Redshoes WANTS TO DANCE from park to park to park.

This morning I went to the Occidental park.There were many people trafficking today because I came a little later than usual.I worked immediately with water-body- bag image with Jelly fishes floating around under my skin. I am following my jelly fishes, playing and busy in my condition including the face.Yes, its the weirdest excersize. They are tiny, these jelly fishes, moving agianst the walls of my skin, in the membraines of my face, of my chest... they can travel through down to my toes, through my knees, it pushes against my skin, and some times floats. The jelly fish is the only reason I am moving.This is one of the tool for Butoh, my friends Yuko Kaseki & Shinichi Koga taught long time ago in their workshop.The movements ends up quite small, and to keep it soft, is challenging. But also its not just about the body awareness, I also must use the space, the travelling..to be constantly seeing the surroundings. I can choose to be still...or constantly moving..diffrent speeds playing with my imagnation of diffrent sizes and quantity, the quality of the Jelly fishes movements... or I can stay to choose in one thing for a long time.. or I can surprize my self by adding more element of images on top. I also practiced the projection in space with all this.. This subtle and very concentrated movements always made me so cold that i had to go into the image -play of "Someone abruptly pulls my arm or grabs my hip and twists it un expectedly" game.It looks like you are a ragdoll being yanked around quite violently and uncontrollablly spasdic from the outside.One of the people who was watching me dance for a while started to speak.There was first one guy who started asking normal questions : " What are you doing? What IS THAT??" to, " Is that some form of MARTIAL ARTS?" and eventually introducing himself. This is, again while I am dancing.. so I POLITELY answered the questions, while still trying to maintain some what of a Jelly fish dance. Suddenly, there were two men, as I turned around, and he started to ask exact same questions (!) and then the other guy asks:" Do you know KARATE?" I answered, " no." and then he said " I DO." I said, " wow thats great." he said " I KNOW EVERYTHING". I opened my mouth that just hung open "......................" For a second or two, I suspected that there was a BAR across from where I was dancing.. oh yes, drinking...wow goodness this early...

he said " Hey CAN I HAVE YOUR NUMBER?" and then the other guy who looked like a side kick who generally said similar rantings made me snap and I said," I'M VERY SORRY BUT I ONLY HAVE 45MINUTES MORE I GET TO USE THIS SPACE, SO I NEED TO DANCE PLEASE"and continued on... where was I.. YES, then I worked with water splashing images which is from Noguchi Gymnastics.The Butoh artists I worked with, they always incorporated heavily on Michizo Noguchi's work. His tools was working with images to help our body to understand Gravity not in the left brain knowlege way only, but very unusually in the sensory and observing and physics and natural phenomenon such as how the water flows, or the fabric in the wind, or the way the body releases to the floor like a sensation of an elevatordropping to go to another floor, incorporating all of this in our body, working and listening to how we organize the muscles, the bones, etc.And all of that without using excess or unnessessary muscles- in other words, to be very efficient and also research what the body can move so beautifully. I worked on the images like this over and over until I got delerious.I also started on the contacts of diffrent parts of the feet.This gets you moving constantly and imediately warm.

There was a new musician setting up for the free live music open mic in the public square, and I took a break to listen. It was ........ X-MAS smoothie jazz music cocktail.. as I tried to leave, a bartender from across the square came out with apron on, and asked me if I was hungry, and wanted HOT SOUP. I said " sure! thankyou so much"and looked up at him with NIAGARA FALL watering red nose and frozen hands. I followed him in the bar and he and his friend was nice, they said they went bar hopping the night before and was not feeling very well this morning. After few converstaions about dance and where I dance etc., he wrote his number and contact down and yells at me, " CALL ME, ok? " " ???????? " I said " why?" and I left the bar and tossed the number in the garbage can. I must say, the Occidental park has many adventures, some like this one, but they dp see you, pay attention to you in different ways..even the tourists.. where in the suburb parks, I noticed that some would try VERY HARD to not to notice you.I noticed that. After this session, I changed location and went to train at the Fremont Canal park, directly under the Aurora bridge.I Worked on isolation points.I kept moving my location to where the sun light would hit.I noticed there was a person high above on the mast of the yacht far away on the water.I also saw some people watching me train from some kind of tower building close by, through the blinds, I can see their sillouette.Some friendly joggers smiled while I was training.Many not. Many mother with baby stroller walked by, I can see peripherally. hmm.. this training movements in particular are such subtle and tedious and long that Rex would definitely get bored trying to photograph this! I thought this, and then I took a break.I hope I dont run out of his photos to blog soon! yaay I made it through today, thankyou.

