Butoh workshop with Butoh Master Tetsuro
Fukuhara in New York
16 hours
Tetsuro Fukuhara - Tokyo Space dance
DATES:
Thursday, November 9, 6-9pm
Friday, November 10, 6-9pm
Saturday, November 11 , 1-6pm
Sunday, November 12 , 1-6pm
LOCATION:
CAMEO STUDIOS
STUDIO A
307 West 43rd Street corner of 8th Avenue in Manhattan
FEES:
ENROLL HERE FOR 4 DAYS - $295:
SINGLE DAYS
· Thursday, November 9, 6-9pm -$55
· Friday, November 10, 6-9pm -$55
· Saturday, November 11, 1-6pm $100
· Sunday, November 12, 1-6pm $100
All payments are non refundable and non transferable.
STUDENTS WITH HEARING DISABILITY DISCOUNT AVAILABLE CLICK HERE
Contact butohinstitute@gmail.com with any question or query.
Bio
Tetsuro Fukuhara is a choreographer, writer, and the Director of Tokyo Space Dance. His first Butoh teacher was Akira Kasai. Through his encounter with Kasai, Tetsuro Fukuhara was very surprised to discover the possibility of this new dance technique called Butoh. Kazuo Ohno taught him how to enjoy Butoh; but Tatsumi Hijikata’s teachings were most important for him. Hijikata imparted him with a special “mission” and encouraged him to develop as an artist. Since the 1970’s, Fukuhara has developed his improvisational Butoh work, and continues to carry Butoh forward as “New Butoh Space Dance”.
Between 1970-1975, Fukuhara studied Improvisation Butoh dance from Akira Kasai. He belongs to the second generation of Butoh. In 1975, He started his own works in Tokyo. In 1983, He joined the Story of Seven Herbs directed by Tatsumi Hijikata. He then founded Tokyo Space Dance, and made his debut in Paris and Berlin in 1990, supported by the Japan Foundation.
Fukuhara has formed a network overseas since 1990. He is making an effort to establish a new dance without being limited to Japanese Butoh, in partnership with the Japan Foundation, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canada Council and several other foreign foundations.
Meanwhile, he tackles the production of socialization of art and social development program in and out of Japan. On 1994, he came across the Theory of Affordance in the field of cognitive science through his collaboration with the Japanese artist Shusaku Arakawa (who made a space, a park, and a house without a flat surface only with a rope). When Fukuhara danced in Shusaku's space named Site of Reversible Destiny, Yoro in Okayama, Japan, the idea for Space Dance burst upon him.
Since then, he has launched a project called "Space Dance", a collaboration between “Dance + Architecture + Information + Design" through a collaboration between dancers, artists, scientists, technicians and researchers. On 1998, He created "Digital Space Dance", supported by Japanese Ministry of Trade and "Behaviors in the Computer Space", supported by Japanese Ministry of Education.
Between 2000 and 2003, Fukuhara participated in several international cultural events such as Space Dance Performance and Lecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory in Boston, at the United Nations in New York, at the media art festival ISEA 2002 in Nagoya, and at several foreign locations. These events met with critical acclaim for their great impact on audiences. Space Dance is not only a new dance form, but a new 21st century design movement as well. Fukuhara was a lecturer at Musashino Art University between 1997 and 2001, and Kantogakuin University between 2001 and 2003.
Between 2004 and 2006, his Space Dance, Someday in the Universe research was published as a representative researcher in collaboration with The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in Tokyo. He also joined the "7th Space & Arts Workshop" supported by the European Space Agency and LEONARD in the Netherlands. Fukuhara continues to teach Space Dance at many universities around the world to develop new talented students. In 2006, Space dance won UNESCO’s Award for Digital Arts, and Space Dance in the Robotic Universe was selected in Monaco as one of "20 Projects in the World".
On 2007, Fukuhara made the news in Tokyo by holding "Space Dance in the Tube" at Hoya Primary School with 440 students and Tama Science Museum. In Praha, he joined the International Conference "MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences" supported by CIANT and LEONARD.
