Rachel Butoh
Space vs Time is the home to X Performance Group: Butoh! Michigan's only butoh practitioners and instructor. Butoh is a modern blend of dance and performance art spawned from Japanese culture. Rachel's background in theatre, movement, yoga and gymnastics provided an excellent springboard into butoh. Her primary butoh teacher is Diego Pinon, she has studied extensively with Pinon and is currently a part of his North American Butoh Project. Rachel has also studied with Shinichi Momo Koga, Yuko Kaseki, Akira Kasai, Yumiko Yoshioka, Katsura Kan, Ephia, Eiko and Koma. Rachel has been exploring Butoh for six years. Her work has appeared in Grand Rapids MI at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts, 10 Weston Theatre, Free Radical Gallery, Studio 71 South and Space vs. Time; in Allendale MI at Grand Valley State University; in Chicago IL at The Chicago Cultural Center, The Spareroom, and Link's Hall; in Mexico at Butoh Rituale Tlapujahua; in New York City at Galapagos Art Space.
Booking Butoh
Contact Rachel Finan with any questions with any questions about booking or participation in X Performance Group:Butoh! No previous dance experience necessary. Call her at 616-901-9717 or email her at yoroc111@aol.com.
History
Attempting to describe butoh is often like the blind men describing the elephant: everyone grasps only part of the picture. About the only thing every butoh artist has in common is a dogged determination to find his or her own way.
Still, there are certain ideas that constellate around butoh. One is the concept of the empty body. This refers to an opening up of space in the body to allow yourself room to be moved. To move without conscious intention or desire for self-expresson. (Growtoski said that to have a desire to express yourself is to be divided- part of you commands, part of you obeys. True _expression, he said, is that of a tree. This idea is resonant with butoh.)