Kids and Dads and Moms and I at Kerry Park

I was supposed to take 3 buses to get to this park but instead I walked a WHOLE LOT and some hills to get to this wonderful City View park on Queen Anne hill. The Photo however on this blog is not the same park photo.It was another frosty adventure with my hands getting stiff but I felt comforted by the childrens laughter and roars and Mothers and Fathers were all out too.Is this the time of year, they are ALL OUT THERE?TOGETHER? It was strange and lovely sight becuase you dont see them all there so frequented. (! )
I heard all the kids conversations as I danced, I must have put myself in the perfect audio-acoustic space in the whole park where it was STEREO.I gently absorbed in their conversations and calling outs to each other as I moved.They said some mean things to each other.And very cute things too.One of the DAd was getting very excited with his Boy kids playing the basket ball shoots and forgot about the tiny little girl.She was saying things that when a person feel betrayed.Today I felt slightly worn out and for some reason,self-conscious when a little child was staring... So much that I started to make my dance PG and PG-13 and not so scary or freaky as normal people say when they see Butoh... at some point I even pretended to be practicing chi-gong and actually REALLY started to practice CHi-gong, and I had to SNAP MY SELF OUT.It was a strange day.. I feel the frozen stiff back muscles, and my right knee getting to me a little bit.People above the park was snapping a lot of photos of the view and I can even hear their conversations Stereo.I had fun once I started to get in the element :) The day was also nice because the sun was out.I am looking forward to the NEw YEars.. and I want to get back to my Aikido classes in Janurary that I started with the combination of my trainings in the mornings.. There are so much I would like to do..!!! Thankyou for today. Hiyaaaaaaaah! ( invisible kick in the cold crisp air )

December 23rd until now which is the 28th

I just came back from the training in Fremont Canal park.The sun is so warm and soft but my hands got numb and stiff.Goodness, to keep up with a blog is very challenging.One of my hero and neurologist Kenichiro Mogi does this every morning the minute he wakes up in the morning,he plugs the chord from his personal computer and start writing his "Qualia Journal"right at his bedside!He writes about his things from previous day in the next morning.He writes down the things he had experienced, the people he met, and many ideas that crossed his mind from the day before.He claims that while you are asleep, the brain processes unconsciously and organizes it that by the time you wakeup in the morning, your experiences feel much more ripened when you woke up in the morning. (!) I like the fact that he writes his blog as a "experience" output as putting preserving purpose and clear "meaning "to what he had done, a tangible data. Today, I worked with pREcariOUs bALaNce, and stretching the body parts as far out as possible.precaious balance very very difficult. It is quite irritating and interesting to see how the body wants to protect so instantly to not freely fall to the edge.Over and over, the body will try to organize immediately a pattern or habit for the easier, safer way... I remember practicing in a riverwater back in August, and it was the practice of upper body being the edge of balance and the lower body is stabilized walking in the water up till the hip.it felt impossible becuase as soon as I fall, the lower body has no weight , grasp or stabilization becuase of the moving water, and when I fell, I REALLY FELL, my legs up in the air,splashing and swallowing tons of water, over and over again. In that way, I felt that was more sincere to the body's experience of being Off- balance..
The STRETCHING THE BODY in torture style- to the maximum limit ( it ended up that way...its hard to breathe, maintaining the balance, and the face starts grimacing unless you start smiling insanely, and then the endorphins KICK In!! and you can go much much more further.. and even beyond.. its a fight with the lazy and easy-going mind that wants to give in and say " nice! ok, thats enough " I wanted to go beyond this person, Haruko with ego....judging or whining or doubting or getting bored in the head!
OK! going back in time the 23rd I went to the Occidental park again to dance.The theme for me that training was "hanging body " and the "haramu" body, the body that can pregnate images, again from the tanden.This time something airy, smoky, or fog, soft movements utilizing the connections from the earth and loosening of the imaginary strings on the head and the limbs.It felt the time slow down so much that I noticed the details of the environment.Sometimes I must be aware that so I do not slipp into the inner sensation too only that it becomes the "oogi-yummi- man" which becomes completely unaware of the surroundings, and where you are in the condition of the image you assigned for your body, and just" I feel good dance", its a lonely, seem like a private thing to watch from the outside.... That day, I went across the street to the Elliot Bay Book store and researched through some black and white photograph books and to my surprize, I found one of the rarest book,Eikoh Hosoe's photography book of Hijikata,"KAMAITCHI" . Its strange I was looking for it for years, and then forgotten, and then lost interest, and then desired it again recently, and here it was, buried in the photography section, seemingly forgottened,I was shocked and excited that I immediately had the book on hold.. strange that when your mind is on a one track focus, you can find even the seemingly impossible things right away.....!! This day, the musician was a bit pushy while I was focused on my training and was talking to me, that I snapped finally, and I surprized myself.I have been experiencing some homeless people commenting, murmuring, watching, and cussing even,yelling, and encouraging me too, which I enjoy.. but this person was NOT interested in my dance....
The next training day was the 25th!!! at the 3rd Ave NW park , across the street from OH NO MR BILLS park. The X-mas day..! There were many people out in the park, playing ball games and frisbee. I felt very very very cold for doing too subtle movements so I thrashed around!Jumped and hopeed around and it was surprizingly a difficult to focus day....! Rex has not been with me for the photps the last couple of sessions, and I miss him. He got too busy from his work, and we spoke of maybe working together in a skating rink next year, through his nephew's hanging ground.I feel grateful for the sun..! my health,my friends, Rex, the people who commented on the facebooks, and my health, my supportive husband Joshua!!! I will keep going and going to my December challenge..! Love, hARuKO

