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Featuring an intergenerational ensemble of Pacific Northwest-based dancers and Live musicians, Seattle veteran dance artist Dr. Joan Laage brings the art form of Japanese Butoh to the Olympic Peninsula for a ONE-NIGHT-ONLY PERFORMANCE. This event is open to the public and all are welcome to join us for this unique artistic experience at the historic CHIMACUM GRANGE.DOORS OPEN @ 4:30pm
SHOW BEGINS @ 5:00pm SHARP
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ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE:
Earth Tomes is a Butoh dance project directed by Seattle-based choreographer and performer Joan Laage. In an era of hyper-digitization and disconnection from nature, EARTH TOMES takes us straight back to the source with a visceral revelation of the body as earth and, through continual transformation, reveals the changing Landscapes of the body. The project began in 2015 and was first performed in Malmo, Sweden as part of the Somatic Archiving Symposium. The piece then went on to be performed in Norway, Poland, Germany and in England at London’s Hackney Showroom and Liverpool’s Capstone Theatre.
This performance of EARTH TOMES at the Chimacum Grange is being presented in conjunction with the first-ever Olympic Peninsula Butoh Symposium. Butoh, which incorporates elements of Surrealism, Dada, French Existentialism, German Expressionism, Japanese theater and Eastern spiritual thought, is an avant-garde, iconoclastic form of dance that was developed in the late 1950’s after World War II through experimental collaborations between its founders Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno.
Seattle journalist and art critic Sharon Cumberland writes: “For those who have never seen a Butoh dance performance, EARTH TOMES is a perfect introduction. Joan Laage’s style is so rooted, elemental, and organic that it felt like the flow of the earth, as fascinating as lava oozing from the earth's core... The slow evolution of ideas as dancers merge into and out of the center movement allows your busy brain to rest, and your heart and soul to engage deeply in the organic movement unfolding before you.”
ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:
Joan Laage is a choreographer, performer and dance educator who is regarded by many as a pioneer of Butoh in the Pacific Northwest. While living in Japan for nearly a decade, Joan studied extensively with Butoh artist Yoko Ashikawa (the major disciple of Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata) and with world-renowned Butoh master Kazuo Ohno in Tokyo. Joan performed with Yoko Ashikawa’s legendary Butoh troupe, Gnome, throughout the 1980’s and she has also trained with Japanese artist Atsushi Takenouchi. In addition to over 30 years of teaching and thousands of performances over the years, Joan Laage is responsible for bringing the art form of Butoh to Seattle in 1990, when she and her husband moved here from Japan, and decided to launch the first ever Seattle International Butoh Festival.
Joan continues to perform internationally and has been a featured artist at national and international Butoh festivals, including the New York Butoh Festival and the UCLA Butoh Symposium in May 2011. Her pioneering PhD dissertation research titled “Embodying The Spirit: The Paradox of Performing The Body in Butoh” has been presented at dozens of academic conferences and symposiums around the world. Joan also performs annually at the Seattle Japanese Garden, where she is a docent, and at the Kubota Garden Foundation. Joan's work is highlighted in the award-winning books “DANCING INTO DARKNESS: BUTOH, ZEN AND JAPAN” & “Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy.”
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Chimacum Grange, Chimacum, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.