Celebrate: Butoh Dance 50th Anniversary
BUTOH San Francisco
This new organization’s purpose is to promote the Butoh art form to San Francisco, bring international artists to our community, and produce performances and workshops to foster the growth of the next generation of artists and audiences. BUTOH SanFrancisco is a fiscally sponsored project of Dancers Group.
Tax deductable donations are gratefully accepted.
BUTOH San Francisco Production Team
Jeff Brown, Christina Braun, Claire Duplantier and Bob Webb.
subterranean arthouse
The subterranean arthouse was founded by Nicole Rodriguez and Claire Duplantier. Researching a place to teach a class out of, they stumbled onto this beautiful space and their dream careers. They saw it and knew it was incredible, so decided to open up the space as a place for all forms of art to be housed. A few days later their good friend Tara Macomber offered them a non-profit organization called “Tree of Life” that she founded to bring art and dance to the community. Their unfound dream of bringing arts to the community was coming together… So they created the subterranean arthouse.
The subterranean arthouse is an interdisciplinary community art space that offers diverse opportunities for local, national, and international artists to teach, create and present their art form. Through weekly classes, performances, film showings and visual art exhibitions, we encourage dialogue between disciplines, between artists. We inspire a sustained curiosity about life through the practice of art. The subterranean arthouse is rooted in a tradition of experimentation unique to the Bay Area as it extends its branches to the terrain of other art communities.
The subterranean arthouse is a project of the Tree of Life, a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
Bob Webb / Bare Bones Butoh
Bob Webb likes to divide his time more or less equally between theatre and dance, with the odd opera, rave, and/or street performance thrown in for good measure. He makes most of his living as a stage manager, but he is also an Equity actor and a butoh dancer who has performed literally all over the U.S. (including Hawaii), France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Japan, and Thailand. When not on or behind a stage, he reads a lot, models for artists, and spends as much time as possible outside with a pack on his back.
Koichi and Hiroko Tamano / Harupin-ha Butoh Dance Company
Koichi Tamano: Born in Shimada, Shizuoka, Japan 1946. Debut in "Bara-Iro Dance" (Rose Color Dance) by Tatsumi Hijikata 1965 in Tokyo. The first Harupin-Ha performance "Nagasu-Kujira" (Finback Whale) by Tatsumi Hijikata,1972 in Tokyo. US debut in "Japan Now" exhibition at SFMOMA in 1976.
Hiroko Tamano: Born in Fukuoka, Japan 1952. Debut in "Gibasan" by Tatsumi Hijikata 1972 in Kyoto. Joined Harupin-Ha 1973 in Tokyo. US debut "Isamu Noguchi" exhibition at SFMOMA, 1979.
Shinichi Momo Iova-Koga / inkBoat
Shinichi Momo Iova-Koga, originally a photographer, filmmaker and theater director, entered the world of Butoh dance in 1991 (initially through Akeno Ashikawa and then consistently through Hiroko Tamano and Yumiko Yoshioka). Childhood training in Judo (under Yuzo Koga) and early adult years studying Tadashi Suzuki Method of Acting (under Yukihiro Goto) influenced his expressions. Improvisational theater methods such as Action Theater (under Ruth Zaporah) shaped his approach to the process of creating stage works. In 1998, he founded the performance company inkBoat, whose productions reference Butoh dance as well as Physical Theater and filmic conventions. Shinichi examines, dissects and intentionally blurs the line between various media to uproot and communicate stories contained within the body. He and his wife Dana Iova-Koga founded inkGround, a studio in rural Northern California, to continue the exploration of stories through the land, utilizing the surrounding forests, rivers and ocean-side as new media for the life/dance investigation.
Yuko Kaseki
Yuko Kaseki studied Butoh and the Performing Arts in HBK Braunschweig with Anzu Furukawa, and danced in her company, Dance Butter Tokio and Verwandlungsamt, from 1989 to 2000. She and Marc Ates founded cokaseki in 1995. Their dance works are based on Butoh, western contemporary dance and performance techniques to create precise, dreamlike dance theater. She has collaborated with a variety of musicians (Axel Doerner, Aki Takase, Antonis Anissegos, Andrea Neumann, Johannes Wallmann, and others), and visual artists (Chiharu Shiota, Francois Giovangigli, Soren Do and others). Her solo works have been performed throughout Europe, Japan and the USA. In 2001, she began collaborating with inkBoat (San Francisco), creating choreographed and improvised works. Since 2004, she has organized and performed in the Improvisational Series: "Ammo-Nite Gig," with musicians, dancers and performers from Japan, USA and Europe.
