Marie -Gabrie lle Rotie Workshops 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Butoh: Foundation Butoh and Beyond Butoh Tasters Solo Performance Making Costume and Performance Site-Specific CONTACT 1 Christchurch Square London E9 7HU Telephone 0044 (0)7840936268 Email: rotieproductions@googlemail.com Website www.rotieproductions.com
Participants All workshops are suitable for those over 18 years of age, professional dancers, actors, dance students (and Visual Artists who have good general fitness and some movement experience such as yoga or martial arts). Workshops can also be adapted and tailored for the General Community, Elders, Visually Impaired and Schools. 1. Butoh: Foundation Length - 1 day to 5 days. Maximum Participants: 20. This Workshop introduces the core philosophy and aesthetics of Butoh as established by the historical founders Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno and aims to clarify the original foundation of Butoh in both Japanese and European influences. The teaching methods reflect inherited Butoh techniques and communicate the original vision of Butoh. The writings of both Hijikata and Ohno are elucidated, and links through images and choreographic techniques are made to their respective choreographic works. Training warm up draws from Noguchi gymnastics, breath and release work. The warmups focus on gravity, alignments, isolations, asymmetry, relaxation and breathing and turning the focus inwards to prepare the body for work with energy, internal sensation and imagination. Key Components Walking ʻBecoming Nothing, Becoming Somethingʼ. Standing - hanging body. Presence and Focus. Death Body Body as Corpse trying to stand up. Birth Body - Egg of possibility. Transformation of Body Butoh Fu. Working with different images drawn from nature as well as the absurd and surreal, in order to facilitate transformations of the body, from animate and inanimate elements such as flower, wind, water, smoke. Animal Forms Cat, Horse, Tiger, Bird. Control and No-control falling, off-balance. The grotesque body face as mask, ugliness, asymmetry. The Scream. Body moved by forces from within and without.
2. Butoh and Beyond Length 1 day to 1 week or more Maximum Participants: 18 This format is geared towards professional dancers/actors and can optionally evolve into longer workshops or laboratories leading into the creations of dance works, either solo or group. This workshop encourages participants to take inspiration from the core philosophy of Butoh and search within themselves for their own dance. The workshop draws upon Marie-Gabrielleʼs grasp of both inherited Butoh as well as her own distinctive teaching and creation methods developed over the last 20 years. The teaching encourages improvisation, personal creativity, assimilation, informed by the particular aesthetic of both Butoh and the cultural and physical heritages of each participant. Elements such as voice, experiments with other physical vocabularies special to each dancer (Chinese dance, contemporary, street, tango etc) can be fused with Butohʼs aspirations for asking the question ʻwhat is dance?ʼ This workshop aims not to impose a particular style on each dancer, but to create space for understanding Butoh as a paradigm for research and investigation into movement. We will explore experiments particular to Butoh, such as transformation, time, speed, space, body and scenography, body and voice. The aim is to discover what is interesting for each dancer so that they can develop a personal physical language. 3. Solo Performance Making Length 2 to 5 days Maximum Participants: 12 Taking methods from Butoh and Beyond, participants are encouraged to explore how to assimilate into their own creative process. Rotie encourages exploratory sessions with objects, text, movement and voice that lead into short improvised solo experiments. This process is suitable for dancers or actors. For these sessions she is also open to collaborating with local artists or costume designers to explore the parameters of the solo in relation to scenographic elements 4. Butoh Tasters 3 hours to 1 day Maximum Participants: 24 These workshops are geared towards shorter sessions lasting several hours to 1 day and introduce both the key techniques of Butoh, philosophy and aesthetics and also space for creative experimentation. This format is suitable for community dance, schools, further education and general community.
5. Costume and Performance This workshop works best when taught in collaboration with an (local) artist, sculptor or fashion or costume designer. Length 2 days to 3 days Maximum Participants: 14 This workshops draws upon Marie-Gabrielleʼs extensive choreographic and teaching experience working with the London College of Fashion on the relation between Costume and Performance. She has also collaborated extensively with costume designers on numerous choreographic projects, creating works at the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Participants will be asked to either bring costume and clothing elements or will be encouraged to create costume from simple materials such as paper, assemblages and other resources available.. Participants will have to opportunity to explore the relation between costume and movement, the way costume can enhance a specificity of movement response and focus on detail in the body and introduce characterisation. We will draw upon Marie-Gabrielleʼs distinct movement aesthetic language, which emphasises the distilled, sculptural and expressive potential of movement. Methods from Butoh, physical theatre and contemporary dance can be embraced, depending on the experiences and preferences of the workshop participants. 6. Site-Specific Laboratories In nature or architecture Length 2 days to 1 week Maximum Participants: 20 Working between studio and site, the workshops draw from methods in Butoh, Experimental Voice, Somatics and Performance Art, to encourage an attentive, listening and conceptual engagement with the site and its specificity. We work with solo and group processes and create improvisation responses to the site.
General Content of Butoh workshops Butoh has its origins in the late 1950's of Japan and is an international movement practice that crosses cultural boundaries. Butoh, through choreographic and improvisation methods, searches for 'the body that has not been robbed' (Hijikata). Through focusing on the unconscious, universal body, accessed through somatic and imagistic processes, the mover is put in touch with their own material body. Butoh is not about doing movement but about being moved. Concentration is turned inward, away from the external mirror image of the body, to encourage a deep connection to the origin and impulses for movement. Participants are introduced to the value and power of working from imagination and from guided poetic imagery as tools for transformation: the body can discover many selves and extend into animal, plant or non-human entities. Transformation through body tension, distortion and energy work are key areas of investigation. Each day begins with intensive body training incorporating yoga, voice and Butoh techniques that concentrate on wave, spiral and circular movement patterns allied to breath and voice. Butoh walks are taught as tools for realising the power of movement within stillness, silence and emptiness. Classic butoh forms are taught as a reference tool for the origins of butoh philosophy under Tatsumi Hijikataʼs method. Group and solo structures and improvisation allow participants time to explore the fluid interface between inner and outer space and to enjoy the delicious quality of slow motion work allied to working with dynamic energy and impulses. ʻ My teaching is founded in the principle that Butoh is a re-evaluation of the body, of movement and of what we understand of the mind/body connection. I am not interested in encouraging people to copy the Japanese historical butoh. My aim is for participants to discover their own dance. The techniques taught are to release and expand the body so that it is free to transform, evolve and become. If butoh is to evolve it cannot be a copy but a living flower that comes from the heart.ʼ (Marie-Gabrielle Rotie 2010) Fees: guideline only Each day/session of teaching is 210 British Pounds and this is the minimum fee. For workshops of 5 days or more this fee is negotiable. Organisers/producers also need to provide accommodation, meals and travel depending on circumstances and location. CONTACT - 1 Christchurch Square London E9 7HU Telephone 0044 (0)7840936268 Email: rotieproductions@googlemail.com Website www.rotieproductions.com