Teaching
Parting from the premise of the body as a canvas, as a blank page, the main aim of the classes is to search for each own's body poetry. It is a call to honesty, to active listening, to the unfolding of each one's essence, to discovering our own expression. While travelling this path, we will not penetrate into butoh as a cliché, but on the contrary: we will search for the corporeality, movement, voice, expression and emotion within each of us. Sensei Yoshito Ohno teaches that "every single person is a work of art, everybody is beautiful, my sole role as a teacher is to make you even more beautiful" ...my will as a teacher is to walk together with my students to unveil our expressive potentialities and mould our movements, both individually and as an interacting group.
Training is composed of three essential approaches: physical conditioning, butoh elements and scenic creation. As for de first one, the students will be provided with a variety of practices founded on dance techniques, martial arts, vocal excercises, and theatre and clown elements, always respecting each student's possibilities and potentialities. By working out the body, practicants will be able to widen their spectrum of movements, thus exalting their mental and corporeal creativity. It is important to note that there are no age or physical limits to dance butoh; on the contrary: considered primarily as a training of the soul, once its poetry has touched our heart, its truthfullness will guide us to our highest expressiveness in each moment or stage of our lives. Concerning butoh technique per se, traditional practices usually seek to interweave physical movement with more philosofical notions, such as life and death, the struggle between the opposites, the sense of emptiness, the connection with the surroundings, and the diverse archetypes which relate to the human being. The third stage is more related to the student's personal experience and background: their poetic universe, their (hi)story, their geographic and cultural framework... all that which makes us unique, and that sometimes is so internalised and assimilated that it is really difficult to recognise and observe. Even if the three approaches may be seen as a series of stages, all of them will be worked in parallel, focusing on one or the others, depending on the training and grounding of each student.
From my encounters and classes with great butoh teachers, I received invaluable pieces of advice, which I consider crucial for any butoh practice, particularly the third stage: "Your body is clearly not Japanese, do not try to dance as a Japanese woman, look for your own movement, which expresses your passion, your land's Tango" (Tadashi Endo); "Seek to dance what truly represents you, what constructs you, plant your flags; dance your own mother's soup as Kazuo Ohno danced his mother's" (Magy Ganiko); "Pay attention to the different characters that visit you while practising, they are an essential part of your (hi)story" (Gustavo Collini-Sartor); "following the lines, the textures, the lights, the shades, the shapes, the colours, we can even dance a photography" (Seisaku); "Butoh has to do with each person's (hi)story, different for each of us... it is like building our own character, composed of those elements which represent us: from a texture, a material original from our land, a sound, the type of garment we use to practise... everything can be raw material with which to construct small pieces, or whole dances... I wish to see each of you, unique beings, showing who you are and your (hi)story on stage." (Yoshito Ohno)
To conclude with, I believe that Sensei Yoshito Ohno's words are more than clear and inspiring: "butoh is a starting point for a revolution. In that revolution it is important first to construct, and then to break, such as kids destroy their sand castles. In that construction there are the dance and movement techniques, but the essential is to break to revolutionize the world."
Training is composed of three essential approaches: physical conditioning, butoh elements and scenic creation. As for de first one, the students will be provided with a variety of practices founded on dance techniques, martial arts, vocal excercises, and theatre and clown elements, always respecting each student's possibilities and potentialities. By working out the body, practicants will be able to widen their spectrum of movements, thus exalting their mental and corporeal creativity. It is important to note that there are no age or physical limits to dance butoh; on the contrary: considered primarily as a training of the soul, once its poetry has touched our heart, its truthfullness will guide us to our highest expressiveness in each moment or stage of our lives. Concerning butoh technique per se, traditional practices usually seek to interweave physical movement with more philosofical notions, such as life and death, the struggle between the opposites, the sense of emptiness, the connection with the surroundings, and the diverse archetypes which relate to the human being. The third stage is more related to the student's personal experience and background: their poetic universe, their (hi)story, their geographic and cultural framework... all that which makes us unique, and that sometimes is so internalised and assimilated that it is really difficult to recognise and observe. Even if the three approaches may be seen as a series of stages, all of them will be worked in parallel, focusing on one or the others, depending on the training and grounding of each student.
From my encounters and classes with great butoh teachers, I received invaluable pieces of advice, which I consider crucial for any butoh practice, particularly the third stage: "Your body is clearly not Japanese, do not try to dance as a Japanese woman, look for your own movement, which expresses your passion, your land's Tango" (Tadashi Endo); "Seek to dance what truly represents you, what constructs you, plant your flags; dance your own mother's soup as Kazuo Ohno danced his mother's" (Magy Ganiko); "Pay attention to the different characters that visit you while practising, they are an essential part of your (hi)story" (Gustavo Collini-Sartor); "following the lines, the textures, the lights, the shades, the shapes, the colours, we can even dance a photography" (Seisaku); "Butoh has to do with each person's (hi)story, different for each of us... it is like building our own character, composed of those elements which represent us: from a texture, a material original from our land, a sound, the type of garment we use to practise... everything can be raw material with which to construct small pieces, or whole dances... I wish to see each of you, unique beings, showing who you are and your (hi)story on stage." (Yoshito Ohno)
To conclude with, I believe that Sensei Yoshito Ohno's words are more than clear and inspiring: "butoh is a starting point for a revolution. In that revolution it is important first to construct, and then to break, such as kids destroy their sand castles. In that construction there are the dance and movement techniques, but the essential is to break to revolutionize the world."