Dancing with the Darkness: Butoh, Shakespeare and the Macabre

Join Marie-Gabrielle Rotie in this three-day Butoh dance course at Poplar Union.

What to expect

Each session begins with intensive body training incorporating somatics, voice and foundational Butoh techniques that are then used in structured improvisations. The workshops are suitable for anyone interested in movement.

This course will run from 12pm-6pm on Friday 30 October – Sunday 1 November. The ticket price is for the three day course.

The sessions will be led by Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, in association with Flabbergast Theatre.

What is Butoh?

Historically, Butoh has an interest in the body as a corpse trying to stand upright in a desperate bid for life (Hijikata) and this tension between living and death forms a strong thread in this workshop. You’ll approach this through thinking of the natural cycle of existence from Spring to Autumn and Winter, and finding inner imagery and body qualities to associate this with our own human and emotional cycles to birth to old age and beyond.

Participants are introduced to the value and power of working from imagination and from guided poetic imagery as tools for transformation: the body can discover many selves and extend into animal, plant or non-human entities. Shakespearian text offers resonant imagery for transformation and encounters with the spirit world, with death, with inner darkness and the grotesque.

About Marie

Marie-Gabrielle’s interdisciplinary works traverse the mediums of live performance an visual arts. For the past 30 years, she has worked as a performer, dancer, choreographer, movement director and producer. Since 1994 she has studied Butoh in Europe and Japan with Ko Murobushi, Kazuo Ohno, Atsushi Takenouchi, Carlotta Ikeda, Masaki Iwana, Natsu Nakajima and Yumiko Yoshioka and many others. This led to a long and successful career in movement-based work, movement direction (for Theatre and Opera, including Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre) and choreography commissions, touring nationally and internationally. She is currently working with director Robert Eggers.

Course price breakdown (includes all three sessions)

£100.00 Early Bird (until Mon 5 Oct at 5pm)
£120.00 Full Ticket (after 5 Oct)
£100.00 Concession