Upcoming Performance

Flynn & I will be performing part 1 of "70 Virgins" as a part of David Wolach's class, "Evergreen Presents" on Sat. Jan 26th at 4pm. Room: Sem 2, E1105, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA

more info :

Every year Evergreen programs bring outstanding guest speakers to campus to meet and work with students. This course is designed to coordinate these visits, creating a weekly lecture series featuring nationally recognized artists as well as Evergreen faculty whose work explores the intersection of art and politics. “Evergreen Presents” complements other full- and part-time offerings in Expressive Arts and Culture, Text and Language. It is affilitated with several winter programs.

For the end of the year we are

working on securing a venue in which to finish and present 70 Virgins in it's entirety. Bruce Fogg, formerly of Kagami Butoh has agreed to work with us and this promises to be an amazing experience when it is completed. Watch for more on 70 Virgins...

waiting, waiting, waiting

Two months and we are still waiting. We will know soon. Like this week.

Coming to a perfomance space near you...

Hey all - Flynn & I will be showcasing part 1 of "70 Virgins" on Oct 20th, 3-5pm at Velocity Dance Center on Pine & Broadway on the Hill. The series "Under Construction" in which we will participate is a chance to show a work in progress and receive feedback from facilitators and audience members. Hope to see you there!

http://www.velocitydancecenter.org/performances.htm

New Work in progress...

Flynn & I are collaborating again on a new piece titled "70 Virgins". The piece is meant to challenge stereotypes and myths about Muslim woman that are held by people in the West. A minimalist piece, it was inspired by a former teacher of mine, Rudy Perez.

Check back for updates.

Lolita aka

Here we go again...

Tanden Butoh Performance:

Fri. Sept 7, 2007 - Doors open @ 6:30pm, Butoh @ 8:00pm
The Great Art Party
Benefit for Floating Bridge Press

South Lake Union Armory
860 Terry Ave. N
Seattle 98109

Info: Jeff Crandall 206-353-9148

tickets: $100 includes a piece of art
$ 25 includes a drink!

who the hell is this woman?

Someone asked me once if I was a professional dancer and I laughed. What is the criteria for calling oneself professional? Certainly not financial reimbursement for one's work, although I have been paid more than a few times during my long dance career. The criteria for me is longevity, technique, knowing that one says "meard" to the other dancers before a show and performance experience in whatever form that may take. So with that, I will offer up for scrutiny my dance resume! I have been dancing for a really long time with a few breaks in between. I just can't seem to stop, so here I am still shaking a leg...

TRAINING:

2005-07 Doranne Crable Butoh
2004-06 Sumayya Diop Sabar
1999-01 Mary Lynn Buss Egyptian Dance
Mish Mish Egyptian Dance
1994-95 Blaise Diagne Inst. of the Arts - Dakar, Senegal Sabar
Safie Diagne (Ballet National du Senegal) - Dakar Sabar
1991-99 Meissa Diop (Ballet National du Senegal) - Seattle Sabar
Malang Bayo (Ballet National du Senegal) - Seattle Kotiro
Maryam Faye (Ballet National du Senegal) - Los Angeles Sabar
Tambacounda Dance Camp - San Francisco Senegalese
Stacy Hardwick & Mapathe Diop - Seattle Sabar, Kotiro
Amma & Kofi Anang - Seattle W. African Dance
1991-93 Blue Heron Art Center - Vashon Island Ballet
1981-82 California Institute of The Arts - Valencia Ballet, Modern, Stage tech
1975-90 Kathy Moore (San Francisco Ballet) - Los Angeles Ballet Technique
Dora Kranig (Royal Ballet) - Los Angeles Ballet
Michael Baker (Royal Ballet) - Los Angeles Ballet
Roland Dupree Dance Studio - Los Angeles Jazz
Bella Lewitzky Dance Company - Los Angeles Modern
Ballet Petit - Pasadena Ballet, Jazz
Rudy Perez - Los Angeles Modern
1969-73 June Nichols Dance Studio - Los Angeles Ballet, Tap

PERFORMANCE:

2007 Tanden Butoh Butoh
BYOA
Crab Party
Floating Bridge Press Fundraiser
2005-07 Kagami Butoh - Olympia, WA Butoh
“Strings” 2005
“Dreaming Einstein” 2006
“Redemption” 2007
1991-99 Performances in Vashon Island Schools W. African, Ballet
1980-84 L.A. Contemporary Dance Theater Modern
Anderson Dance Theater Dance Theater
Misc. Choreographer’s Showcases

TEACHING:

2004 Foster High School West African Dance Residency
2001-02 Woodinville Montessori School Dance Specialist (1st-6th grades)
1991-98 Artists in the Schools Senegalese Culture & Dance (4th,7th,8th grades)
1991-99 Blue Heron Art Center West African Dance (all levels)
Vashon Dance Academy Ballet, Tap, Jazz

If you missed the BYOA event - Despair not!