On 2008, a book of Space Dance by Tetsuro Fukuhara was published by Shunju-sha in Tokyo. And, on 2009, Space Dance in the Tube was held at Bangkok and Kampala at the Patravadi Thearter and the National Theatre supported by the Japan Foundation, Japanese Embassies, JICA, and the United Nations Uganda Office. We can see its news on "Bangkok Post" as "REDISCOVERING THE BODY"
Between 2010 and 2013, "Space Dance in the Tube" was held in Hiroshima, Tokyo, Kawaguchi, Kamakura, New York, Kampala, Nairobi, Paris, London, Braunchweig, Milano, Roma, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Nara, Nagoya, Inabe, Yokohama, Niigata, Fukui, Kagawa, Kochi, Santiago, Havana, Mexico City, Osaka, Kyoto, Mito, Kofu. Space Dance Project was a talk of the town and TV and news papers(ASAHI News Papers・South China Morning Post<1>・South China Morning Post<2>・YAMANASHI News Papers). Between July 20 and August 25 2013, during 37 days, at Yamanashi Prefectural Science Center 38,000 people come to enjoy Space Dance.
The definition of Butoh by Tetsuro Fukuhara is like the below;
Butoh is “a step from within“.
●
Butoh is “self-realization” though the body of the individual, direct, original dance technique.
●
Butoh is “a recovery of the wild in mankind and a rebirth of the body” intoxicated somehow lost in the contemporary world.
●
Butoh is an art which promotes us growth, and keeps the age-worthy flower blossoming continuously.
●
Everybody can develop their own Butoh as much as they receive their own body.
●
What is a pleasure of a dance? Sure, it is a pleasure to change our feelings about our world at the moment. In this dance feelings we can not find any differences between ourselves, we feel we are connected to everyone and everywhere. So a dancer dance eternally to get this feelings.
●
Also, as 21st dance history, we have a big theme to develop “a mature dance together with our age” using by new dance technique. If we should retire after a definite age, for example after 30 ages or after 40 ages, we should say its dance belongs to the old art system. In Butoh the maturity will be important, for us “the tacit knowledge” which we keep in our body in our life is most important treasure. We can develop our dances on the basis of this tacit Knowledge.
The definition of Space Dance by Tetsuro Fukuhara is like the below;
In Space Dance, the body is not a tool for expressing a story, the body is a story.
●
In any time the excellent dancer in the world keeps the ability to dance with a special dance technique to organize the body as the object, not as the subject. In Space Dance we study this dance technique. Then we try to recover the memory beyond human history through our dance and we accumulate its result as the tacit knowledge about the body.
●
Our feet always are connected with the ground. Our human in our daily life forget this fact. But when we dance with a dance technique to organize our body as the object, the relationship between our feet and the grand will be clear and we can get back a familiar feeling between the body and the earth.
●
In this time when we dance with the earth we can recognize some strange new feeling happen around the temporal lobe of our brain. Why? New feeling? Because it is a first experience for our brain to move our body with such a strange new way.
●
Our brain keeps all memories about all life on our earth. Because our brain into the Mother’s womb during 10 months grow up through the process of evolution of the brain from the beginning to today’s human brain. So, in our dance movements too, sometime we can find other strange movements of all life through these memories.
●
So in Space Dance when we try to dance to organize our body as the object we can touch several “forgotten memories” sometimes with a wave motion of the internal organs, sometimes with a sound of the bone, and sometimes with an excitement of the nerve. In that time we can feel a new feeling in our brain and “bone space“, then under this influence we can find the unexperienced movements by chance. In short we can stimulate several “forgotten memories“.
●
“forgotten memories” wake up a strong nostalgia in our mind. And this nostalgia gives new energy to us. Then we understand “new unknown movement’s world” exists behind our usual human movements.
●
This energy continue without end. When we dig up “forgotten memories” we can organize the unexpected movements based on each memories. We shake with its freshness and we are amazed by ourselves. Then we start to talk a new story beyond the human drama.
●
Usually, very soon, our human feel tired in our movements without this energy. But when we house this energy we get the lasting energy from the circulation between the body and the ground, then it arise like the growth of a snowball. We never feel tired.
●
Like that in Space Dance we dig up “forgotten memories” and we expand “new unknown movement’s world”, then we try to express “new unknown movement’s world” as “history of postures evolution with fish, amphibia, bird, and monkey“. We can describe that “history of postures evolution” had started from a ameba without hands and feet. Then now “History of Postures Evolution” meets one peak by human with a bipedal walker.
●
Why “history of postures evolution” is important for Space Dance? Because the purpose of Space Dance is the looking back on the past of all life, then the creation for “future of human body” as a return from its retrospection.
●
Then in Space Dance we make a visualization of “history of postures evolution” as the images. And we make an information of “new unknown movement’s world” as the tacid knowledge using by information technology. Finally we try to make a design through the tacid knowledge for the new body, the new object, and the new space.
●
Like that, in Space Dance we can create the new designs after our dance. For these works we adopt the collaboration by “dance + architecture + information + design“. Then, Space Dance is just a work of “Dance & Design“.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.