dancer Luku will perform a self-choreographed piece in which I will be part of.  Come out and experience butoh.

If you are interested in learning what butoh is you are always welcome to come to the workshop in Berkeley, Ca at the Subterranean Arthouse taught by master butoh dancers Koichi and Hiroko Tamano.

-DBL

*     *     *     *     *


Bare Bones Butoh
Studio 210
Studio 210, San Francisco
July 29, 2011 - July 30, 2011

“Showcase 22,” with special guests Vangeline and local Butoh Master Hiroko Tamano. Bare Bones Butoh Presents is a performance showcase for local, national, and International artists working the areas of butoh, performance art, and/or ritual performance.


July 29, 2011
8:00 PM
10:00 PM

July 30, 2011
8:00 PM
10:00 PM

Ticket Prices - $5.00 - $20.00




Studio 210
3435 Cesar Chavez
San Francisco, CA 94110


L@TE: Friday Nights - The Transformation Call with Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company (Berkeley, Ca) /  by DBL

Greetings,

On December 10 I will be part of a Butoh performance at the Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, California. By special invitation by a good friend/ contemporary/ b-boy/ and Butoh dancer Luku Netherthot.


-DBL









L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA

From meditative masterpieces to off-kilter performances, L@TE programming invades Gallery B with classical and experimental soundworks, dance, video, and conceptual and performance art. Guest programmer Tomo Yasuda’s L@TE series concludes its dialogue with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons: Ten Centuries of Art from the Clark Collection for Japanese Art and Culture in this final piece.

(Doors 5 p.m., D.J. 6:30 p.m.)
Programmed by Tomo Yasuda

December marks the end of the year, a transition to a new season, abrupt but not as shocking as the transition from the Edo to Meiji periods, a near-apocalyptic experience for the Japanese, when foreign pressure opened Japan to the modern world. Berkeley-based Butoh masters Koichi and Hiroko Tamano and over fifty dancers from their Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company will interpret the winter season and change with a performance based on the 1918 short story “The Spider’s Thread” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Staged in Gallery B, the dance will incorporate BAMscape, Thom Faulders’s 1,500-square-foot hybrid of sculpture, furniture, and stage. San Francisco-based Vomica will accompany the performance with an original composition. Thefinal video loop in a series of four by Sara Magenheimer, this one evoking the last month of the year, will round out the spectacle. The Transformation Call is programmed in conjunction with the exhibition Flowers of the Four Seasons.


Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 642-0808