Fridays 7.00-9.00 pm
East Oxford Community Centre (upstairs)
Princes Street
OX4 1DD

Curiosity (and a sense of wonder) is at the heart of butoh. Butoh practice is for those who want to rediscover their bodies and find new ways to inhabit their physical presence, both in performance and in everyday life.

Café Reason offers weekly open classes. These sessions are suitable for all body types, ages, and levels of skill; no previous experience is necessary. We also welcome dance and performing art practitioners, as well as visual artists, and musicians. Classes are often accompanied by live music, usually provided by Malcolm Atkins. (Malcolm has recorded his music from some recent Cafe Reason classes and uploaded it here.)

Participants will explore techniques and exercises to enhance their sensory awareness, stage presence, improvisation skills, and body–mind focus, as well as developing physical strength, control, and flexibility.

New for 2013, we are offering a series of themed classes (see Diary) led by a variety of teachers, all with extensive experience in practising and performing butoh, and their own unique approaches to butoh training.

From June:

Butoh - an art of contrasts

Building on our previous term's work on the senses, we will explore the concept of 'contrast' and the central opposing/complementary butoh themes of darkness and light. There will be opportunity to engage with a variety of physical and emotional contrasts: weight/weightlessness, motion/stillness, sound/silence, tension/release, gradual/sudden, rigid/fluid, visible/invisible, seeing/blind, bound/free, sky/earth, and so on. These ideas will structure our ongoing development of technique and physical experience, as well as provide a focus for our forays into the unknown.

Classes cost £8 for a single session or can be paid in advance in blocks of 3 (£21).

Any class cancellations will be marked prominently on the diary page but these are very rare. We usually take a short break for Christmas and New Year, but otherwise they run throughout the year.

For more information contact Ana Barbour.