Atsushi Takenouchi (Kyoto), is a man of movement and iridescent energies. He has been dancing all his life, internalizing the teachings of Butoh to become a master dancer. He draws his energy from the earth and can rejuvenate an audience through movement. He feels that dancing in harmony with nature has brought back the memories, which were sleeping, in his DNA. He uses the memories of once being a tree, grass, animal, wind, soil, fire or water in his dance.
Atsushi Takenouchi dances the present day and its various figures; including the chord and discord created by nature, people and artificiality. The dance’s theme is "JINEN". His dance is based on movement which comes up from inside of individual. He creates his dance performance using the core part of the expression of dance, which is both native and contemporary.
He places emphasis on workshops for the dancers, performers of varied degree of skill including beginners, children, and disabled person.
"Dance is devotion of life". I learned this while my travelling nature fields called JINEN. This has never changed since old times and will never change. This means I should dance to "my life", to the moment, and to the now which lasts forever. I've got my body from the earth. I've got my life from the sun and the moon, my parents, my friends and my love. Then I'll return the gifts to these universe. I'll return them to others through dancing body and soul. As I see a tiny flower selflessly, I meet a dance filled with a joy of " life". And then, my body is filled up with water of " life". The seeds of memory Inside of myself come into bud. The sound of winds is the whispering of the earth.The sound of minerals is the muttering of machines. We hear the sounds of the universe Through explosion and noise and stillness. Oh, thousands of sounds, take our souls far away to our unknown world. Travel with reminding us of forgotten dances. On the sun and the moon, there are young men singing eternal songs at every place in the world. Let's Begin an ancient and modern fete at " relics of life" holding artificial and nature on earth. JINEN Butoh
-Atsushi Takenouchi
Description of the performance
Atsushi Takenouchi performs with music by Hiroko Komiya.
“JINEN” - Butoh Spirit Dance Improvisation : Based on the artist’s impressions of the moment, formulated from the people around him, the space inhabited, the air, the climate and energetic mood of the surroundings and spirit of the moment. 31. May and 1. June at 19:30 in the 2nd Theater
“Stone” - I am a stone, just a fragment of the cosmos. Stone is a Butoh dance that was developed from the artist’s experiences through dance and performance in natural setting of mountains, seas, fields and forests across the countryside for three and a half years. A stone is formed a long time ago, it is born from the earth, and a stone holds plant’s seed and the small creatures and the carcass of the animals. Taking root, a tree grows up into a big tall tree with the sunshine and the nourishment from the earth. Just a single small stone can provide the proof that shows links between everything in this world. Atsushi dances the past, and the future of this small stone’s life. 7, 8 June and at 19:00 in the 2nd Theater
He will also be leading a Butoh workshop during the first week of the festival. Info : (030) 616 59 528 for workshop info, or email kaesha@resonant-wave.net.
Hiroko Komiya (Japan) will be exhibited a rich blend of photographes depicting Atsushi Takenouchi dancing in nature, in hidden, sacred spaces, on thousand year old trees frozen over time by the dryness of the desert, or a cave in Cambodia, where a streak of light trickles 100 meters below the earth.
The exhibition is on display during all hours of operation of the festival.
History and Resume
1962 Born in Matsuzaka, Ise city, Mie prefecture.
1980 Entered butoh dance company "Hoppo- Butoh-ha" of Otaru, Hokkaido
1984 Performed " TAKAZASHIKI", his last performance with the company, taking choreography of the late Tatsumi Hijikata.
1986 Starts solo performance and drawing, having a theme of nature.
Established nature schools "Dance with nature " for children and their parents in Osaka .
1994 Performed solo "TANAGOKORO" and "GINKAN" in Osaka.
1995 Performed solo "ITTEKI" in Osaka. Performed in Kobe (suffered from a big earthquake) praying for repose of souls at shelters.
1996 Performed Gin yu-butoh "JINEN", based on his impressions from every place
1999 climate, people, music, at the remains, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, nature fields, and theaters and halls visiting around cities, villages, islands all over Japan. Performed more than 500 times. Holding workshop " Dance with Lives" for dancers, expressionists, and university students, kindergartner, mentally and physically disabled
people. Holding private exhibition of his drawing. Starts performing JINEN-butoh tour "Sun & Moon" in 12 countries at natural locations
2000.3 All over the world. Had more than 100 performance in France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Czech, Hungary, Austria, Norway, Spain, Thailand, Cambodia during the tour.
