Yugen Presents 2004-2005

Ryuzo Fukuhara - Michael Sakamoto and Friends - Metropolitan Butoh

Ryuzo Fukuhara

Butoh workshop

photo: Stepanka Fleglova

Friday & Saturday

January 7 & 8, 2005

"Butoh originated less than 50 years ago, but at this stage the art is very unique because it requires the technique of transforming various internal images and emotions into physical movements and more importantly, it emphasizes the dancer's mentality. Butoh does not require any form as classic ballet or modern dance does, but it all depends on the imagination and the movement of the dancer himself/herself. Therefore, a Butoh dancer needs continuous strong motivation to keep up his/her physical motion. At the same time, while sustaining the motion he/she must be equipped with speedy consciousness to instantly develop the motion in variations. Keen senses also play an important role to precisely and freely tune himself/herself to adjust to the surrounding environment and sound. There should be as many Butoh variations as there are dancers. Thus, Butoh itself is a continuous pursuit of what is dance and what dance means."

Fukuhara's "Silent Dialogue" workshop doesn't focus on teaching participants professional dance techniques. The aim is to make a better relationship between physical movement and imagination. All participants and Ryuzo do his original stretching "Dialogue" and some steps based on Min Tanaka's training. All participants will present a solo performance everyday and then teach their movements to each other to make duo performances.

RYUZO FUKUHARA is a butoh dancer based in Japan and the Czech Republic. He has performed in Europe and Japan for 17 years. He started dancing Butoh in 1987, and in 1991 joined the dance group Maijuku led by famous Japanese Butoh dancer Min Tanaka. Fukuhara studied butoh under Min Tanaka at Body Weather Farm in Hakushu, Yamanashi in Japan and appeared in Min's well known butoh pieces such as Rite of Spring (National Theatre in Praha 1992) . After he left the group, he performed as a solo dancer and also with his company Alchemic Sis. In 2000 he started to work in the Czech Republic.

The workshop will be held Friday/Saturday January 7 & 8 from 11:00-5:00. Tuition is $60/day or $100 for both days.

To register please call the administrative line at (415) 621-0507.

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presents
The Rite of Spring, etc.

photo: Martin Cohen

Monday & Tuesday

February 20 & 21, 2005

February's offering is a return engagement by Los Angeles-based artist MICHAEL SAKAMOTO who performed as part of Yugen Presents in June 2003 with his critically acclaimed Glorious Day for an Unknown Woman. This time Sakamoto brings his diverse ensemble of multi-talented performers including NEA award-winning actress/performance artist, Suzan Averitt, Italian actor Francesco Mazzini and actress/dancer Nurit Siegel in a contemporary yet timeless dance theater work using the piano version of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."

The Rite of Spring, etc. blends frenetic dance, butoh movement, multiple languages, comedy, melodrama, dream imagery and pop music (from French music hall to Aimee Mann) as four character archetypes - an arrogant actor, an idealistic monk, an absurd harlequin, and an unbridled free spirit - traverse and ultimately transcend a vast terrain of emotion, psychology and culture. Delving into a zeitgeist of fear versus vulnerability and the hard matter of human relationships, the characters love, hate, manipulate, idolize, miscommunicate, reject and ultimately accept themselves and the world around them.

The performances are Monday/Tuesday February 20 & 21, 2005 8:00pm. Admission is $10-$15 sliding scale.

Reservations can be made at (415) 621-7978. or online

Sakamoto States:

"My work addresses the subconscious through disturbing, iconic, yet highly emotional imagery as well as concrete details, often via fictional characters fully contextualized within history, culture and language. I attempt to present an attraction to both passionate intellectual discourse and wistful, surreal experience, lying between mythically pop, collagist subversion and haunting, surreal dreamscapes. I attempt to create complex structures common in western contemporary performance art and dance theater and filter them through a raw, primal, improvisational movement of traditional butoh. Working in exhibition and public spaces, my interdisciplinary works attempt to subvert mainstream intellectual notions of authenticity, knowledge and culture via fictionalized environments and visceral imagery. For over a decade, I have created numerous works in both performance and visual art that revel in, question and , hopefully, subvert many of our deeply-held beliefs based in pop culture and media, such as cinema, television, music and advertising, peering into the "soul" of given socio-cultural constructs. My work is also multicultural and international without an overt political agenda. I have created over a dozen performances caught in an absurdist, dialectic purgatory between East and West. "

SUZAN AVERITT is a recipient of an NEA Performance Art Grant for her Otis Parsons/MOCA-produced version of religious street literature. She directed and adapted a series of plays for legendary landmark, Al's Bar, including the Beat play, "Go" (LA Weekly Theatre Pick-of-the-Week), and Anais Nin's "Erotica." Averitt has had leading roles in many Los Angeles productions, appearing at The Powerhouse Theatre, The Coast Playhouse and The Tamarind, and has performed with COLA Award recipient Melinda Ring, and is featured in the acclaimed short film, "The Hitch-Hikers," with Patty Duke. Most recently, she was seen at the New York International Fringe Festival and at the Ivar Theatre in the ensemble movement performance, "GŠrung" (Los Angeles Times Critics Choice), which continues touring in 2004. Averitt is currently directing and co-writing the ensemble theatre work, "Rbitrary," which premieres in January 2004. She has trained with Lee Strasberg and at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Stephen Book and Viola Spolin, and Kim Weild and Anne Bogart's SITI Company.

