Guide of "Space Dance School"
We hold "Space Dance School" with "Space Dance Workshop", "Space Dance Performance", and with "Spiritual Journey". Then we will develop "International Space Dancers" for the space dance projects in the world.
We hold "Space Dance Workshop" for the professional dancers, artists and general public. "Space Dance Workshop" is composed on the basis of Butoh.
At first, we have a question, "What is Butoh?"
Now, Butoh is still one of the major art forms as the cultural scenes not only in Europe and America but also in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We can find many Butoh Dancers by foreigners in the world.
Butoh has two styles, one is "Butoh of Darkness", other is "Improvisation Butoh". Tetsuro Fukuhara, delegate of Tokyo Space Dance, he belongs to "Improvisation Butoh" as the second generation. He carries on Butoh as "New Butoh Space Dance", then he have created "Space Dance" to socialize "Tacit Knowledge" based on Butoh as a value for the general public by the collaboration of "Dance + Architecture + Information + Design".
In the second half of 1960, in Japan, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno created "Butoh of Darkness" to unify the difference as a big problem between the traditional dance & its culture before Edo-era and the modern dance & its culture after Meiji-era. Then, Akira Kasai created "Improvisation Butoh" through "Butoh of Darkness".
The definition of Butoh by Tetsuro Fukuhara is like the below;
Butoh is "a step from within".
My attraction to Butoh is based on the world of technology. As a journalist I have been dealing with information technology and computers for more than ten years. Doing such work I became aware, through my all senses, of all what is happening in our day life, and this made me aware of a strong sense of crisis in the future of the human mind's image.
As far as I understand Butoh is not a dance merely trying to express some ideas or feelings through the body, but is trying to express the body itself, the root of the body. Of course, as a form of art Butoh has diversity, but I think that as excellent Butoh dancer should feel the crisis of our time. So, I had entered the Butoh's world and I met Tetsuro Fukuhara there.
When I saw his dance for the first time he was dancing in the center of the stage. As a tree growing he held both arms straight up in the air. The highly raised right hand was moving slowly, and even more slowly did his fingers do so, but nevertheless his body was advancing. At that instant, as if in a spark, I remembered something deep down. It was nonverbal, a sense appearing like a wave - motion way ? down my own body. This movement happened simultaneously with the movement of Fukuhara's dance, which was cutting the space in a minimal but intense way. The intensity locking me down. I was surprised that his dance could express the original sense of the body for a movement.
In Tetsuro Fukuhara's dance, we see a Butoh even more extreme than it was till now; no figurative image, no representation in any way, no history, no myth, no recognizable forms from any where, even from previous Butoh. And his dance in not confined either in slow motion nor in attitudes of retirement within oneself. We just see bodies listening and leaving way to the every strange force that makes them and human people dance. Like a tree's leaves and branches, they show us every movement and stage of this force, sometimes wild, sometimes subtle and almost imperceptible.
Britain's first festival of new Butoh was in full celebration in London's East End. Butoh performers often seem like living sculptures, merged with the surrounding space, hardly disturbing the air. Sometimes they move so slowly you scarcely notice, as happened with Tetsuro Fukuhara's piece. I confess to an occasional restlessness as great chunks of time passed with little perceptible difference to the stage picture. Even so, the performance was compelling, Fukuhara creating a spare and mysterious beauty.
Space Dance based on Butoh is a name of "Dance & Design" which will make to appear an amicable body and its environment in the space.
Tetsuro Fukuhara created Space Dance on 2001 when he performed at the United Nations in New York and at the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan through his epochal experiences by the meeting with Shusaku Arakawa and the theory of "Affordance" from 1994. The essence of Space Dance is "How to recover the memory beyond human?" and "How to express the tacit knowlede?".
The definition of Space Dance by Tetsuro Fukuhara is like the below;
In Space Dance, the body is not a tool for expressing a story, the body is a story.
We hold "Space Dance Workshop" with 6 chapters of "body foundation + walking dance + contact + spiritual journey + paradise in the little moving + construction for space dance performance".
for the making the waist soft and keeping the center of energy.
for the making individual posture by sensitive feet on the ground, and to get one's own dance.
for the finding the brain ability by seeing a neighbor's dance form with touch feeling without sight.
for the creating one's 10 themes into one's hidden character as "loneliness, trip, memory, inspiration, sexuarity, floating, secred ground, alter ago, return, universe".
for the getting the unity of body and environment can arise like the growth of a snowball.
for the establishment space dance as 6 themes, "site + walking + contact + paradise + spiritual journey + flowers".
We hold "Space Dance Performance" as a collaboration with 9 chapters of "Site Dance + Walking Dance + Space Tube + Information + Paradise in the Little Moving + Flowers + Return".
Dancers go through the memories accumulated in the site and find the architectural construction, then dancers revive their kinetic sensation of their own memories from the unconsciousness fields.
Dancers make an amicable relationship between their feet and the ground, then dancers make their own posture using by this relationship.
Dancers open the body in the sky, then they get back the body again as an objective body.
Dancers use Space Tube for their body to get the information in sense of touch feeling, then dancers get an extension of their body and make a complex image of the real body and the virtual body.
Dancers develop a familiar relationship with Space Tube as their second body, then enjoy their dance as alter ago.
Dancers express 4 charms into one's hidden character as "Laugh + Sexuality + Crying + Song".
Dancers make a little moving to get the unity of the body and the environment can arise like the growth of a snowball, then dancers find that "Body is a Space" with a pleasure.
Dancers lie down to open their body, then dancers get the individual strength and extension of the soul with flowers.
Dancers return to the audience with smiles.
Reknowned as an inspiring teacher, Fukuhara's workshops explore his concept of Space Dance and the aim of making an amicable body in the space. These experimental body training sessions are suitable for people involved in movement and body work, and physical performance.
Space Dance is informed by Butoh and was developed by the leading Butoh dancer Tetsuro Fukuhara, in the face of developing technology and changes in the modern world. Its four key components are Dance, Architecture, Information and Design. The dance is concerned with achieving the perfect balance between human and world and creating a medium where body and environment converse. Since 1990 he has actively been establishing Space Dance as a new standard of performance in many of the world's major cities.
I extend my sincerest gratitude for your tireless effort with our Interior Design Students July 2001. The fascinating and unconventional way of integrating various disciplines namely, Japanese butoh dance, architectural design theories and media technology provided new paradigms of thinking in our design instruction. Likewise, the experience that the students have derived from this workshop will redefine their modes of teamwork, conceptualization skills and project execution.
Tetsuro Fukuhara has the ability to pick up enthusiastic and talented young people to collaborate at the workshop. Students were fully involved with the approach he has developed using space, object and movement. They enjoyed very much working with him. The students and the teachers watched it with great interest. I heard a lot of positive comments. He uses movement, object and the technology in a very fine way.
We create "Spiritual Journey" as a documentation consisted by video, photo, and writings on the internet. We aim to develop the participant's artistic hidden characters and charms. If they want to continue their "Spiritual Journey", they can develop it.
"Spiritual Journey" have 10 themes, "Loneliness", "Trip", "Memory", "Inspiration", "Sexuality", "Floating", "Sacred Ground", "Alter Ego", "Return", and "Universe".
We will recruit the students for "Space Dance School Tokyo". If you would like to join, please contact with us. Tokyo Space Dance; jv4t-fkhr@asahi-net.or.jp
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