What started as a national embarrassment has become a modern dance phenomena. Born in Japan post-World War II, Butoh dancing was a way for an indigenous population to define new identities and …
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What started as a national embarrassment has become a modern dance phenomena. Born in Japan post-World War II, Butoh dancing was a way for an indigenous population to define new identities and comment politically through literal human movement.
This modern dance embraced the opposite of the 20th century’s rather virtuosic aesthetics of dance: physically upright, athletic, and powerful. Butoh was “an earth-based, subterranean dance,” said local Butoh dancer Iván-Daniel Espinosa, often including stooped or crawling movements. Butoh celebrated weakness, human fragility, the ephemeral quality of life.
It was everything the Western world wasn’t.
Espinosa and his cohort, Cosmo Rapaport, founded Salish Sea Butoh, melding their love of the Olympic Peninsula landscape with the nature-based themes of Butoh. Now, they’re thrilled to bring the inaugural Olympic Peninsula Butoh Symposium to the area this week through Monday, Aug. 16.
“I think it’s the first of its kind here in Port Townsend,” Espinosa said. “What a great place to bring this very unique, global art form.”
Joan Laage, whom Espinosa called “the grandmother of Butoh in the Pacific Northwest,” is one of three female dancers conducting workshops at the upcoming symposium. Laage’s session culminates in “Earth Tomes,” a public performance at 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 16 at the Chimacum Grange. (Doors open at 4:30 p.m., and there is a sliding-scale admission.)
Two other master Butoh instructors will be part of the weeklong symposium, which is open to dancers of all experience levels.
Rosemary Candelario is known for melding landscapes with the audience as part of her performances. Her contribution, “Dancing Ecologies,” is paired with live music. The dance will be held on North Beach at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11. (The event is free to the public. RSVP via salishseabutoh.org.)
Julie Becton Gillum brings more than 40 years of international performance experience to symposium participants. She’ll be at Fort Wordon at 6:15 p.m. Friday, Aug. 13 with live music and dance in “The Legacy of Butoh.” (Reservations at salishseabutoh.org.)
Butoh Cabaret is a series of 12 stage performances that will run from 8:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 16 . (A sliding-scale admission applies.)
Individuals can register for a full week Butoh or dance immersion classes, of which includes a campsite on an organic farm and three catered meals, or attend the weekend session Laage. There is a 50 percent discount for BIPOC registrants.
“I’m a person of color, of Latino heritage, the son of immigrants,” Espinosa said.
He is passionate about cultural diversity, and said Butoh has always welcomed people on the margins of society. This is “a dance that invites everyone,” Espinosa added.
