30th August- 6th september 2008

final perfomance 6th september

JINEN Butoh Intensive workshop project

-Connection between JINEN and body and yourself-

All the life was born from the earth. And originally human danced on this ground of this earth.
It is important to find out and to be conscious our body as a part of this huge circulation. This time we will work on our body movement to recognize the connection between nature/environment and yourself through Atsushi Takenouchi’s JINEN Butoh training. And he will guide us how to create dance from this awareness, and it enables us to know that we can change all the environment into dance.

During this workshop, we explore body gravity, movement and balance, imaging body, transformation by internal and external state, visible and invisible, various walking, conscious and unconscious movement, a dialogue between body and an environment,  with basic Butoh practice.

Meeting with the nature in Ostuni /south Italy, we experience the connection between your body and the nature, and also experience the environment as a part of your body. We discover how the body movement arises and becomes into dance.

There will be morning classes, and afternoon classes and improvisational dance in the nature side and inside studio everyday. The classes will be with live music made by Hiroko Komiya. Atsushi will lead our work into creation of each participant’s short solo/duo piece. On the last day, there will be all the participants’ presentation in the nature or specific outside location.

*** Participants can bring costume or material for the last presentation.

*** Musician, who is interested in being involved in this nature Butoh project, can join with own musical instruments. Participation free, but accommodation and food expense, travel costs are needed. Please contact for more details.

“ Dance is devotion of life”　I learned this while my travelling nature fields called JINEN. This has never changed since old times and will never change. This means I should dance to “my life”, to the moment, and to now which lasts forever.　

 　I’ve got my body from the earth. I’ve got my life from the sun and the moon, my parents, my friends and my love. Then I’ll return the gifts to these universe. I’ll return them to others through dancing body and soul. As I see a tiny flower selflessly, I meet a dance filled with a joy of “ life”. 　And then, my body is filled up with water of “ life”. The seeds of memory inside of myself come into bud.

 　The sound of winds is the whispering of the earth.　The sound of minerals is the muttering of machines. We hear the sounds of the universe through explosion and noise and stillness.

   Oh, thousands of sounds, take our souls far away to our unknown world. Travel with reminding us of forgotten dances. On the sun and the moon, there are young men singing eternal songs at every place in the world. Let’s begin an ancient and modern fete at “ relics of life” holding artificial and nature－on earth.

JINEN Butoh    Atsushi Takenouchi 

＜Atsushi Takenouchi Profile＞
Atsushi Takenouchi joined Butoh dance company "Hoppo-Butoh-ha" in Hokkaido in 1980. His last performance with the company "Takazashiki"(1984) was worked on by Butoh-founder Tatsumi Hijikata. He has been working on his own Jinen Butoh since 1986 and created solos "Tanagokoro", "Ginkan", "Itteki" as a universal expression of nature, earth, and ancient times and his impressions of the moment, formulated from the people around him, and the environment. He toured Japan between 1996 and 1999. He also studied a spirit of the universe under Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno.　In 1999 he toured Jinen Butoh "Sun & Moon" and led Butoh workshops in Europe and Asia for six months. Since autumn 2002 he has been mainly based in Europe for one year arts fellowship funded by a Japanese government.　And he has been working on Butoh dance collaboration project with dancers and actors in France, Poland and other countries. 2005 July, he will present his solo performance “Stone” in Avignon festival ( France), and choreograph a Butoh procession with 30 dancers through Avignon city in the festival.

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