Body as an Empty Vessel

This was a workshop by Butoh artist Yukio Waguri. Workshop description: The body is like an empty vessel. Dancers transform their bodies into various elements: mist, clay, flowers or animals. Often butoh’s images seem poetic and abstract; but through this workshop we discover that the images are effective tools to pull out senses or memories carved in the body. Through exercises based on original butoh texts and visual images drawn from artwork, we concentrate on expanding our own self-expression and becoming an empty vessel for an ever-changing flow of elements.

The first New York Butoh Festival was a festival celebrating the origins and the international evolution of this vital form. Butoh dance emerged in post-World War II Japan and has become a worldwide movement influencing artists in many disciplines. This festival presented emerging artists and established masters from Japan, Europe and the Eastern and Western coasts of the U.S. The New York Butoh Festival served as an East Coast hub for a growing regional and international network of butoh performers and audiences, and was presented by CAVE Organization, the oldest existing experimental art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Since its conception in 1996 as an artists-in-residence, gallery and performance space, the CAVE has confronted the complex challenges and possibilities of the urban landscape.

The New York Butoh Festival reflects the organization’s intention to attract, provoke and support exploration, generative confrontation and collaboration among artists and audiences from diverse disciplines and cultures. This festival was created through donated work, and we are grateful to the performers, staff and volunteers who have made it possible.