Tsunami on the Square, Prescott, Arizona

Heard through the grapevine that Koichi and Hiroko Tamano were going to be performing at the Tsunami on the Square festival in Prescott, just up the road from me. The Tamanos were among the pioneers of Butoh, studying and collaborating with Tatsumi Hijikata in the 1960’s. During the seventies, they moved to the Bay Area where they have trained a new generation of American Butoh dancers. The Tamanos are re-locating back to Japan so this was one of their last performances in the US.

The festival was held on the historic courthouse square in Prescott across the street from Whisky Row. A very prominent prop used in the performance was a large transparent fabric bubble in which Koichi entered the stage. The Tamanos were joined by Harupin-Ha, their dance troupe. A fellow participant at the UCLA symposium, Bob Webb, performed with them.

There was a particularly poignant moment during the performance that stood out to me. A young girl, perhaps eight or nine years wearing fairy wings sat to my left at the edge of the stage. As Koichi slowly moved up the stage, he noticed the girl. His face softened into a slight smile, he turned towards the girl and waved to her. The essence of Butoh, as I see it, is taking a journey into the deepest recesses of your soul and letting whatever you find dance. Watching the spontaneous joy that a child brought to Koichi’s dance made me smile too.

I got home rather late that evening and did a quick sketch from memory. The next day I did a more careful drawing and drypoint print using a photo as a reference.

Butoh Road Trip

The journey of drawing Butoh did not stop after my posting here last year. Since then we’ve been able to schedule a few more sessions and I’ve been making contact with the Butoh community on several social network sites. An announcement came out for a Symposium in Los Angeles at UCLA. The travel would be relatively easy so I signed up.

The premier event of the weekend was a performance by three highly respected Butoh artists, Katsura Kan, Joan Laage, and Moro Akaji. Watching them gave me a new perspective on Butoh. Each reveled interesting nuances that simply cannot be experienced in a video. During his performance Katsura Kan repeated a gesture of covering his right eye with his hand. I had brought a small drawing pad /pencil and quickly sketched the gesture during a break. Later on that evening in my motel room, relying on memory, a more detailed drawing took shape. The final print, a drypoint intaglio, collagraph collage is included in this post.

The second day of the symposium was a discussion on the history and present state of Butoh. All very interesting and educational, however what I enjoyed most was meeting dancers, fellow artists and academics dedicated to the study of Butoh. I meet a number of very friendly folks and look forward to continuing correspondence with them.

The last morning of the symposium was a movement workshop with Katsura Kan. He introduced us to a very simple exercise that teaches you awareness of the body moving in space. I spent the remainder of the day revisiting my childhood neighborhood in West Los Angeles.

All in all a great trip!

Having Some Fun

We've managed to schedule two Butoh dance/drawing sessions in the past few months. Got numerous drawings and a couple are starting to find their way onto dry point plates and through the printing process. They both make me chuckle a bit, hope it works for you too.

Speaking of having fun, I was invited to teach a life drawing session at Penny Hanson's North High art class. I thought it would be fun and a complete departure from the norm and have them do a short pose session. Fortunately we had wonderful student models from the dance department who were more than up to the challenge of multiple short poses. The students drew 30 second, 1 minute and 3 minute gestures for half of the session. We were able to do a dance/short pose format for the remainder of the session. Towards the end of the class you could see the students loosen up and start to really enjoy gesture drawing. Ms Hanson has a great group of students who have talent and are a joy to be around. Hopefully I'll get a chance to go back.

I will be showing my work during the entire month of March at the Paisley Violin in Phoenix. I'll be joined by Stu Biscoe, Joan Thompson and Audrey Van Kirk. Hope you get a chance to drop by. Paisley Violin is located in the heart of the Grand Ave art district, 1030 Grand Ave.

Upcoming Shows

January is going to be a busy month! I will be showing my work in two exhibitions. Hope you can drop by and see the shows.

Shemer Art Center - Negative Space Group Show
Reception: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 7:00 - 9:00pm
5005 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix, Arizona (enter off Arcadia Dr.)
The show will run through Feb. 16, 2011
For additional information go to the SACAMA website

Printmaking: A Contemporary Perspective
Arizona Print Group Exihibition
Reception: Sunday, January 23, 2011, 10:00am - 12:00pm
Church of the Beatitudes, 555 W. Glendale Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona
The show will run through Mar. 2, 2011
For additional information please visit the Arizona Print Group website

Looking forward to seeing you.

Some New Work

It's been a while since I've posted, lots of stuff going on. Time to put up some new images of my recent prints. Enjoy.

Upcoming Show at Shemer Art Center

I am very pleased to have one of my recent prints selected for Shemer-Ascends to the Future, a group show at the Shemer Art Center in Phoenix. The opening reception will be on Sept.16th from 7:00 to 9:00pm. The address is 5005 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix, AZ Hope you can make it out. Thanks.

Butoh!

Somewhere on the Internet I fortuitously stumbled upon some photos of butoh dance. Immediately the gestural qualities of this contemporary Japanese dance stirred my figure drawing soul. I love drawing short poses, too difficult for the model to hold for more than a couple of minutes. The movement, lines and imagination of butoh dance seemed like a natural fit for gesture drawing.

Briefly, Butoh is a modern dance form that originated in Japan. From Wikapedia: “It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally "performed" in white-body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience. But there is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno.”

So the butoh drawing project began. Our first effort, although fun and productive, was a learning experience. We were very fortunate to have worked with Danae, a wonderful model who has danced butoh. She had been living out of town when the butoh project germinated. Fortunately the universe brought her back to Phoenix and we were able to schedule a session. After some discussion of how to organize the session, we decided to simply let her dance. When she came to a position that she felt would be an interesting pose, Danae would pause while we drew. When the pose became uncomfortable she resumed the dance until she found the next pose. Essentially we had the honor of witnessing a 3-hour performance with at least 30 drawing opportunies.

Those of you who follow this blog know that my primary media is fine art printmaking, particularly dry point intaglio. In dry point the lines are scribed directly on the plate. It’s a visceral process of creating a printing matrix with the added bonus of non-toxicity. Quite often I scribe plates from live poses. During Danae’s dance I scribed a few plates one of which became my first piece of the project. Over the following weeks and months additional plates began to emerge from the drawings. It’s been an on-going evolution of matching paper and ink to the right plate. One of the beautiful aspects of printmaking is to continually experiment with each plate. This ongoing process of capturing butoh dance is far from complete. These are the first prints, please enjoy.

I am very happy to report that the Herberger Theater Gallery accepted Butoh II for their November exhibit. Additional information for the show will be forthcoming.