Art is deeply personal, and art is better when we make it together. BUT how do we work together in a healthy, productive, collaborative way? Conflict is natural, human, and it’s going to come up. This class aims to guide you toward creating a healthy, safe and fun collaborative environment by grounding the creative process in intention. Throughout this class, we will work on building ensemble, creating an intention to work from, and collective creation. You will put your intentions into practice by creating a collective piece to present during the last session.

This class will involve movement and contact improv. 

Art is deeply personal, and art is better when we make it together. BUT how do we work together in a healthy, productive, collaborative way? Conflict is natural, human, and it’s going to come up. This class aims to guide you toward creating a healthy, safe and fun collaborative environment by grounding the creative process in intention. Throughout this class, we will work on building ensemble, creating an intention to work from, and collective creation. You will put your intentions into practice by creating a collective piece to present during the last session.

This class will involve movement and contact improv. 

Earth Tomes was born in 1993 in the middle of the night in an outhouse at a backcountry camp on snowy Mt. Rainier, Washington, while Joan sat listening to the sounds of nature and watching the shadows cast by her flashlight. For her, the piece is political, to remind us to remain connected to the earth. Initially a solo work, Earth Tomes became a project as Laage began inviting other dancers to join her. Since 2016, the project has been presented with local dancers in Seattle, Upstate New York, London, Liverpool, Oslo, Warsaw, Freiburg (Germany), and Pontedera (Italy) and will be presented at the University of Colorado (Boulder) just prior to Chicago. It has become a community-based creative process and continues to evolve as it travels. It is truly a collaborative project, working with local performers and drawing them into the creative process.

Earth Tomes relates back to Laage’s roots in rural Wisconsin. She swam in the creeks in the summer, made igloos in the winter, traipsed through fields of cow patties, and tended a garden with her family. She likens her early experiences in life to her current gardening practice (and profession) and planting seeds that sprout later in life.

She says that when she began exploring butoh, it reconnected her with her upbringing: “I felt like I was recovering my childhood, that body that was really my body . . . When I heard Goda Nario talk about Hijikata’s one tatami mat dance and the children kept in a basket, whether or not it’s true, it says something about the importance of one’s childhood experience of space.”
( Joan Laage, pers. comm., January 6, 2020)

Embodying the Spirit
Butoh & Nature workshops facilitated by Joan/Kogut

March 11-12, 2026, 6-10pm

The Checkout, 4116 N Clark St, Chicago
More info and register

Embodying the Spirit explores endless questions: What is life? What is the human condition? What is the body? In this age of an increasing use of technology to direct and control so many aspects of our daily lives, a disconnect to nature can easily result. Earth Tomes is a welcome revelation of the body as earth and, through continual transformation, reveals the changing landscape of the body. Images of earth, trees, roots, stones will be layered with explorations of the elemental body (water, wind, etc.) and animals as we celebrate the body as nature.

In this two day workshop we will focus on imagery from the Earth Tomes Project. Partner work will facilitate participants’ individual and collective journeys. The workshop draws from Joan’s training and research with many butoh masters and her background as a Tai Chi practitioner and professional gardener.

This is a process of erasing and recreating the body through guided improvisation inspired by nature imagery. Experience training methods towards a supple body and mind and investigate aesthetics common to butoh through creative explorations. All are welcome, and no previous experience is required. The Checkout is wheelchair accessible; we encourage all curious bodies.

About Joan Laage. After studying with Butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa in Tokyo in the late 80s and performing with Ashikawa’s group Gnome, Joan Laage settled in Seattle and founded Dappin’ Butoh in 1990, which she directed until 2001. She is a co-founder of DAIPANbutoh Collective, which produces an annual Butoh festival. Joan performed at the Santiago, New York, Chicago, Portland, Boulder, Seattle, Amsterdam, Warsaw, and Paris Butoh festivals, and a Butoh symposium at the University of California (LA). A Ph.D. in Dance & Related Arts from Texas Woman’s University, who wrote on the significance of the body in Butoh, and a Certified Movement Analyst, she is featured in Sondra Fraleigh’s books – Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan and Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy. Joan is also featured in Butoh America written by Tanya Calamoneri, released in August 2021, and is quoted in Vangeline’s recent publication, Butoh: Cradling Empty Space. She creates site-specific work for Seattle Japanese gardens annually and tours every winter/spring in Europe where she teaches and performs and continues studying under Atsushi Takenouchi. She is an avid Tai Chi practitioner with a background in traditional Asian dance/theater and a professional gardener. Since living in Krakow from 2004–2006, she has been known as Kogut (rooster). www.seattlebutoh-laage.com

