Last Class

Butoh Videos

Final Harvest

Congratulations all on a fantastic quarter!

We began the quarter in stillness with meditation and moved into progressively larger and more expansive movement, all the while staying connected to our inner experience. For this final blog entry, I ask that you reflect on the journey of the course and share what moments or learnings that have inspired or changed you.

We began by meditating on our senses and embodying relationships through touch, sight, listening and being present with one another. We move authentically in the present tense ;-) and then evolved from single celled organisms to our falling walking erect selves. We connected to our endpoints and fundamental movements. Doug MacKenzie came and guided us in Body Mind Centering. F.M. Alexander taught us to lead with our heads and to let the rest of us follow in order to use the body efficiently. Stephanie Skura showed us how Joan Skinner took Alexander's work into dance technique by creating images with strings and body graphics with touch. Contact Improvisation brought us together to deeply explore listening through touch. Joan Laage with Butoh brought us back to moving from within by connecting to images like cocoons and broken glass. The 5 Rhythms connects our inner creative movement source to the rhythms of flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness.

In addition, each of you explored even more deeply into topics of your own choosing: Butoh, Applied Anatomy and Ecstatic Dance. Everyone, spent hours in contact improvisation.

That's a lot of work!

We sometimes forget that our education is for ourselves even though we are working to fulfill requirements for our professors. With that idea in mind, I'd love to hear a few words about your own personal gain through your own efforts. What is your harvest?

Thanks for being a part of my masters coursework. It has been a gift and pleasure for me to have the opportunity to teach this course. As a group, you have been beautifully present, invested and self-directed and truly courageous. I wish you all health, happiness and peace on your journies and hope that you continue to benefit from the wealth of listening, connecting and moving from within.

Congratulation on all your wonderful work!

5 Rhythms Dance and Chakra Dance

On the last day of the official class, we explored the chakra system. We began on our backs and visualized the chakras. The root chakra of earth connection, sacral chakra of creativity and sexuality. Solar plexus holds ego energy, heart is love and hate. Throat chakra is communication and third eye is intellect and intuition. Crown chakra connects us to a higher order of reality. We explored the chakras with movement, gesture and with sound.

What do you think about the chakra system? Coming from the traditional Indian system of medicine, it is not a scientific study (yet) but as I said in class, can you connect to this material in a personal or creative way.

What will you harvest from this class?


On Tuesday, we talked about the work of Gabriel Roth and the 5 Rhythm Wave. The 5 rhythms are flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness. We did two waves today. The first wave we did without any explanation and then we sat and spoke a bit about the experience of the work. Then, after a brief exploration of each rhythm, their energy, elemental and emotional, we did a second wave.

How did you respond to this work? Would you seek this out again? How does this work connect to other topics in this course? What will you harvest from this class?