Photo by Raul Bartolome

Body Resonance – based on Butoh and Organic Movement

The main focus of this workshop is conscious research of our body/mind/soul unification, so we can deeply enjoy the intrinsic process of metamorphosis in the spirit of dance. Through a continuous exploration of our past collective memories, we can strike a vein of abundant creative resources, enriching the essence of our life. The body is a receptacle of time.

Body resonance is a key to opening up the doors of an ever-changing world inside and outside of ourselves, which helps the body to unfold its secrets, holding them up until they shine and tremble. Everything is in resonance with each other. Through a dialogue with our body, we can learn to be moved by inner and outer forces, thus realizing we are a part of the Universe. A dance of metamorphosis inevitably appears.

Workhop Content:

• Organic Movement (release exercises), inspired by Noguchi Taiso (Gymnastics), Taichi and Yoga such as figure 8, waves, water ball rotation, hanging body,

• Breathing exercises AUN

• Dynamic training for the flow of energy

• Butoh-related work (sensitization, combination of image and movement with antenna exercises, such as animal, insect, snake, witch and fairy, the creatures inside us, walking, dialogue with a partner etc)

  Structured improvisation and choreography

Workshop Dates/Time:

Friday, August 28th: (5:30 - 8:00 PM)

Saturday, August 29th: (10:30 - 2:30PM)

Sunday, August 30th: (10:00 - 1:00 PM)

Workshop Location: SomArt @the HIVE, 561 Windsor St 4th Floor, Somerville, MA 02143

Workshop Cost: ALL 3 Days: $85 OR Buy individual days: Friday : $25, Saturday: $40, Sunday: $30

To sign up for the workshop, email Ellen Godena at: egodena@gmail.com

YUMIKO YOSHIOKA – JAPAN / BERLIN

Yumiko Yoshioka is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer. Yumiko is a former member of Ariadone, the first female Butoh company, which was founded by Ko Murobushi and Carlotta Ikeda in 1973. In 1989 she started to develop and teach her own form of bodywork. The approach became a pillar of her career as a reflection of her profound understanding of the importance of deepening consciousness of the body, not only in order to dance and express, but also to illuminate our daily life, opening ourselves to the deeper layers of our inner world and rediscovering a subtle beauty in each moment. The strength of this perception led her to create her own method of bodywork, called  “Body Resonance” more about my work www.yumiko-yoshioka.com

Yumiko continues to be a key figure of the global Butoh scene and she has served as the Artistic Director of the B.I.G. (Butoh International Gathering) convergence, teaching and activating local and international Butoh communities.  A chapter highlighting Yumiko’s career is featured in Bruce Baird’s newest book A HISTORY OF BUTŌ in which he writes that “Yumiko is an important proponent of mixed media butô through her dance company TEN PEN CHIi, and one of the dancers who has most embodied what it means to practice butô as an itinerant woman.  Yoshioka keeps up a gruelling schedule of international travel teaching butô workshops around the world and also organized the eX..it! butô festival, bringing butô and dancers of other styles of dance in contact with each other…Whether by artists traveling to her, or as is much more often the case, Yoshioka traveling to artists, she has provided numberless dancers and artists with chances to ‘ex- change, ex- perience, ex- plore, and ex- it’ out of themselves and be changed in the process.”