Tanden Butoh will be performing "Lolita aka" again this coming Saturday, June 21, 2007 at approx 8:30pm at:

Crab Party/Perpetual Indulgence
Tempest Lounge
913 MLK - Tacoma


This event will be outside on a makeshift stage with ?? lighting, so it will be an interesting performance...come see us!

An important life has passed...

Last night Flynn & I performed “Lolita aka” at the BYOA event. It was a wonderful experience and entire evening. Many talented artists were there with whom we shared our art. Late this morning I opened my email to find a subject titled, “Our dear Doranne”. Doranne Crable was my Butoh Mentor. The article I posted here, "The Phenomenon of Butoh" speaks about her work. The following is the email I received:

“Hello dear ones,

You may or may not already know this, but I have the devastating news that none of us wanted to hear.

I apologize if you did not know that Doranne was being treated for lung cancer. She passed away on Thursday morning, July 12.

On Wednesday, July 11, Doranne asked that 911 be called because she was having difficulty breathing. She was admitted to the hospital that morning, and an Xray showed a lot of fluid in her lung, so much that it obscured the size of the tumor. A scan the previous Friday seemed to show that the center of the tumor had been destroyed, but it was still growing despite six weeks of chemo treatment.

I was able to get to the hospital around 8:30 that evening and I believe she was still lucid enough to recognize me and what was happening. I had just returned from a trip to San Francisco and brought her a book of the writings of Father Anthony DeMello, which had a picture of him on the cover. Several people were with her in the hospital, including a member of her sangha - Wendie - who came all the way from Bainbridge Island in the middle of the night. Judie Gabriele, who helped coordinate all of Doranne's care, called f from France and was able to speak to her.

About 8:30 Thursday morning (July 12) her breathing changed and things began to happen very rapidly. She stopped breathing at around 10:25 am, just as the chanting CD of her Buddhist teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche, finished playing. Her passing was very, very peaceful, and she was never alone for a moment. The nursing staff took excellent care of her and treated her with dignity. Unfortunately, her sister Cookie was not able to arrive from Virginia until very late Thursday night.

Now is the difficult task of telling the hundreds of people, some of whom didn't know that she had cancer or how serious her condition was. This will take time since Doranne had so many different lives, walked in so many kinds of circles. People are asking about plans for a memorial service. What I can tell you is that Doranne didn't want a formal service of any kind, no obituary either. However, there is a great need for some kind of remembrance, and we are helping Cookie figure that out along with the other practicalities. I will let you know the details when that gets sorted out, and ask that you pass on the information too.

In the meantime, keep sending your thoughts and prayers towards Doranne. If you are Jewish, you might say the Kaddish for her. If you follow Buddhism, you might pray for the 49 days after death (through August 30).”

After my initial sadness began to fade I looked up some information about Doranne’s spiritual teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche. He is the author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and chief of the Rigpa, an international organization devoted to Buddhist teachings. From an article about him I took this quote and offer it here as a remembrance of Doranne.

“Sometimes, dying is difficult if you're attached to life. Often, we associate dying with losing, which can create pain. But the truth of life is that we cannot hold on to anything. Not what is held, and even the holder is changing all the time. "You cannot wash your hands in the same river twice," goes a Tibetan saying. Sometimes letting go is kind, enjoyable; it brings a different kind of appreciation, not of attachment but of letting go.” ~Sogyal Rinpoche

Performance - Sat. July 14th, 10pm - Lolita aka

Join us for a performance at at Youngstown Cultural Art Center, 4408 Delridge Way, West Seattle
BYOA bring your own art Show and Party

Choreography/Dancer - Khadija Anderson
Sound score - Flynn Joffray

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"Lolita aka" explores stereotypes, myths, and juxtapositions of youth and age. It is set to an original live score consisting of samples of Leo Ornstein, Haifana, and original music by DJ Nuclear Dreamer.

This piece is dedicated to Doranne Crable

The Phenomenon of Butoh

The only way I can describe butoh is from the point of view of a performer, which is that it is a totally non-performance experience. One does not dance butoh in order to show off technical prowess or to shine on stage. In fact, one wants the opposite; to lose oneself in the moment by going through the moment totally aware. The ego disappears since this is a dance about life force and timeless experience. If the ego appears there is opportunity to question why it has come forward, and usually discover answers.

Movement in butoh begins in the mind as an image and moves into the body through the breath. The eyes are unfocused, the mouth is open and the breath is frequently audible. The audible breath gives the dancers awareness of others on the stage around them and the performance is not over until the last dancer is off stage or has stopped breathing audibly.

