‘The body in Butoh stands as an AM/ FM radio; it is empty and thus ready to tune-in to a plethora of sequences, empty from pre-existing material, ready to receive signals and transform from within, allowing invisible impulses and qualities to emerge’.

In this workshop we will experiment with organic movement, butoh walk and slow motion, allowing the body to encounter time horizons and delicate sensations of various spontaneous qualities deriving from the environment. We will experiment with how our bodies can potentially transform time and space.
The warm up includes Tai-chi and Qi Kung exercises, Alexander Technique approaches, diverse martial arts related methods, Martha Graham inspired exercises, breathing techniques and Scaravelli inspired Yoga
We will mostly focus on guided improvisations accompanied by improvised electric violin sounds from the Japanese musician Takatsuna Mukai.
This workshop is suitable for visual artists, sculptors, performance makers, dancers, actors, writers and anyone who wants to incorporate butoh aesthetic in their work.
The workshop is open to everyone, regardless the level of experience, complete beginners are especially welcome.

For more information email: esoroga@gmail.com

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Who we are:

Eliza Soroga is a UK performance artist from Athens, Greece. She holds an MA in Performance Making (Goldsmiths University of London) and in Cultural Theory (National University of Athens). She has trained in Jacques Lecoq’s physical theatre technique and Butoh dance.
She has been making work in Butoh in the last few years performing ‘Configurations’ at St James Church (London) in collaboration with Nick Parkin and A-Wing Hsu and ‘??? / NAGARE’ an investigation of the limits between Butoh dance and polyphonic singing in collaboration with Roxani Garefalaki and Takatsuna Mukai.
She has also performed in Marie Gabrielle Rotie’s performance ‘Wake Butterfly, its late, We’ve miles to go together’ at Devonshire Square (London).
She has been trained in Butoh mainly by Marie Gabrielle Rotie and Nick Parkin and have attended workshops with Natsu Nakajima, Sumako Koseki, Jasmin Perrow, Dominique Bonarjee, Macarena Ortuzar (body weather) and Dickson Mbi (Popping & Contemporary Dance).
Her work has been shown in galleries, museums and theatres including the V&A Museum, Battersea Arts Centre, Camden People’s Theatre and diverse non-theatre sites in London, Athens, Paris & Amsterdam. Eliza is the Artistic Director of Re-Inventing Public Spaces, part of Young Vic Theatre Directors Program and currently working in Geraldine Pilgrim's award winning company
elizasoroga

Roxani Eleni Garefalaki is a performance artist from Athens now based in London. She uses a holistic approach to performance combining movement with sound exploring the connections between art and healing.She has been trained in Butoh with Moeno Wakamatsu, Sai Misima and with Silvia Macchi- Varotsou who specializes in organic movement and has been performing Butoh since 2002 with Synergeion Technon dance theatre (until 2010). She is currently training to become an Alexander Technique teacher and Teaches Tai Chi and Chi Kung emphasizing on healing and meditative properties.

She specializes in Butoh and slow motion performance using symbolism through movement investigating the ability to transform collectively the sense of the dimension of time by creating space through the use of organic movement. She has created and directed dance theatre performances, and has performed in ancient Greek theatres (Epidaurus, Herodeion, Phillipoi etc with the National Theater of Greece and the Hellenic Festival), to street theatre, children’s theatre, dance theatre and circus cabaret, performs also on stills, aerial acrobatics and with fire juggling.
She has trained in music (Bachelor Degree in Harmony- Higher Theory of Music (Hellenic Conservatory), classical singing, Healing through Sound and voice (Joe Tornabene, Roy Hart theatre), Feldenkrais by Moeno Wakamatsu.

Takatsuna Mukai is a Japanese sound artist based in London. He has been active in his genre-defying works moving across the worlds of music, art, theatre and film, as a musician, composer, producer, director, writer, and actor. Past/Present collaborators include; British Sculptor Malcolm Poynter, poets Phil Dirtbox and Timothy Turnbull, London punk fashion label Charles of London, Croatian mime company Studio Lila, Slovenian theatre director Dragan Živadinov (NSK), Ballet Dancers Ksenija Kova? (Slovenian National Ballet/Opera), jazz flute player Rowland Sutherland, contemporary composers Alessandro Olla and Jennifer McConachie, improvisers/composers Adriano Orrù and Silvia Corda(Italy), Ben Davis (UK), Richard Pryce(UK), Genevieve Wilkins(Australia), Russian exile artist Oleg Yanushevskiy, and satirists Chris Morris and Uzi Weill (UK and Israel respectively).
takatsuna

Event photo: Nisant Vibhani, The bones you made of (re-worked drawing from from our previous Butoh workshop)