Medi_Motion: Workshop Residency in Shantiniketan, India led by Gio Ju

‘Movement in stillness
Stillness in movement“

“Bring something incomprehensible into the world!”

“The self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities.”

— Gilles Deleuze

About the Workshop

7 days residential Butoh based workshop at a rural residential space in Shantiniketan, India, led by Gio Ju. We will also have sessions with practitioners of Baul music, which is about the inner self and liberation through music and an artist who practices clay therapy during the residency.

This is an open call for dancers, movement artists, actors, movement based therapist , theatre practitioners, performance researchers and also for people who are interested to explore their expressive and creative self through this practice which involves movement and meditation.

Place: Shantiniketan

Dates: Jan 6 – 13, 2024. Arrival at the workshop venue is on 6th Jan. We can go together from Kolkata to Shantiniketan on 5th Jan if you would like. The dearture from Shantiniketan will be on Jan 14th.

This residency is a part of the Masterpeace COOLeaders program

About the Workshop

Pause and observe inside outside of the body in between stillness and movement. Medi_motion is meditative movement that releases tension and intention from the body and mind. It allows us to see everyday life from a different perspective. In the experience of melting the body and mind into one through various conditioning, we encounter infinite inner landscapes between life and death through dance and discover a unique dance that only my life can dance.

Pause and Experience

There are times in life when we want to stop for a moment and look for different experiences.
The body we all have can be a great frame for another pause and experience.

1st Journey – Pause with Medi_motion

Medi_motion is a meditative movement that releases tension and intention from the body and mind.

Through this movement, we connect with the body,
explore it, and eventually go beyond its frame.
Slow down and observe the movements in stillness
through breath, sensation, inner memories and
encounter the movements arise in the silence.
We keep listening to the body.
We explore how to release the tension on each part of body through organic movements, resonance touch and how to develop inner silence even in the movements and interacting with others.

2nd Journey – Experience with BUTOH

Butoh is a profound journey that melts the body and mind into one and guides to a pure state of life through dance.
Its an experience of acceptance and expansion on daily human life. It touches darkness like a dark forest. The unknown beyond judgement. Sometimes the struggle to get out of one’s ego and comfort zone is intensive, but the flowers that bloom through difficulty have special beauty.
Butoh, which discovers the aesthetics of dance, blooms as new beauty in the sapce that goes beyond the dualistic judgment of what is darkness and what is not.
Butoh is wonderful company when we are off the life path, memories, when we are curious about hidden self, dream worlds, dancing the pure nature as it is, when we want to expand the creativity in everyday life, dance with infinite freedom without the distraction of thoughts, dance the mystery of life, when we are afraid of weakness, anxiety, death, or disappearance. When we want to celebrate pure life itself together, beyond self and others, to listen to body deep level. Butoh is a medium that safely embraces each other and helps each other face and dance honestly no matter what comes. Butoh is a midwife who creatively brings out our hidden body within.

ABOUT SUBBODY RESONANCE BUTOH

Experience multidimensional Dance Theatre through Butoh

Open infinite creativity with Life resonance art experiment

Butoh is a dance and theater experiment that originated in Japan and went beyond western modern dance. In the context of Japan at the time, sickness, the weak, disabilities, death, and ruins were embodied through dance, and later spread to Europe and the world, and the spirit of Butoh is resonating with various conditions.

Subbody Butoh began when Japanese master Rhizome Lee moved to India and founded the Butoh School in Dharamshala. Gio Ju, who is facilitating this workshop, has trained at this Butoh school for five years, taught classes with Lee, and has expanded her Butoh exploration with various Butoh masters in Europe.

Subbody Butoh, unlike other butoh, has developed a variety of tools in cobody group resonance experiments. This creates a space like Butoh Earth, which opens up infinite sources of creativity not only for dance, but for all genres of art and participants of all conditions.

In particular, Subbody Butoh has been exploring Butoh in India for a long time and has encountered the rise of Indian Butoh, the strong and unique soul of Indian dance, just as Japanese Butoh was born within that era and culture.

This residency workshop will be a space for multinational participants, multi genre artists to experiment and produce the dance of soul, an art of resonance that transcends boundaries and divisions, on Indian earth.

“We have to go to the place before the differentiation of self and others.”

——- Butoh Founder Tatsumi Hijikata

The subbody Butoh method opens by shifting from everyday mode to subconscious mode through medi-motion and various conditionings. In movement, the body and mind melt into one, everyday judgments and dualistic distinctions become blurred, and everything relates to each other, resonates, appears and disappears repeatedly. Subbody Butoh gently guides us into the darkness of the body. This space, where all distinctions are blurred, is an unknown that cannot be known through everyday thinking or language. Darkness is the unknown beyond duality.

If we go to the subtler level by constantly listening to the body and listening to life, we can meet very subtle signals beyond the inside and outside of our bodies. This is Qualia, subtle signals beyond everyday language. In this subtle Qualia Stream, our bodies and space resonate in infinite patterns, and novel creative sources are actualized through the body.

The group experiment will visualize the network of Multidimensional Rhizoming, which goes beyond the vertical hierarchical order, through dance and various artistic elements.

The workshop will produce experimental performances, and participants do not need any experience and all body conditions are welcome.

About GIO JU
A silence practitioner through awareness of various dimensions between stillness and movement. Korean martial arts, Ashtanga yoga, and Dantien yoga experience and Vipassana meditation practitioner.

A Butoh dancer
Fell in love with Butoh as soon as met it in 2010.
Trained and explored in Subbody Resonance Butoh
School for 5 years and guided Butoh at the same school and in various places. Participating in the creation of Ten Pen chii (by Yumiko Yoshioka) in 2013 was also an important point in the journey to butoh and the lesson from Butoh master Masaki Iwana, too. Butoh is the most precious basis for viewing and experiencing the world for her.

A nature textile artist

Creating simple clothes and fabrics that can be used fora long time and work on natural colors and designs.
Making the movement of natural, sustainable and simple living with the project brand “Soft Earth” (softearth.art)

Where

The closest international and domestic airport to Shantiniketan is Kolkata. It takes about 4 hours to drive from Kolkata to Shantiniketan. If you would like to, we can go together to Shantiniketan from Kolkata.

The stay at the rural space in Shantiniketan will be on room sharing basis. Both non veg and veg food options would be available.

Dates

January 6 -13, 2025 (7 days residential workshop). Arrival in Shantiniketan on January 6, 2025. Departure from Shantiniketan on Jan 14, 2025. The workshop will be for 8 hours each day.

For more details email sudipta@culturemonks.in or whatsapp +91 8697919308.

About Masterpeace COOLeaders Program

The Masterpeace COOLeaders is a global program which seeks to motivate and provide the necessary tools to people in order to catalyze them into being change makers towards a paradigm which focusses on integral development in material, cultural and spiritual sphere. Hence we can say that a COOLeader is one who cares about herself/ himself (in terms of mental, physical, economic and cultural state), others, the place, works towards economic sustainability while at all times working towards restoring and regenerating our natural ecology. One remarkable feature of Masterpeace COOLeaders program is its extensive deployment & support for arts (visual & performing), design & music to mobilize and to bring about & embody the desired change. For more details visit : https://masterpeace.org/cooleaders/

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