LONDON BUTOH FESTIVAL

Further Information – Tadashi Endo – Workshop and Screening

The Workshop:   14th & 15th November 2009 12 – 5pm £85 / £75 conc.

Bookings:  www.thecourtyard.org.uk or Telephone +44(0)870 163 0717

Venue:  The Courtyard Theatre, ‘White Room’, Bowling Green Walk, 40 Pitfield St, London N1 6EU. (Old St Tube)

Tadashi Endo brings to his workshops the wisdom of both European and Oriental dance and theatre traditions. His understanding of Butoh is complemented by his knowledge of No theatre and Kabuki as well as his experience of studying theatre direction at the Max-Reinhard-Seminar in Vienna. In this synthesis of worldwide traditions, butoh continues to be visible as the stating point of his movement in performance, and in his teaching.

His workshops typically take participants through a process of understanding some of the deep principles of Butoh such as stillness, simplicity, and ‘not moving, being moved’ through to improvisations where they can find their own version of Butoh dance, that is not a superficial copy of historical butoh, but a deep engagement with their own potential for movement and expression.

He calls his dance ‘Butoh-Ma’ – acknowledging the importance of working ‘in-between’, of experiencing ‘emptiness’ and the spaces between things. He explores the way in which Butoh can play with the dancer and the audience’s experience of space and time.

The Screening:  Sat 14th Nov 2009  7pm

Bookings: info@theatretraining.org.uk  This is a FREE event, but bookings are essential.

Venue: Birkbeck, ‘Clore Management Centre’, 25-27 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL

Tadashi Endo and his wife, Gabriele, have produced the Butoh Mamu Festival since 1992. This festival has hosted the likes of Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno, as well as Motofuji-San, the wife of Hijikata, and Carlotta Ikeda, Ko Murobushi, Anzu Furukawa and many more Butoh artists from all over the world.

Tadashi will be screening short sections from a number of works by the guests of his festival, celebrating the work they have done to provide a platform for Butoh work over the years. There will be time for short Q&A after the event, and the chance to talk over wine and buy a copy of Endo’s beautiful new photo book, on sale in the foyer. Your chance to get a singed copy!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Tadashi Endo is director of the Butoh-Center MAMU and the Butoh-Festivals MAMU in Göttingen. In 1989 Tadashi Endo met Kazuo Ohno for the first time and they began a deep relationship which continues to today. Endo is invited to tour throughout Europe, the US and Japan and has built up a number of relationships with companies in South America who have invited him to teach and perform for many years. He was part of the 2005 Daiwa Butoh Festival here in London, and has taught before for TTI very full workshops.

He recently danced in the opera ‘Admeto’ in the Edinburgh International Festival, and choreographed his company, Mamu Dance Theatre in collaboration with the opera company under the direction of Doris Dorrie. He is currently working on a new production with his company to premiere in Germany in January 2010.