A Place Between at Portsfest 2023

The Rituals for Earthly Survival project started with a one-day introduction to Butoh event, A Place Between, at Portsfest 2023. We invited dance artist and movement educator Yumino Seki to run a taster workshop in the morning and then to give her own performance with live sound by Portsmouth-based sonic artist Rusty Sheriff, followed by a Q&A in the afternoon.

A Place Between: Everything you need to know about Japanese Butoh ran on Saturday 1st July in the Lens Studio Theatre at Portsmouth Guildhall. Intended as a collaboration with Yumino Seki the aim was to give people in the city to experience Butoh as artists and as audiences. Butoh is a form of avant-garde dance which emerged from the post-war chaos in Japan in the late 50s when the country was grappled with the clash between new Western technology and traditional Japanese values.  Butoh was called ‘the dance of darkness’.  Influenced by German Expressionism, self-identity was radically explored with culturally diverse concepts through bodily expression. 

The workshop was well attended and the participants explored a different way of moving. Yumino described to me the process of becoming still and listening within for the movement to emerge. She explained that sometimes it feels as though you have to ‘kill the body to find the movement within’. It felt like the workshop was highly valued as an experience by those who took part. We asked those participating to write their thoughts on post-it notes after the session, and this is what they said:

Connection, grace, respect, accessing the past, the body as empty vessel, exchanging with the world, presence, awareness, identity, beautiful, enlightening, nurturing, trust building.

Workshop participant

All of those taking part in the workshop plus others attended the performance which was a rather astonishing experience. The performance was extremely powerful and initiated a strong emotional response in the audience. An improvised collaboration between Butoh artist Yumino Seki and Portsmouth based sonic artist Rusty Sheriff they took us on a journey into our own experiences of memory, place and personal history. Though not one of the original intentions of the project, we did in fact end up commissioning and staging a completely new piece of work and initiated a new collaboration between the artists, a powerful outcome.

Overall, this was a very positive experience. The event was always intended as a trigger for a much longer project, Rituals for Earthly Survival that we aim to deliver in November 2024 as part of We Shine. In relation to the long-term project aims the event achieved the following goals: introduced Butoh to the city; built a relationship between Yumino Seki, the city and artists; served as a trigger for potential project partners.

The Q&A followed and was hosted by Dr Roy Hanney who explored some of the history and context to Butoh as a distinctly Japanese art form. If you would like to listen to the Q& you can access the full recording here via the Prrrk Industries Bandcamp.