Somatic Butoh

What is Somatic Butoh about?

In this course we will approach how to do less or nothing and then how can we be moved, transformed, walked, and danced.

Butoh is not a dance to be created artificially from outside, from a skillful A to B placement of body parts, it is the dance within that moves the body, and with whom, every single breath, gesture, and movement awake and blooms like a flower.

One of the main features of butoh is metamorphosis, transformation, or so-called "embodiment".
But how can we transform at the beginning from the "ordinary" solid body that we have? What are the principles, the exercises, and the training that can facilitate such an entrance into the butoh journey?

The daily ordinary body like a sponge accumulates layers of busyness, worries, and stress, which can create tension in the body and in the mind, and sometimes bring burnout.
During this class, moving from this "solid" body toward a "subtle" one, we start scanning the body with an approach that is similar to Vipassana meditation, slowly mapping the body, part by part, by focusing on smaller portions and by initiating micromovements, subtle adjustments, microscopic motion, observing and scanning from a gross anatomical body level to the smallest, micro, molecular, energetic's one.

These small movements open up the functioning of the body and the concept of the body itself, which in Japanese is conceived as " 空体 ” Karada, empty standing or empty existence. Certainly, the big shift here is the concept of the body itself, and later of time and space. Slowly students can learn different ways to experience time and space.This happens not in an imaginative way but through precise guidance where we slowly reduce as much as possible the efforts in the joints and in the muscles. The more this happens and the more our perception is sharpened, our breath gets longer and softer, our body is lighter, and the muscular control and our nervous system are released.
In the space between voluntary and involuntary, between "executers" muscles and "autopoietic" muscles, with a somatic attentiveness, the "unnoticed" emerge, and the subtle is felt. We enter into a multisensorial experience of sensations and qualities that will enrich the life of every single moment, breath, and movement.

And then as magic, the dance will come!

The benefit of participating can be a re-integration of body-mind and a new toolbox to implement and heighten the creative potential, enrich the quality of each breath, movement and dance.

What does this class implement?

Yoga, Breathing, Meditation, Butoh's basics elements & embodiment