24-26 April – Butoh~Dance~Theatre Project with Performance – Antwerp (Belgium) ***POSTPONED IN OCTOBER 2020***

International Butoh~Dance~Theatre~Project
~~~Workshop with Performance~~~

Open for as well beginners and advanced dancers/actors/artists/body-performers

With:
WILL LOPES (Brazil/based in Austria)
MARUSKA RONCHI (Italy)
JESSY DRIESSENS (Belgium)

These three people have a strong connection with the work of Atsushi Takenouchi, and a strong connection with each other. From there the idea to bring their talents together and make a co-creation.

We will dance and explore around power figures and archetypes, Gods & Goddesses from the Indian, Greek as Brazilian afro-indigenous, ritual dance and mythology.
At the end of the workshop we will share our dance with an audience.

The forms we work with are ;
Dance~Dance Theatre~Butoh Dance~Contemporary Dance~Physical Theatre~
The workshop will be lead mostly in English

Dates:
Friday : 24/4 : 10u-17u
Saturday : 25/4 : 10u – 17u
Sunday : 26/4 : 10u -17u30 (Performance time starts at 16u)
At ‘t Werkhuys, Zegelstraat 13, Antwerp

 

About Butoh :
Butoh is a dance of transformation. It is a profound work on personal identity to find your own deep,authentic and original being, until it is dissolved and we become a flow of energy, a substance in movement that is constantly being transformed.
Life is this continuous flow of energy of which we are a part, everything is movement, everything is constantly changing. And we are part of this. If we recognize it, feel it, and dance it, we will be amazed and surprised by that. Dance is the magic of life.
Dance is our means to celebrate life in all its aspects and in all its forms, a means to transform our emotions, to understand and accept them, to understand and accept what happens to us and around us, a form of appreciation and gratitude.
We will research the original part of the dance. In ancient times dance was a prayer, a ritual, a ritual of devotion to nature, a celebration of life. Dance as an expression of the universe,
where the fusion of body and spirit takes place. Dance as a magical ritual that allows us to get in touch with the “subtle worlds”. Dance as metamorphosis.
This workshop offers a space to research in movement, in physical and emotional level, a space to research develop our own butoh dance.

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GUIDED BY:

WILL LOPES is a Brazilian Butoh dancer, actor, performer and director with 21 years of experience. Since 2018, he is based in Vienna and has been studying Butoh Dance with Atsushi Takenouchi at the Jinen Butoh School in Italy and other places in Europe.
Bachelor in Theater at the University of Brasilia in 2003, studied theatre, dance, dance-theatre, dramatic body mime, Butoh, circus, Martial Arts, and vertical dance. Physical trainer of performers specialized in the Brazilian technique Integral Bambu. Master degree in Communication and Semiotics at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo in 2016.
In his artistic works, he is specialized in the development of site-specific performances in the urban architecture of the city. He studied Brazilian popular culture with Antônio Nóbrega, Sei Tai Ho with Toshi Tanaka and cultural anthropological conceptions of the human body at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo.

Dancing Archetypal Gods
Dedicated to the Butoh by Tatsumi Hijikata, this workshop presents some forms and choreographies inspired by the father of Butoh dance. To develop his dances and choreographies, Hijikata studied classical forms of Eastern statues and represented them in their technique and their own aesthetics. In this same way Will Lopes will share some forms of his works about Brazilian afro-indigenous ritual dance and mythology. Butoh, physical theatre, contemporary dance, voice and performance are the layers of this work.

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MARUSKA RONCHI is a butoh dancer, choreographer and performer.
She dances and teaches throughout Europe, Canada and Japan, as well as regularly teaching and working with Atsushi Takenouchi in the Butoh program in Italy.
She uses oneiric language, images from the unconscious, to create her dance.
She likes to conceive her dance and creative process as an alchemical one of dissolution and concrection, using reiteration of this work on the body, to achieve a transmutation of matter,
where body and mind become one.
Her dances further explore these processes, seeking a conjunction of opposites: Sulfur and Mercury, Sun and Moon, Apollo and Dionysus, order and chaos, active and passive, light and
shadow, life and death.
She explore how the movement creates the images and how images create movement, in a double and mutual interconnection.
Through Butoh she discovered a new approach to dance, bringing her closer to ancient ritual and spiritual world, and find the unique beauty in each individual, each manifestation of nature.
She is now combining her Contemporary Dance, Theatre and Somatic Practices background, with Butoh, to find different entrances into a “dance state”, revealing the bonds between the visible and invisible world.
She is one of the founder of two international groups, HAIKUMU project and Cie de ta Soeur.
She worked and collaborate with Joan Laage (U.S.A.), Seisaku (Japan), Rianto (Indonesia),
UnlockDancingPlaza dance company (Hong Kong), Benoit Lachambre (Canada).

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JESSY DRIESSENS is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, singer, musician, performer.
She is the founder of the ‘JesDansTheater Compagny’ and
‘Het Bewegende Pad vzw’
She has dedicated her life to dance & movement of the body through the layers of the soul and in resonance and deep contact with nature.
She did (and still does)research in different cultures and ethnical rituals (African, Brazilian, Indian) to develop and deepening her dance and voice.
She deepened herself into Butohdance, Physical Theatre, Ethnical rituals and dance, Dance – Expression, Experimental sound, Singing and Yoga.
This journey never ends, and that’s the beauty cause transformation is a continuously moving process :
‘Transformation = movement = dance/sound=life.’
Her mission and lifework is to bring herself and others in connection with the authentic inner self and nature that surrounds us through movement with body and voice. And in this way we get more connected with each other.
During more than 24 years she worked with many groups of children and adults in different dance, dance-theatre & physical theatre projects.
She had the honour to work with different Butoh masters such as Masaki Iwana, Yumiko Yoshioka, Juju Alishina. But spent the most of the time in her Butoh research with Atsushi Takenouchi and his wife/musician Hiroko Komiya of the Jinen-Butoh school. She feels a deep gratitude and strong connection to Atsushi’s work. Jinen is an old Japanese word. Its meaning encompasses ALL that is even larger than nature. (Quoting Atsushi)

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Practical info :
Make sure you’ll bring something to eat during lunch.
Keep it as light as possible for your dance 😉
We can pot-luck.
There are possibilities to find small snacks in the neighbourhood
There will be tea. You can bring your own (filled)water bottle.
After registration you’ll get more info which is needed, few weeks before workshop.

INSCRIBE DIRECTIONS :
Please send email to :
jesdanstheater@telenet.be
If you are one of first 10 people to inscribe you’ll get the approval with discount pay modalities.