Ledoh / SALT FARM
LEDOH (Artistic Director) was born into the Ka-Ren culture indigenous to Burma and Northern Thailand and emigrated to the U.S. in 1972. As a soloist and member of Katsura Kan's Kyoto-based dance company, Saltimbanques, in the early 1990s he traveled and performed throughout Brazil, Europe, Thailand and Japan. In 1998 he founded SALT FARM, a performance collective based in San Francisco. Ledoh and SALT FARM generate series of site-specific performances that integrate choreography with original electronic scores, mobile set designs, and video projection. Past SALT FARM projects have focused on themes of collapse (Abacus Series, 2000-2002) and displacement (River of Sand, 2002-2004). Current project COLORMEAMERICA is the culmination of a two-year exploration titled Signature Required: Life during wartime (a project of Creative Capital). Ledoh continues to research and record the stories, dances, and rituals of his native Ka-Ren culture as raw materials for performance projects, and as a result is a featured artist in a current Berlin-based film production titled Burma Diaspora.
Katsura Kan
Katsura Kan, a native of Kyoto graduated from Buddhism University, then studied Noh Theater at the Kongo School. He performed with the seminal butoh troupe, Byakkosha, known for its austerity and integrity. Kan established his own group, Katsura Kan & Saltimbanques in 1986. He is a celebrated solo and collaborative performer as well as an accomplished choreographer, teacher and director. Kan’s research findings and lectures have been presented around the world. In addition to his extensive performing career in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and the United States, Kan has taught and danced in Israel, Egypt, Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Scotland, Russia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Australia, and Tanzania, Africa.
Jennifer Hicks
Jennifer Hicks M.F.A., R.Y.T, director of CHIMERAlab Theatre, is a performer, choreographer, teacher and visual artist. She has been teaching movement, creating original work and performing for over 25 years. She is a returning guest instructor at Naropa University. Ms Hicks received her MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University, her BFA from Tufts University and Degree in Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. She has been dancing in KASTURA Kans International Butoh Dance Company since 2001 and has been a butoh dancer since the early 1990's. Ms. Hicks is a certified Shintaido Instructor, certified TranceDance International Facilitator and a Yoga Instructor registered with the National Yoga Alliance. She is also a member of the longest running performance collective in the country called Mobius, which is based in Boston, MA.
Christina Braun / SF Butoh LAB
Christina Braun's choreography performed colaboratively with composers has been presented regularly since 2002 with her evening lenght debut of PeaceDreams. Christina recently performed in Portland's 2009 Water in the Desert Festival with music by Scott Perry and costume by Corrine Okada.
Christina has danced with Katsura Kan’s Saltimanques since 2004, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano's Harupin-Ha since 1998, and Mary Sano and her Duncan Dancers since 1997. In 2008, Christina co-founded BUTOH SanFrancisco to foster the growth of the Bay Area butoh artist and audience communities. SF Butoh LAB is Christina’s project, whose mission is to promote peace through art exchange by facilitating dance performances, educational events and workshops. SF Butoh LAB produced the San Francisco Sate University sponsored Butoh symposium, Body as Edge; and the 2008 San Francisco Asian Art Museum sponsored performance of Katsura Kan's Harvesting Beauty in the Dark.
Christina curates the Butoh Experience, an ongoing Saturday movement class with rotating teachers.
Luku: aka Brzrkr Lrkr
Is an aspiring b-boy, capoeista, butoh and performance scientist, who takes delight in the beauty of the myriad dryads of the natural world.
Shinichi Iova-Koga & Yuko Kaseki Photo by Lucas Fester
Hiroko Tamano
Christina Braun
Katsura Kan Photo by Doug Slater
Nicole Rodriguez & Claire Duplantier Photo by Sol Gutierrez
Bob Webb & Liz Saari-Filippone Photo by Eric Kerr
Luku