AGOGO Performance Program

practices and pilates. Holds a MFA degree in dance from
UW. Her work has been presented in the US, Korea,
Mexico and Beijing. [www.diana-garcia.com]
Joan Laage, Kogut Butoh
Joan studied under Butoh Masters
Ohno Kazuo and Ashikawa Yoko, and
performed with Ashikawa’s group
Gnome while living in Tokyo in the late
1980’s. She founded Dappin’ Butoh in
Seattle in 1991, and is noted as a pioneer
in bringing Butoh to the Pacific Northwest. She is
featured in Sondra Horton Fraleigh’s books Dancing into
Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan, and performed and
taught at Paris, New York, Chicago, Portland and Boulder
Butoh Festivals. [www.seattlebutoh.org]
Northwest Butoh AGOGO Staff:
Artistic Director: Sheri Brown
Production Manager: Joan Laage
Marketing, Web & Graphic Designer: Diana Garcia-Snyder
Front of House & Volunteer Coordinator: Helen Thorsen
PR Distribution & Workshop Host: Danse Perdue
Lighting: Jason Harber
Stage Manager: Compass Noce
Program designer: Kaoru Okumura
Videographers: Kaoru Okumura, Jonathan Clarren
Volunteers: Sister Angela Merici, Sister Mary Tyler
Haruko Nishimura
Haruko Nishmura is artistic director
of Degenerate Art Ensemble. In the near
future, she will be performing at Robert
Wilson's Watermill center in New York and
will be presenting her group's exhibition/
performance at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle 2011.
[www.degenerateartensemble.com]
Helen Thorsen
"My soul is turning to ashes. If I breathe
out They spill from my body. I breathe
myself in and out. My soul floats
throughout the sky As it turns to ashes
and falls." Kazuo Ohno
Northwest Butoh Wave
A unique opportunity to study with International masters and experience
the diverse and innovative Butoh scene in the Northwest/Regional U.S.
DAIPANbutoh Collective presents:
AGOGO Performance
舞
踏
Regional Butoh Festival
November 5th & 6th, 2010. 8PM at Velocity Dance Center, Seattle WA USA
Moregasm, Nicholai Michael Spicer, Libby Lourie, Shelli
Park, David Thornbrugh, Katrina Ellison, Cesario Larios,
Consuelo Gonzalez
DAIPAN AGOGO is made possible by donors and
sponsors: Dr. Matsunami, Sheri Brown, Laura Weeks,
Jessica Ludescher, Helen Thorsen, Diana GarciaSnyder, Sue Ellen Harrison, Haruko Nishimura, Willow
Fox, Francoise Hovivienne, Len Davis, Sisters Of the
Mother House Of Washington (S.O.M.H.O.W.) , Octo
Sushi.
© Briana Jones, © Kaoru Okumura
DAIPANbutoh is a performance collective formed for the purpose of melding the talents and energy of
www.seattlesisters.org
Celebrating our 27th year on Capitol Hill, we would like
to thank all of our patients for entrusting your vision
care with us. We also extend our heartfelt gratitude for
all the support since Capitol Hill’s “Wizard of Eyes” Warren Ruby, L.D.O. - joined us last year.
its eight Seattle-based Butoh founding members: Sheri Brown, Diana Garcia-Snyder, Joan Laage, Douglas
Ridings, Alex Ruhe, Vanessa Skantze, Alan Sutherland, and Helen Thorsen. Our purpose is to devote our
energy to bringing Butoh to Seattle audiences. Seattle is one of the strongest international hubs of Butoh in
the world community. Butoh is a deeply moving and evocative Japanese performance that has been steadily
growing in Seattle since the early eighties. A movement form that emerged from post war Japan in 1959,
Butoh seeks nothing less than the transformation of the world, one performance at a time. Fifty-one years
later, these two evenings of our Agogo offer a fullspectrum of today’s emerging American Butoh
ascendancy. Thank you for your vital role in community
www.daipanbutoh.com
transformation through your deep listening presence.
We hope you relish the richness of these nights and take
with you inspired new views of being.
Artist Bios
Day 1: November 5th, Friday
Pre-show
D.I.S.T.A.N.C.E. movement installation: Diana
Garcia-Snyder; Concept & Costume Design: Bo Choi
Ainsi Soit-Il : Sheri Brown
Music: Vokuro, Bjork, Doublequad, Void, Melts
Slowly, Marron/dubmarronics, Tonolec
BONE SOUP: Douglas Ridings
Music: Stephen Fandrich
<Intermission>
(): Kokoro Dance
Music: Sigur Ros; Costume: Tsuneko Kokubo
The Emancipation of Pauline and Juliet:
Danse Perdue
Music: Lube Fondue
Day 2: November 6th, Saturday
Kundalini Stavah: Diana Garcia Snyder
Music: Joel Palmer; Advisors/Mentors: Marv &
Peggy Thomas; Costume: Bo Choi
“Kundalini Stavah” is an offering to the POWER within.
