Name: Canvas - The Company of Shadows
Start: 2025-11-10T20:00:00+00:00
Location: Malvern Cube

Canvas
The Company of Shadows
Malvern Cube
Monday 10th : 8pm
Tickets: £10

Worcester’s Butoh dance group, The Company of Shadows, presents Canvas, a work about art and the canvas of life. The company is made up of local artists from various disciplines who have been exploring Butoh together over the last two years. Butoh is a contemporary movement form that originated in Japan in the post-war period. It is concerned with the sublime and the grotesque and manifests in intensely slow movement, frozen, mask-like faces and through the use of Butoh-fu, poetic images that are embodied by the performers. Canvas is an emotional landscape and intimate portrait. Canvas takes inspiration from a variety of artists from French impressionist Edgar Degas to Palestinian contemporary artist Abdul Rahman Katanani; from cave paintings to Yoko Ono conceptual works. Canvas allows viewers to contemplate life’s rich tapestry and ponder the potential and possibility of the blank canvas.
What is Butoh?
Butoh is a contemporary movement form that originated in Japan in the post-war period. Since then, it has transformed into an internationally recognized physical theatre practice and has spread across the world. It is now an essential aspect of actor and performer training widely employed in drama schools and university drama departments. Originally, Butoh was a rejection of Western influence in occupied Japan, while also being a rejection of traditional Japanese theatre. The founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, had both trained in ballet and German expressionist dance and revolutionized what it means to dance by rejecting the strict forms of traditional choreography and embracing Butoh-fu – poetic images that each dancer embodies. The same ‘choreography’ may come out differently with different dancers. Butoh celebrates the grotesque and searches for the sublime – this can be seen in the trademark silent screams and the sometimes, uncomfortable contortions of the body, as well as the serene and slow movement.
“Dancing Butoh is a process of emptying yourself of your self and then taking on the image or concept of the fu – you can get quite lost in it. It takes a lot of focus and training.” Daniel Somerville, Artistic Director of The Company of Shadows.