Workshop with Kagaya Sanae and Amano Uzumi of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo

Tue–Thu 5–7 April 2016, 9:00–13:00

Na Grobli Studio, ZARzone

The workshop will be conducted in English

Contact and application

Please email your completed application form by 20 March 2016 to Justyna Rodzińska-Nair at justyna@grotowski-institute.art.pl. Please include in the subject of the email ‘BodyConstitution workshops’ followed by the name of the chosen workshop. The number of places is limited. Applicants will be accepted on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Fee: 60 EUR

Butoh is Japan’s original modern stage art. The members of the Japanese ensemble will introduce an all-round method called Tomoe Butoh which helps develop body expression drawing on butoh techniques. Key elements of the method include the relation between ‘body consciousness’ and ‘(stage) environment’ as well as a complete affirmation of the performer’s individuality. Participants will be able to improve techniques of creative physical expression, including dance and stage drama.

The company Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo was established in 1987. It is run by Tomoe Shizune, who is in charge of stage direction, choreography, music and art for all of its performances. Master Tomoe is the only one among the butoh dancers who studied with butoh founder Hijikata Tatsumi who faithfully inherited and then further developed the art form, creating the Tomoe Butoh method, the first contemporary all-round stage-art method in Japan. The company has collaborated with artists in many different genres, including jazz, rock, classical music, traditional Japanese arts, opera, video, fine art and modern dance. The troupe has created experimental pieces on the theme of ‘multimedia and the body’ combining tools such as TV screens, telephone systems, Internet and motion capture. In recent years, the company has promoted butoh as an ‘open art’, actively offering pro bono performances at venues such as schools and welfare facilities.

More information: http://www.tomoe.com/index_e.html

Kagaya Sanae is a butoh dancer, member of Tomeo Shizune & Hakutobo and disciple of Tomoe Shizune. She is a Grand Master of classical Japanese dance, and a graduate of the Tokyo University of the Arts. She performed in the shows of Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo while still at university. She has participated, as a performer in group and solo pieces, in many international theatre and dance festivals, including the Adelaide Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, South-East Asia Tour supported by Japan Foundation, and Biennale Musiques en Scene. Kagaya has performed a solo butoh piece, Kanzan directed by Tomoe (premiered at the Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of the Dublin International Theatre Symposium in 1999). She has also taken part in a number of collaborative performances with artists in different genres, both in Japan and internationally.

Amano Uzumi is a butoh dancer and master of the traditional Japanese flower art. She became a disciple of Hijikata Tatsumi in 1985 and of Tomeo Shizune in 1987. She was the principal dancer in Magdalene of the Skin Cosmos − the Story of a Tree, a piece choreographed, directed and with music composed by Tomeo Shizune, which was presented in the official programme of Toga Festival in 1989. She was also a performer in many other works of Tomeo Shizune. She has performed at the Joyce Theater in New York, the Adelaide Festival, as part of the official programme of the Edinburgh International Festival and, as a guest performer, in Madame Butterfly in the Opera de Lyon and Magic Flute in NHK Opera in Tokyo. She was assistant director on a Nankuan Opera piece, a collaboration with a traditional theatre in Taiwan performed at Taipei National Experimental Theatre, directed and choreographed by Tomeo Shizune. The work won the grand prix of the Fifth Taishin Arts Awards in 2007, and it was invited in 2010 to Festival de L’imaginaire at the Opera Bastille in Paris, where it enjoyed high acclaim.