Professional Development
March 2012
BUTOH WORKSHOP WITH NATSU NAKAJIMA
Co-presented by Inter Arts Matrix & MT Space
Workshop Dates
Friday, March 16: 6-9pm,
Saturday, March 17: 10am-5pm
Sunday, March 18: 10am-5pm
Natsu Nakajima was born on Sakhalin in 1943. She trained in classical ballet before studying modern dance with Masami Kuni. At 19, she entered the Kazuo Ohno Dance Institute and only one year later became a founding member of the first Butoh dance activity with the late Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1969, Natsu Nakajima formed the Muteki-Sha Dance Company. Her extraordinary performances Niwa in 1985 and Sleep And Reincarnation in 1989, have taken her on tours throughout North America, Australia, Asia and Europe. In 1989 she received support from the Saison Foundation to present her work at La Mama in New York City. In 1992 she established “The Class for Body and Mind” and “Dance Education for the Handicappers” in Tokyo. She is an Assistant Professor at Nihonbashi Gakkan University in Japan and continues to teach and lecture internationally.
For the performing artist to have complete trust in his body is a must . Our bodies have accumulated the memories of human history and still continue to do so. One’s body is a treasure box of expression. Yet nowadays we humans live more and more in the virtual world. In other words, our minds are losing contact with our bodies. Listen to the inner world of body. Concentrate and sensitize the body through the medium of words and images, particularly those forgotten in the process of modernization. Those are forgotten or eliminated because of their futility. Explore the utility of the futile in order to understand the world as a whole. Butoh workshops provide a progression toward the acquisition of artistic expression through the body by exploring memories and consciousness of each person’ s internal organs.
Natsu Nakajima is active around the world in training performers, supporting their technical development, and in giving the hint of creativity to their works.
1) Physical Exercise
General exercise
Katsugen activity by Noguchi Method
Body & vocalization
Playing games
2) Basic Butoh
Being nothing
Walking
3) Vocabulary
'How to combine theatrical action & dancing movement'
Rhythm(time),and space
4) Various energy qualities
5) Transformation
6) Improvisation
December 2011
DAVID SMITH PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
Co-presented by Inter Arts Matrix and MT Space
David Smith is an independent educator with over 35 years of experience in the areas of Theatre, Ballet, Opera, Mime, and Clown. He is a Movement Specialist and an Experienced Counselor whose special interest is in how memory moves and patterns itself in our bodies and how this affects our perceptions, behaviour, and communication. This interest has inspired him to develop his own body-centered, humanist approach to personal and professional development through creative studies in the Psychology of Human Performance. In 1995 he founded his own studio, Fantastic Space Enterprises, where he could share his ideas and research with others.
David was Associate Director and Head Instructor at the Vancouver Playhouse Theater School, Movement Director for the Music Theater and Opera Programs at the Banff Center for the Arts, and has taught at several universities. He presently is on Faculty in the Theatre Department at Douglas College, a Core Trainer with Full Circle First Nation’s Performance, and he is a founding faculty member and an instructor in a 2 year Certificate program in Expressive Arts Therapy through Langara College Continuing Education.
In the workshop, participants will be introduced to the foundational principles of the physical training and be given tools and strategies for their application and continued development. We will employ Bio-Kinetics, Ball Play, and elements of Grotowski based "River Work" to explore the nature of impulse facilitation, emotional accessibility, ensemble practice, and embodied imagination. Curiosities of individual participants will be considered in the choice of methodologies used in the workshop and there will be time made for sharing observations and discussions of the work and its implications.