December 22nd Accidental/ Occidental park

This morning I went to the Occidental Park in Pioneer Square to train. Another cold winter day, I was oblivious to how close we are all to CHRISTMAS.I was reading the insane book of Kazuo Ohno's training words on the bus... one of the the Butoh dance originators..I know most people are big fan of him rather than the grizzly and perversive repulsive Hijikata. Ohno is seemed to be more considered the "light" if Hijikata is "darkness" and I have always very much felt intuitively and instinctively ( or chemically?) connected with Hijikata in the creative aspect each time I read about him, or seen him in the videos.I remember stepping into Kazuo Ohno's studio in Japan... the students from all over the world was there...some of them tears streaming down there eyes as they watched him speak and dance. He is so beautiful.He is too beautiful for me.But I opened his book again, and read: " Try dancing until your joints might come off.Otherwise, there is no possibilities in your dance.With your whole body, dance like that always." and I got excited :)
This here picture, is Rex Hohlbein's picture, he has been comming to the 5days a week training session in the morning with me for a while, and took these magical pictures!
Today, I met a musician (!) who asked me to dance while he played at noon, so I came to see what kind of music he was playing at the Occidental park, and realized it was some very SERIOUS STRUMMING..including songs as.." she is a wild thing..." Strum, strum, jyanga jyang, jyang,..!!!! its very hard to explain...its a kind of cheesy , very literal awkward thing to dance as a perforamance to... ETC.ETC. I am usually too engrained to be polite, and I was planning to sneak off,until he put me ON THE SPOT with a loud amplified MICROPHONE pointing at me, " SO, ARE YOU GOING TO DANCE?" so..i try to scuttle like an artsy bug or a cockroach, or tried to point like a mime to show" my back.. is ..yes, ah..hurting..so," but he coninued on enthusaitically" How about some HOLIDAY SONGS?!" so I picked myself up and danced to one of his songs...! "HOW ABOUT ANOTHER ONE?!!!" and thats when I did scuttle off backwards with a smile.......

redshoes and suicide December 21st

This day, someone jumped off the Aurora Bridge..as I was rushing to the nearby canal park to train...the police cars were blocking the roads and told me what has just happened..I danced and looking up at the gigantic bridge, the exploration dance of half-becomming and half-being, my head was affected by some darkness and ominous feelings.... The fully committed dance got lost in its internal head journey.So I let myself receiving quietly inside whatever was comming through me.This was some moments where I truly wished that the magical powers of the redshoes like in the Hans Christian Andersen story to take over, as if possessed, and just madly dance.So I also went for it.I kept feeling the coldness, the chill, everytime I slowed down...
So..the dance trainings in the parks were all taken photos by Rex Hohlbein, the one on the left is at the St.Ignatius in the cold day when the pond was completely frozen ( ICe skate-able! ) and the one below here is the 3rd Avenue NW and Leary Way park, again, in the drizzly rain.


the color one is at the Olympic Sculpture Park, and these sculptures remind me of tall tall industrial ships, exactly like the ones from this cartoon film, "triplets of Bellville"......





The photo if me looking like a creepy irritated child-adult-man is the one I am leaning on the NOguchi sculpture at the Volunteer park on the right!

