The Asheville Butoh Festival is entering it’s 13th season. It was established in 2000 by Julie Gillum and the Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre, and it brings internationally renowned butoh artists to our region to educate through public workshops and performances for the Asheville community.
The festival is the longest running butoh festival in the US and has featured national and international dance artists. Artists such as: Diego Pinon (Mexico), Sheri Brown, Joan Laage, Vanessa Skantze (Seattle), Yumiko Yoshioka (Japan /Germany), Vangeline (New York) and Nicole LeGette (Chicago) have performed in downtown Asheville at the BeBe Theatre. In addition to Gillum, local butoh dancers Sara Baird, Jenni Cockrell, and Constance Humphries have made significant artistic contributions to this vibrant and growing festival through the years.
For the 13th Asheville Butoh Festival, organizers are producing Yuko Kaseki and Mari Osanai and will include solo evening performances by Jenni Cockrell and Constance Humphries.
This is the most ambitious season to date! Please consider supporting the festival. Every dollar helps and any amount is most appreciated. Please visit the donation website for additional information.
PERFORMANCES
Constance Humphries: April 25, 8PM
Yuko Kaseki: April 26 & 27, 8PM
Jenni Cockrell: April 28, 8PM
Jenni Cockrell: May 2, 8PM
Mari Osanai: May 3 & 4, 8PM
Constance Humphries: May 5, 8PM
WORKSHOPS
Yuko Kaseki: April 27 & 28, 12-4PM
Mari Osanai: May 4 & 5, 12-4PM
PERFORMING ARTISTS
Yuko Kaseki is director, choreographer, Butoh dancer, performance artist, improviser and teacher, based in Berlin. She teaches and performs in solo and ensemble pieces and improvisations through out 26 countries. These works are poetic and vivid images that incorporate the spirit of Butoh, performance and live art. Her performance aims to reflect the outsider’s existence. Various International collaborations include inkBoat (SF), Tableau Stations (SF), CAVE (NY), Poema Theatre (Moscow), Salad Theater (Seoul) and more. She is also a key collaborator with mixed ability artists including Theater Thikwa (Berlin)
Dancer, choreographer, teacher Mari Osanai has performed and taught in Japan, Canada, USA, Greece and Germany. Her workshops focus on Noguchi Taiso combined with the influences of her early training in Tai Chi, western dance methods, traditional folk dance in Aomori, Japan (her birthplace), and the connection between one’s thoughts and sensation of weight. Osanai’s approach to movement research and exploration begins with a heightened awareness of gravity’s influence on the body and the body’s connection with the center of the earth.
Jenni Cockrell of strange daughters butoh is a dancer, choreographer and teacher of Butoh, improvisation and modern dance. She received her M.A. in Dance and Women’s Studies from UNC Greensboro in 2002, with a thesis focusing on female Butoh artists and their unique contributions to the form. Jenni approaches dance as a laboratory to explore and deconstruct stories and archetypes with vulnerability, humor and rawness.
Constance Humphries has been making, performing and teaching dance internationally since 1987. Her creative practice is based on investigations via butoh dance. She holds degrees from UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Asheville. Recent projects include the Just Gather Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK , Help! at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK, and resident artist at Experimental Studios, Newcastle, UK and Revolve Project Space, Asheville, NC, USA.
The festival takes place at BeBe Theatre, 20 Commerce St, Asheville, NC 28801. Visit Brown Paper Tickets for additional information and to purchase your tickets in advance.