Seattle has long been a strong center for the Japanese modern movement art of butoh. They have a few international visiting performers this weekend.
Friday Su-en from Sweden performs Soot, with musical accompaniment by Lee Berwick from the UK. Su-en studied for many years in Japan with Hakutobo, the seminal group of female dancers formed as his last project by the founder of butoh, Hijikata. Her working method fuses the founder's ideas, inspiration from landscape and modern physics.
The same evening, Helen Thorsen will be presenting a portion of her new choreography, Higher Ground, with Mary Cutrera, Briana Jones, Alan Sutherland, and Lin Lucas. Kaoru Okumura will present her solo work merging Esoteric Buddhism Shomyo Chanting and Butoh with chanting by Rev. Yuren Tai of Seattle Koyasan Buddhist Temple. Will Fredo will present LUWAL, with Liza Dino (Flamenco) and Sheri Brown.
Saturday, it is Silver Lining, inspired by the art of concealment and the play of light and shadow, directed and performed by Joan Laage (Kogut), in collaboration with Kaoru Okumura. Diana Garcia will present MA, The Space Among Us, an interactive butoh-inspired multimedia performance, with media artist Eunsu Kang, software developer/composer Donald Craig, and costume designer Bo Choi. Maureen (Momo) Freehill and NOLA kinetic artist Heather Hansen collaborate with dancer Sheri Brown, digital artist Anna Czsoki and musician Stephen Fandrich for (•) GeoSoma MuMatics (part 1), based on A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe/Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science by Michael Schneider and our embodied experience of numbers 1-5.
Details, including on workshops at www.daipanbutoh.com/seattlebutohfestival Performances at the Velocity Dance Center 1621 12th Avenue Seattle. 8PM $22