FRANCESCO MAZZINI is an Italian-born actor who has performed in film, TV and stage works in Italy, New York and Los Angeles. Films include "Il Mostro" (Roberto Benigni), "Ciao, Marcello!" (Kevin McCarthy), and "The Gothic Line" (A. Taub). Stage works with Mazzini playing lead roles include "The Coffee Shop," "America, America," "Dracula: The True Story," "Beyond Therapy" and many others. Mazzini also played a lead role in the dance theater work, "The Square of Massacred Prayers," which premiered at NYC's Danspace and toured twice to Europe.

NURIT SIEGEL is a choreographer, director, dancer, actress and interdisciplinary artist. She has shown at HERE (NY), Zellerbach Playhouse (Berkeley), Sushi (San Diego), and throughout Los Angeles (Highways Performance Space, Wilshire Ebell, California Institute of Abnormality, The Derby, The MET, LATC and many more). Recently, she has been proudly working with Toxic Shock Stage (toxicshockstage.org), an LA-based theater company.

MICHAEL SAKAMOTO is an acclaimed multidisciplinary artist whose works combining performance art, dance, theater, music, media art, installation and graphics display a truly unique breadth of technique and versatility. His ensemble and solo works have toured to San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Phoenix, festivals in France and Mexico as well as venues throughout Southern California. Fusing Eastern and Western influences, intense, minimalist imagery, historical depth and absurd humor, he creates global, multilingual experiences to evoke a benevolent multiculturalism. Sakamoto's works question popular culture and media, subvert common notions of authenticity and knowledge and blend complex structures through abstract, humorous, iconic and multilingual texts. Sakamoto has received commissions and awards from The Institute for Studies in the Arts (ISA) at Arizona State University, The Japan Foundation and the City of Los Angeles. He has directed all his solo and ensemble shows, including the award-winning works, Don't/Leave, Amai, Glorious Day for an Unknown Woman and Doctor Chi! With grant awards from The Irvine Foundation/DanceUSA, Arts International's Fund for US Artists Abroad and The Durfee Foundation, Sakamoto is also one of the most innovative artists to emerge from butoh in recent years. As a collaborator and soloist with The Rachel Rosenthal Company from 1995-2000, Sakamoto co-wrote and co-directed sequences within full-length and short works.

Sakamoto was also the only performance artist awarded a 2001 Brody Visual Arts Fund/California Community Foundation Fellowship. He was commissioned by the Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University to create the multimedia performance installation, Doctor Chi: An Architecture of Love and Paranoia, and featured in Flash Art International and LA Weekly articles. His installation, graphics, media and photo works have been exhibited at Documenta 9, SigGraph and throughout the Los Angeles area, including at The Getty Center, 18th Street Arts Center and New Image Art Gallery. Sakamoto is currently developing a multimedia musical work with Swedish composer, Bebe Risenfors, best known as Musical Co-Arranger of Robert Wilson and Tom Waits' Woyzeck.

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Metropolitan Butoh

Smile

photo: Doug Slater

Monday & Tuesday

March 14 & 15, 2005

In March Yugen Presents brings METROPOLITAN BUTOH in Smile performing Monday/Tuesday March 14 & 15, at 8:00pm.

Smile brings the Mission Butoh community together with local break dance extraordinaire SKORPIO. Dancers include Ronnie Baker, Christina Braun, Aaron Funk, Adam Palermo, Justin Palermo, Martha Matsuda, Bob Webb & MJB. Musicians DJ Dim-mak and Doug Slater generate the sound of now and Lighting Designer Stephen Siegel creates the view. Founder MJB states: "Smile is a study of refinement . . . of distilling a specific moment from daily life in the Mission . . . This city is our common landscape."

Mission Butoh is a weekly training gathering made possible by the generosity of a Mission housing collective who donate their studio space. Mission Butoh tuition is free with donations encouraged for the collective. Urban body training led by MOLLY BARRONS, examines how transforming cellular activity through movement and imagery produces energy and form.

The performances are Monday/Tuesday March 14 & 15, 2005 8:00pm. Admission is $10-$15 sliding scale.

Reservations can be made at (415) 621-7978 or buy online

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