Dedicated to my husband, friends and family. In each
human being Shakti (Kundalini) lies asleep in a coiled
form, waiting to be awakened by the master…
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
Love+Body=Landscape:
MomoButoh Dance Company
Maureen “momo” Freehill & Haruko Nishimura
SoundScape: Jeff Huston
Photography: Rex Hohlbein; Costume: Lynn Mizono
Slideshow: Lee Atwell
A collaboration investigating immediacy & exchange
between human & non-human landscape
ANGE DECHU: Jyl Brewer, Joe Allison, Carol Wilcox
Music: Keren Ann, Vig Mihaly
Music compilation: Shareyar Ataie
Soft August / Hard August: Mizu Desierto
Music: Johnny Greenwood, Mizu Desierto
Costume: Mizu Desierto
<Intermission>
Untitled/Improvisation: Haruko Nishimura
Costume: Christine Tschirgi
The River: Helen Thorsen
Music: NoisePoetNobody
“You can linger there alone in the midst of dead
silence, if you wish. but outside, life continues
around you as though nothing were happening"
Kazuo Ohno
xviii: Sheri Brown & Sharoni Stern Siegel
Music: Rosalynn DeRoos & Neal Meyer
Road To Nowhere: Joan Laage [Kogut Butoh]
Music: Masters of Ukranian Accordian, brYan, 10,
Ewa Demarzyk
Silver Loophole: Sharoni Stern Siegel
Choreographers: KATSURA Kan and Sharoni Siegel
Music: Piano, Japanese toys and African drumming –
unknown
Seattle Butoh Community Slide-Show (November 5th and 6th)
Photography: Briana Jones and Kaoru Okumura
Editing: Diana Garcia-Snyder
Jyl Brewer
Jyl lives on Vashon Island and continues
to practice and teach Zen and Butoh,
having lived and trained in Japan and
France under Shodo Harada Roshi,
Katsura Kan, Kazuo Ohno, Min Tanaka,
and Genno Roshi. Joe and Carol both
live on Vashon Island and attribute their Butoh training to
practicing with Jyl, but mainly to their varied and
interesting lives.
Sheri Brown is the Artistic Director of
DAIPANbutoh. She works as an
independent artist, teacher, and
producer. Holding a BA in Theatre (ASU)
and Masters in Education (UH), she
began Butoh dance in 2001 with Seattle’s
seminal post-Butoh punk protest performance troupe, the
P.A.N. with whom she danced extensively regionally as
well as in Asia; highlight performances include “V.V” at
the San Francisco Butoh Festival and “Crosspollination” at
the International Mime Festival in Korea where her troupe
earned the “Dokkebi’ award for most advanced creativity.
This summer Sheri was honored to accept Katsura Kan’s
invitation to assist him in workshops/performances in
Greece, Sweden, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Vancouver
and Seattle. Recent creation of her work has been made
possible in part by Artist Trust (GAP Grant), 4Culutre
(Conductive Garboil Grant), and Office of Arts & Cultural
Affairs (smart Ventures Grant). Upcoming projects include
the Seattle academic/cultural Butoh conference in
conjunction with Kan and UCLA (May), Fairy Orb Trip II
Tour in Japan (June), and “Oracle & Enigma 2011” four-city
U.S. Tour. [www.sheribrown.com]
Danse Perdue are the founders of
Psychomachia Theater in SODO Seattle,
a performance and teaching space aimed
at fostering transgressive and
experimental work. Open Butoh classes
are Mondays and Fridays, 6:30-9pm
(info:[email protected]). The work of Danse
Perdue is rooted in ritual approaches to spiritual and
physical struggle ...Crisis. “Danse Perdue reflects how
empathy is mutated by violence, how we are all
inextricably linked in the unspeakable. We arc towards a
revolution of everyday life by eschewing
the familiar, the comfortable, and
instead creating work out of the
unknown.” [www.danseperdue.org]
Kokoro Dance
Kokoro Dance is a Butoh dance company
based in Vancouver, BC that was formed in 1986 by
Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi. Kokoro Dance has
created over one hundred and fifty dance works and has
performed across Canada, in the United States, and in
Europe. [www.kokoro.ca]
Mizu Desierto
Mizu Desierto is the co-founder and Artistic
Director of Portland’s Water in the Desert
and The Headwaters Theatre & Center for
International Exchanges in the Arts. She is a
performer, choreographer, costume
designer and educator whose work
explores themes of personal truth, ecological sensitivity
and transformation. [www.mizudesierto.com]
MomoButoh Dance Company founder
Maureen "momo" Freehill, MFA lived,
performed & studied in Japan with her
primary teacher & life/art inspiration Kazuo
Ohno for 5 years. His guidance to dance
freely from heart & soul; removing
separation between dance & day to day life;
is a primary intention in all MomoButoh works. Next event
is annual 11/11 ritual performance with Spawning Salmon.
[Contact MomoButoh: [email protected]]
Douglas Ridings & Stephen Fandrich
Douglas is a dancer of Butoh and Odissi, an
actor, a singer and a teacher of Hatha Yoga.
He performs regularly with Katsura Kan,
Urvasi, and Implied Violence. Stephen is a
composer, pianist, singer and multiinstrumentalist. He is director of Seattle
Harmonic Voices and a member of Gamelan Pacifica.
[www.douglasridings.com ]
Sharoni Stern Siegel
Sharoni is executive producer of the
Boulder Butoh Festival and artistic director
of her own Butoh Company, Hanaji
Butoh. She has worked intensively for the
last three years with Butoh Master
KATSURA Kan, both as his dancer and
assistant choreographer. She is also an avid swing and
blues dancer and teacher.
Diana Garcia-Snyder
Co-founding member of Seattle's
DAIPAN Butoh Collective. Mexican born
performer and teaching artists. with more
than 20 years of experience evolving from
ballet to modern and contemporary to
sacred dance, Butoh, yoga, somatic