Frank van de Ven

This 5-day workshop will share and explore the legacy of images that were an integral part of training and performances within Min Tanaka’s performance group Mai-Juku, in Japan. Images were a key choreographic method for the company. Through the construction of precise and varied environments, infinite layers of relationship were explored through the body and the mind, enabling physics to meet poetry.

In 1984 Min Tanaka published the text ’I am an avant-garde who crawls on the earth’ in which he declared himself to the true son of Tatsumi Hijikata. The article called Hijikata back into the public arena and led to Hijikata (and Yoko Ashikawa) choreographing Min Tanaka in the 1984 Renai Butoh Ha (Love Dance School) performances and eventually, in 1985, to the first Butoh Festival nationalized on NHK TV in Japan. In the festival MinTanaka, Milford Graves and Maijuku presented “Midday Moon”. Images and how words got embodied were the building stones of the performance.

In this workshop Frank will focus on those aspects of the multi-faceted Body Weather training that prepare for image work. We will work on omni-central imaging, total body images and image flows. Participants will be encouraged and supported to develop images in their own field of interest.

The term & philosophical basis for Body Weather was founded in the early 1980’s by dancer Min Tanaka and further developed by Laboratories worldwide.

Photos : © Arnaud Beelen