2000.4 Set up the team Atsushi Takenouchi "Breathing Heritage" with the concept of "dancing the forgotten human's memory".
2000.5 Osaka Arts Access 2000. Body expression workshop.
2000.8 "Be wind, water, tree" Workshop of body expression at Hiroshima city of Contemporary Art. Had collaboration work presentation.
2000.9 Team performance "New Tanagokoro" at Extreme Orient Festival 2000 in Paris, and "Breathing Heritage" at Ambassade du Japon in Paris. Performance " Stone " at Theater KANA in Szczecin, Theater Maly in Warsaw, KONFRONTACJE TEATRALNE Festival in Lublin in Poland, and Theatre Des Augenblicks in Vienna, Duncan center in Prague (with workshop), Espace culturel Bertin Poiree (with workshop). Workshop at youth center in Czarnocin in Poland. Performance at National Nature Park -Westonbirt
Arboretum- in Britain.
2001.2 Performance " New Tanagokoro" at OSAKA TORII HALL (Osaka Dance Experience).
2001.3 Performance "Stone" at Kyoto Higashiyama Youth center reopening event.
2001.6 1 week workshop at the forest of the Adirondacks on the bank of lake Rondaxe, up state New York. Solo performance "Stone" at Gallery CAVE. Collaboration performance with Ransom Corp.
2001.7 "Ren-mitsu" collaborative performance with Japanese traditional dance at Enishi-an in Osaka.
2001.9 "ITTEKI" at Theater KANA in Poland , "Stone" Poland tour,
2001.9 Jinen Butoh workshop in Brighton ,UK
2001.10 "ITTEKI" at Espace Culturel Bertin Poiree in Paris.
2001.10 "Breath2001" collaboration performance produced by Red Earth at Canterbury Castle, Canterbury Festival 2001, UK.
Workshop Catalog
Workshop for dancers, performers Balance.
Walking by transferring your weight.
Live walking, Death walking.
Walking in the various situation with restriction.
The way of body operating to make the movement come out from inside. Sketch the things in the nature world like living life, animal, natural material by body properly:
- one cycle of an embryo, a baby, a child, an adult, an old man.
- an insect, a beast, trees, grass, a flower.
- a gas, a liquid, a solid, gel, amoeba, an organism, minerals.
Capturing a conscious movement and an unconscious movement as a dance. Dance a fragmental dream. Gravitation and floating. Various sound and body expression. Voice, Dance the seasonal body of your own. The process of the metamorphosis. The dance by organic and inorganic contact with other life. How we can be desperate. A collaboration and an improvisation by body and sound. Find out your own expression coming from your emotion with focusing on really personal things which is inside of you.
Workshop for beginners and inexperienced person.
One person dances to the sound you make, and you dance to the sound the person makes. Everyone, feeling everyone else, responding to everyone else with dancing and making sound. We communicate through improvisational voice, sound and body expression, and get to a deeper stage of understanding by means of the senses. Through that process, each one of us will learn that "All is one and one is all."
Workshop for children (under 12 years old) or children and their parents
Basically a simplified version of the workshop mentioned above. Children
Will share in the fun of dancing and sound, and realize the hidden
Possibility within themselves.
Workshop for mentally and physically disabled people
Basically a simplified version of the workshop mentioned above. Some changes will be given, depending on the degree of disability. The first aim is to share that dancing is the joy of life.
Jinen Butoh Workshop : Dancing life
I feel we have forgotten memories of days when we lived connected with nature's gifts (such as water, wind, grass, trees, and animals). A long time ago we danced, forgetting days and nights. We forgot ourselves, and became just as one life, with the earth. What about now? We've been choreographed to fit into a given pattern. Have we ever danced, forgetting ourselves?
- Improvization -
It's a dance without choreography. You dance as you feel, sharpening your senses, with conviction. You can't improvise unless you can enjoy what you are doing and act alive. It may sound complicated, but we did it before, through dialogue using words and gestures and hide-and-seek games we played in our childhood. In our game, we became two waves or two clouds. We didn't remain in our shape. We swayed, moved like a ripple, got caught with each other, swayed back and melted into one. Sometimes, we may look like two dragons, two jellyfish talking with each other, the moon and the sun, or two dancing cranes in love. We all have the blood of a native and spiritual improvisational dancer.
