Butoh Workshop - Radical Resonance

London Butoh Dance Company and Posthuman Theatre are welcoming Julie for the Radical Resonance Workshop

During the workshop, participants will investigate movement and stillness by exploring the body's natural anatomical potential, including floating, hanging, and strings. Exercises from Noguchi Taiso water body practice and aspects of butoh will help remove customary societal and cultural behaviors, guiding dancers toward bodily emptiness. Without the constraints of old habits, the unconscious body can freely respond to sensations, forces, and states of emotions to become a fully expressive body. Dancers will be instructed with lessons to expand their range of movements, including subtle, unrestrained, fading, animal, and revolutionary.

June 6th 18-20h

June 7th 15-18h

Performance june 7th 18-19h

More info about London Butoh Dance Company is here. We also hold regular Butoh claases in central London.

Biography

Julie Becton Gillum, artistic director of the 14-year-running Asheville Butoh Festival, has been creating, performing, and teaching dance in the US, Europe, Asia, and Mexico for over 40 years. She has practiced butoh for 27 years. Gillum was awarded the 2008-09 North Carolina Choreography Fellowship and used the funds to travel to Japan to study Butoh.Julie is currently training and performing in Japan with Saga Kobayashi, Moe Yamamoto, Mari Osanai, Seisaku, and Yuri Nagaoka. On February 18, she performed with Katsura Kan at a festival in Kyoto at the URBANGUILD and with Kanazawa Butoh on March 30. She will perform at the Aomori Arts Center on April 19.

Since 2019, Gillum has been active in India, Serbia, Georgia, Greece, Mexico, and the USA. Recent performances at the Amsterdam Butoh Festival (October 2023), Seattle Butoh Festival (November 2023), NYU Abu Dhabi Art Museum (February 2024), UNFIX Festival in NYC (May 2024) were well received.

Julie’s most influential mentors in butoh have been: Anzu Furukawa, Diego Piñon, Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, and Seisaku. Noguchi Taiso has become equally important for Gillum whose studies with Mari Osanai and Emre Thormann have refined her practice. She has guided butoh for 25 years and Noguchi Taiso for 10 years.Here are the video links.Dusk . . . the darkening- (Seattle Butoh Festival 2023) This performance is a response to the gathering darkness in the world; war, greed, privilege, and discrimination are subjugating people who are less fortunate. The wall symbolizes separation, division, barriers, and enclosures. Here is a description of the piece for Belgrade and the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQbisLrX7s

Holes in Clay (excerpt) - Art Museum, NYU AbuDhabi (2024)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EyE2NaVe_lc

Sever - Chiapas, Mexico (2023)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRqieX5mxGgThis performance is a response to the gathering darkness in the world; war, greed, privilege, and discrimination are subjugating people who are less fortunate. The wall symbolizes separation, division, barriers, and enclosures. Color Photographs by Jonathan Hacon from a performance of PLEDGE at UrBanGuild, Kyoto, Japan (2025)

Black and white photographs by Brianna Jones from a performance of DUSK at Seattle Butoh Festival (2023)Color photographs by Jonathan Hacon from a performance of PLEDGE at URBANGUILD in Kyoto, Japan (2025)