White makeup is worn on the entire body, even under costumes. Once the face is white there is no more speaking until the face makeup is removed. As Koichi Tamano, a dancer in San Francisco explains, “In dancing we aim at an internal space. We paint our bodies white to provide clear, uncluttered canvas...” Tamano studied for 10 years under butoh co-founder Tatsumi Hijikata. (Yafonne) And from Kazuo Ohno, “The Butoh costume is like throwing the cosmos onto one's shoulders. And for Butoh, while the costume covers the body, it is the body that is the costume of the soul.”

My teacher, Doranne Crable, studied with Kazuo Ohno. Ohno and Hijikata founded butoh in the late 1940’s in Japan. The first butoh choreography presented to the public by Hijikata and Ohno in 1959 featured Ohno's young son and was considered scandalous. In the 1970's, Hijikata's style of butoh was called “Ankuko butoh” which translates as Dance of Darkness. Hijikata quit dancing in 1977 about the same time that Ohno came back to the stage with a piece called “La Argentina”. What people saw was the opposite image of Ankoku-butoh. Sakurai writes, “It was far from 'Hijikata’s style'. There was no style. It was improvisation. What Kazuo Ohno presented was to stand, not to crouch or get down and shrink oneself as Hijikata pursued. His direction was cosmic and universal rather than Japanese.” Sikkenga writes, “Both were at extreme ends of the spectrum: Ohno the light, Hijikata the dark. Both intensities were necessary to combine and create the energy that is butoh”.

Crable traveled to Osaka, Japan to study Classical Japanese dance with Isaburo Hanayagi. In this form there is no improvisation, the dancers work only with time honored stories. Hijikata's and Ohno's work often carried aspects of classical Japanese dance such as men performing the women's roles. While studying, Crable attended a performance by Ohno during which he danced with no sound track and only a single flower. She was fascinated and made her way to Ohno's studio in Yokohama where he would teach the students without speaking to them. Sometimes Ohno would have an assistant go to a dancer and adjust their body.

The main technique that holds previous students of Hijikata and Ohno together is the use of the breath as the beginning of all movement. This technique can be traced back Mary Wigman's famous modern dance school in Germany, where Hijikata and Ohno both studied. Laban technique, which was introduced by Wigman's teacher Rudolf Laban, emphasizes the use of breath and spatial dynamics which are important aspects of butoh. There are many people who appropriate the name “butoh”for their performances, and Crable's explanation for the uneven range of interpretations is that most take only one aspect of butoh and exploit it.

Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski said that butoh was the search for “a very ancient form of art where ritual and artistic creation were seamless. Where poetry was song, song was incantation, movement was dance”. (Osinski) Another writer said that “butoh connects the conscious with the unconscious. Movement is not dictated from the outside, but, appears in the interaction between the outer and inner world.”(Sikkenga)

The interaction between outer and inner world also compels Crable to continue to dance and choreograph butoh. When asked what inspires her about butoh, she replied, “the ability to communicate and hold the intensity inside the body that expresses along a continuum from bursts of speed to slowness.”

Even if one is performing a human role, the experience does not come from the human, but from non-human imagery. When asked a question by a dancer about human conflict in a butoh choreography, Doranne replied, “the work with images of living non-human creatures is because humans may fail again [and again] but nature will go on in loveliness and violence. That conflict in nature just is. Dragon, monkey, beetle, tiger, just are.”

Crable also teaches and performs butoh in order to honor her teacher, Kazuo Ohno, who said; “I don't think that dance can be seen independently from the notion that man lives...There are always hidden wounds, those of the heart, and if you know how to accept and endure them, you will discover the pain and joy which is impossible to express with words. You will reach the realm of poetry which only the body can express.” (Kazuo Ohno)

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“The more people try to understand butoh, the less they understand. But that doesn't matter. There are things like the stars, the moon, which you can't reach. Nothing is so beautiful, so marvellous, as the intangible, the incomprehensible.” Min Tanaka

References:
Bergmark, Johannes. Butoh - Revolt of the Flesh in Japan and a Surrealist Way to Move
http://home.earthlink.net/~bdenatale/Butoh&SurrealismPart2.html
Crable, Doranne. Personal Interview with author. 19 Feb 2007. Olympia, WA.
Osinski, Zbigniew. “Grotowski blazes the trails: from objective drama to ritual arts”. The Drama Review 35 (1991) 1 Spring, 95-112
Sakurai, Keisuke translated by Asako, Maruno. The Body as Dance: 
An Introduction to The Study of Butoh-ology.
http://www.t3.rim.or.jp/~sakurah/butoh2.html
Sikkenga, Harmen. Kobo Buto – Butoh: dance of darkness. http://www.xs4all.nl/~iddinja/butoh/eng_1.html
Yafonne. The Bang of Bay Area Butoh.
http://www.asianweek.com/2000_08_03/ae1a_butoh.html