Butoh Curious Chi started as a passionate attempt to make something more collectively and experientially gathering, with specific regard and respect for the tradition of Butoh. This persistence to train in the modality and to raise awareness of the art and philosophy of Butoh created a space to begin a works-in-progress arts organization. We have entered our twelfth year of programming, all with Sensei (Master) led workshops and performance exchange at the root. We attempt to renegotiate terms of exchange not based on hierarchies or normative behavior, but with tenable respect for a culture of inclusivity, of all nations, creeds, and genders. Through montly classes and ongoing opportunities for training, performance, and collaborations, we open our arms to the community of outsider artists and immigrant peoples, for we are outsiders ourselves.

One by one, we made a triptych of "post-butoh" festivals: Spawned Seeds April 2014, SS2 in April 2015, and SS3: Battles in April 2017; a Non-Festival in 2019; three years of online programming from 2020 to 2023; and the production and organization of many happenings in-between and since, including Yelling at the Dark and ten episodes of Hot Mess! at Elastic Arts Foundation. In 2024-5 we hosted Tadashi Endo, Joan Laage, and Min Yoon with workshops and student performances in AIRMW, Links Hall, and Movement on Montrose. Butoh Lovers Showcase was presented last year for two nights at Dovetail Studios, hosting artists from Atlanta, Washington, Oregon, and Baltimore, including many infamous locals as well. Always inclusive of Butoh Master and Butoh Curious artists alike, from here, there, and around the globe. www.butohcuriouschi.com

Art is deeply personal, and art is better when we make it together. BUT how do we work together in a healthy, productive, collaborative way? Conflict is natural, human, and it’s going to come up. This class aims to guide you toward creating a healthy, safe and fun collaborative environment by grounding the creative process in intention. Throughout this class, we will work on building ensemble, creating an intention to work from, and collective creation. You will put your intentions into practice by creating a collective piece to present during the last session.

This class will involve movement and contact improv. 

Art is deeply personal, and art is better when we make it together. BUT how do we work together in a healthy, productive, collaborative way? Conflict is natural, human, and it’s going to come up. This class aims to guide you toward creating a healthy, safe and fun collaborative environment by grounding the creative process in intention. Throughout this class, we will work on building ensemble, creating an intention to work from, and collective creation. You will put your intentions into practice by creating a collective piece to present during the last session.

This class will involve movement and contact improv. 

Embark on a transformative journey of peace and enlightenment through the power of Shamanic Family Constellations.

Art is deeply personal, and art is better when we make it together. BUT how do we work together in a healthy, productive, collaborative way? Conflict is natural, human, and it’s going to come up. This class aims to guide you toward creating a healthy, safe and fun collaborative environment by grounding the creative process in intention. Throughout this class, we will work on building ensemble, creating an intention to work from, and collective creation. You will put your intentions into practice by creating a collective piece to present during the last session.

This class will involve movement and contact improv. 

Art is deeply personal, and art is better when we make it together. BUT how do we work together in a healthy, productive, collaborative way? Conflict is natural, human, and it’s going to come up. This class aims to guide you toward creating a healthy, safe and fun collaborative environment by grounding the creative process in intention. Throughout this class, we will work on building ensemble, creating an intention to work from, and collective creation. You will put your intentions into practice by creating a collective piece to present during the last session.

This class will involve movement and contact improv. 

Embark on a transformative journey of peace and enlightenment through the power of Shamanic Family Constellations.

Individual Issues will be put on the field to be seen and find a resolution thru the ancestral morphogenetic field created in the space. Very unexplained but true connections with all participants will happen. Just come with an open mind and heart.

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