BRATTLEBORO-SideStream Studio presents "Radical Resonance," a Butoh workshop and performance to celebrate the fall equinox, at their Cotton Mill Hill location in Brattleboro on Saturday, Sept 21, from 1 to 5 p.m., followed by a performance at 5:30 p.m.
This workshop will be hosted by Julie Becton Gillum, artistic director of the 14-year-running Asheville Butoh Festival. Gillum has been creating, performing, and teaching for over 40 years. Participants will investigate the possibilities of their bodies and explore this very profound art form of dance.
Originating in post-WWII Japan, Butoh is a potent and revolutionary dance form, "using the body brazenly as a battleground to attain personal, social, or political transformation," say event organizers. In its early forms, Butoh embraced and referenced Western artistic movements: German Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Existentialism, and Fluxus, all of which pervaded the Tokyo underground and the avant-garde art scene at that time.
The co-founders of butoh (Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno) trained in German modern dance, which was integral to the development of German Expressionism. Eventually, they took opposite approaches to their dance-making. Hijikata's work became known as ankoku butoh (dance of utter darkness); he embraced the grotesque and the absurd, exploring themes of sacrifice, struggle, and death.
Ohno's butoh was playful, humorous, and filled with light and life. Today's butoh is influenced by both Hijikata and Ohno and wrestles to balance those contrary approaches. Philosophically, butoh "slips between the cracks of definition in order to reveal the fervent beauty of the unique human spirit."
All levels of movers are welcome. There is a $36 suggested donation for the workshop and performance, $13 for performance only. SideStream studio is at 74 Cotton Mill Hill, Suite 346. More information can be found at sidestreamstudio.com.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.