blushing poppy & Links Hall present:

Diego Piñon - Butoh Ritual Mexicano Summer Training Chicago JUNE  1, 2012

Early Bird Specials 

Open Class/ June 10^th, Sun. 2-5pm/ $22* new students only!

Week Intensive/ June 11^th-15^th, Mon.-Fri. 10am-4pm/ $300*

Weekend Workshop/ June 16^th-17^th, Sat. 10am-2pm + Sun. 2-5pm/ $75*

Open to everyone. No previous butoh training required. No refunds.

*paid in full by June 1, otherwise $30 Open Class, $350 Week Intensive, & $90 Weekend Workshop

Students are asked to bring a notebook + writing implement, water, snacks, and towel (it will be sweaty!). Please wear clothes that allow freedom of movement and keep you warm/cool as needed throughout the class. The work is done in bare feet.

Butoh Ritual Mexicano (BRM) challenges us to awaken and explore all human qualities ranging from the subtle to the outrageous: the beautiful and the ugly, the feminine and the masculine, the spiritual and the mundane. BRM seeks the emergence of the deeper self, to touch if only for a moment, the inexplicable matter of the human soul. Through this process of transforming our daily life through the transformation of our dance, we can offer more creative energy to our community.

Butoh Ritual Mexicano Trainings are both emotionally intense and physically challenging. Techniques that stimulate, expand and recapture energy from the body through the senses are used. The body is trained to awaken these sensitivities and vital energies in order to transform the limitations perceived in ourselves. A key foundation to the training is how it consciously uses a collective group experience to engage and expand this energy beyond the individual. It is from this enhanced opening that the creative and artistic work can begin to emerge. BRM proposes methods that stimulate sensory sensitivity, the imagination, and creativity to support the deep expression of each individual through movement.

Butoh Ritual Mexicano Training involves high-impact aerobic movement, active meditation, and guided improvisation; all embraced within a sense of communal ritual. The collective physical training consists of stretching, shaking, jumping, low-level groundwork, balancing, partnering, weight sharing, impulse exchange, bodywork, bioenergetics, breath expansion, and transpersonal communication. Training for the spine, joints, and internal body spaces—our energetic centers—through focused breathing are used to regenerate and expand the currents of energetic exchange between our internal and external realities. Active meditation exercises are introduced to quiet the mind and awaken original, non-reactive impulses for organic movement. Guided improvisations then give participants the opportunity to integrate this newfound sensory awareness within their physical body, external environments, and the collective presence to reach new realms of creative potential.

Diego PiñonButoh Ritual Mexicano: www.butohritualmexicano.net

Since a child, Diego Piñón (1957), has been profoundly impacted by the indigenous dances and rituals of Mexico. But even so it was clear that he was not fully a part of this culture. From the small town and countryside of Tlalpujahua to the urban metropolis of Mexico City he has been confronting the duality of his culture, his existence and his times. From this place emerged the impulse—the necessity—to find a new path of expression. From the beginning, the key to this path has been the relentless search for the essence of art as the last refuge to our humanity.

Diego Piñon’s Butoh Ritual Mexicano is the distillation of his extensive research in body-based energy methodologies since 1975. BRM is primarily derived from Diego’s Mexican heritage with traditional energetic practices and Japanese butoh under the guidance of Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, Min Tanaka, Natsu Nakajima, among others. Diego’s extensive artistic research includes modern dance technique, contemporary movement and theater practice, and therapeutic body modalities. He performs and teaches throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Mexico using Butoh Ritual Mexicano as a means to transform personal and collective divisions through the dancing body and to cultivate a deeper connection to our shared humanity.