The one that I look like I am laughing and lying down on an organic rock, that is the pond completely frozen in front of the St.Ignatius church. It was a sunny and painfully cold morning.But I remember being very encouraged and in awe of the extremely enthusiatic and rawdy construction workers near by the Resevoir park up near Pine st on Capitol hill.While I was dancing, they were singing, joking, hollering, laughing, and I remember how cold that morning was too... and then ofcourse the crows... they are everywhere... also seagulls near the canal.. I have been receiving so many inspirations from these trainings outdoors.Sonically, spiritually, emotionally, spatially, and projection :)

december 18-teaching day

The morning of December 18th was the only day I trained indoors, and just focused on slow movements with breathing and finding diffrent "states " of mind and listening to body.I also practicied to be in the body that is impregnated with many possibilities of images initiated from the tanden, or what you call from the center.I was also trying to find materials to able to give students tools to explore in many diffrent ways, a prepartion for the 4 hour class that evening. The day was wet and drizzly, but I felt strongly to wanted to move with the students in the dark outdoors environment, in the night, in the drizzly and mirky rain.And also very much in silence when we would be outdoors that night.So I walked around the two parks near the Prefontaine street before class (near Pioneer Square Tashiro Kaplan building, where my workshop through DAIPAN was going to be from 5pm ) one is the Occidental park, and two, a grassy park on corner of 3rd Avenue and Yesler way.... The Occidental was where I practiced training before, but this time, becuase it was early evening hours, the information box was closed, and upon asking the two older gentlemen that was sitting right next to the booth box told me to go talk to the Chief.I went to go talk to the chief man and he said, "ofcourse its Ok after hours" I felt happy and went my way to the class.
For this class,it turned out that I ended up teaching about 20 % of what I prepared for today, we ended up going to the park not on the Occidental, but on the one in Yesler... and I also learned something from one of my students that day, she has Cerebral palsy and she was in a wheel chair, I learned
a little bit about her, her focus and will power, and what she wants to try, and what she is determined to do.I also learned a little bit about the disease.We danced together, we also all danced with each other.The Sweat made me feel happy.Great thanks to Sheri Brown for always organizing the workshop, and Rex for taking these pictures for documentation.

adventures with cold mornings and Rex

This is the December of 17th, thursday and Rex clicked away all these photographs, its been my tenth session so far.Today we were under the incredible view of the aurora village that is over the lake Union, and it was one of the warmer winter mornings! This here, the picture of the toilet paper in my nose dancing, was one of the painfullest coldest mornings shot by the Fremont canal in bewteen the Adobe office buildings. Rex has used his architectural eye and also playfulness ( he is an architect! ) and continued clicking even when his hands were numb with cold, and my nose wouldnt stop running and running and so I danced with it for a while. I cannot seem to put the pictures elegantly ( Sorry Rex..! ) on this blog without the ugly white spaces...I think I will get the hang of it gradually... so the photo continues below!!
I have so far danced at the Downtown Olympic Sculptural park, in front of the beautiful St. Ignatius church in the Seattle University campus, the Lincoln Reservoir park next to the Velocity Dance Center,In front of the Asian Art Museum, and Occidental Park in Pioneer Square among other places... If anyone out there have more ideas, I would LOVE to get suggestions. For Rex, it would be great if the places have interesting light and design-space possibilities too.I am learning from him about all these things, the design and architechtural perspectives, the lights, shadows, shapes in the black and white photographs. I am very honored!!! The day he could not come was the Occidental park one, which day was it... yes, the 16th...! It was such pouring rain, I splashed from puddle to puddle, my eye makeup was running into my eye and could not see very well. But the sound of the drumming rain, and numbness of cold let me slipped into a state of very clear, pin-drop awareness and I wasin a place my tramatic self was silenced.It was a brief moment but how LOVELY it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had another joyful moment today when I was under the aurora bridge dancing, and my body memories from my movement brought feelings of pain/suffreing and a sense of release and somethinglike acceptance at the same time,again, a brief moments of this journey rushed by.
Thankyou Rex, for today, and thankyou friends, for some comments already! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

My first blog entry

This is my first time starting to blogging about what I do daily, and this winter I decided to start again on a Train-in-the park routine for my Butoh dance practice. I usually practice in a studio, but I ALSO USUALLY PRACTICE IN THE BEAUTIFUL OUTDOORS when I am broke after a big show...and etc. One day I was outside at the Fremont Canal, I met this crazy( sorry, I mean, wonderful )photographer Rex Hohlbein ( which is around December 5th ) while I was training wildly, and I think he seemd to snucked up to me or as if leaped out of no where and clicked some photos with a camera stuck to his face.
He told me later he has thought I was having a seizure or some kind of physical trouble and got worried and came over.But it made me laugh to hear that he brought his CAMERA. That was day one, and he said he would follow me to each morning of my training, and although I appreciated , I was skeptical since I had some funny people express wonderful passionate things like that to sound hardcore, but they never showed up for the deed but
to an amazing surprize, he came the next training... !!!
Monday





This was on Capitol Hill at Lincoln Reservoir park
FREEEZING COLD,













and then ...Tuesday
COLD but SUNNY


















wednesday.... cold FReezing and freezer-sculpture of Noguchi I am leaning on here..
thursday, friday, etc. I will add those photos soon.His photos are so amazing!!! I will go to sleep now.-Haruko