Yumikosan's workshop/Skaters part 2 &Sonic Tales thankyou performance

I finally finished the Butoh intensive workshop in Portland Oregon.  Yumiko Yoshioka, one of my first Butoh teacher, was teaching and leading us students to choreography performance at the very end for a public.She is an amazing performer in her 50s and I have taken quite a number of intensive studies with her over the years and in the states and in Berlin in the past.She has taught me the playfulness and ability to transform into so many beings; a witch, a clown, a demon, an amoeba, a insect to reptile., a maiden who lost her mind. a flower covered in ice shards. She taught the basics of Butoh which I appreciated in revisiting The Noguchi gymnastics with images ..She was extremely grascious and kind to give me extra lessons in her free time.. she kept cooking and sharing  japanese home cooking with me which made me almost cry.We also got EXTREMELY DRUNK.I very much enjoy her own work that she is her own strong artist apart from what is considered a traditional butoh.She was a member of Ariadonne, the first Female butoh troup lead by legendary Carlotta Ikeda.Now she has her own strong troupe called Tenpenchii, and I love how her work with her partner Joachim has been about humanbeing and technology pushed to the limits.My Butoh teachers who I revisit again and again  for their tuteledge has been the people who found an unique language of their own artistry, and also vision.. ( this is important for me to see in a teacher ) and their own artistic professional path that utilizes and pays homage to the Butoh that once was... Their traditoinal training... ROCK SOLID under their belts. As they age, their work only seems to ripen and get stronger. ... Shinichi- Iova -Koga, Yuko Kaseki, Minako Seki. and ofcourse Yumiko..these are my teachers I seem to keep going back to.
.I went out for another training a couple days ago in Seattle,on the 34th and Evanston.. when the sun was shining so warm and bright, not like today, windy and violently rainy.
Last Friday I danced an offering for a small and intimate crowd of our supporters and friends.. a thankyou party for the SONIC TALES and friends. A little bit  of " RED SHOES" was with me, I felt it.the audience were our friends.. their energy so warm and loving. My next project is slowly taking is shape... the re- imagining a story of the original story of the redshoes... One of my collaborators  is Dohee Lee, an artist originally from Korea, a Kyunggi shaman musician/dancer and a percussionist.She has a heart wrenchingly soulful voice that has enormous range and versatility.She is also a dear friend who I hold close to my heart....The rest of the team is Jherek Bischoff, a former Degenerate Art Ensemble member, he has an extremely unique taste in music and  is an orchestral composer who has a quirky and beautiful singing voice, also his own strong vision. Leo Mayberry, also a Degenerate member, a video artist who also has a strong vision and unstinchingly daring perspective creatively is joining me as well as Joshua Kohl,.. his beautiful , ever evolving/exciting compositions and openness to anything new summarizes this incredible potential group and project to come. I am simply terrified...
The photos in this page is from Sunday morning..early.. morning again.. a skater photo shoot with Rex ( the photographer who has been taking the pictures in this research phase of Redshoe Butoh diary).I approached to thank Max, one of the skater in the photo, right before the shoot and he walked away while I tried to talk, in the middle of me talking.He cancelled on me before, and did not show up before that.However,I felt that this guy was trying his best to contribute, I sensed this energy. I sensed an incredible kindness from the other skater Josh, who frequently skated with me.My soul, was however  too worn out from the performance and from the trainings from the night before and all the intensive trainings previously... I think this will be my last adventure here at the Marginal Skate Park gang. I think I am getting more and more clear what I would like to do next and where and how in the adventures I want to take it to. Still,I will cherish these experiences and bring them with me :)

The Mall; Westlake Center

Today was an active day...!( Sunday) I danced in front of the Westlake mall... where Christian evangelists of  all kinds were ranting, the home less youths were hanging out, the shoppers and perhaps tourists.. just all kinds of people comming from diffrent direction, walking around. As I started, pretty much immediately, the youths came charging at me, from across the fountain park, and asked" can we dance with you, please?" and I was shocked and excited, "SURE!" I said, and all of a sudden there was more than one, two, and then three, four started dancing with me, and they even started the"wave" holding hands, and I danced weaving among the arms in and out. I was overwhelmed how positive and welcomming they were, with big smiles, and huge enthusiasm. When Rex lifted the camera towards them, they got so excited! One of the boy and I danced a sweet duet.

Rex Hohlbein, was shooting with his camera to take these photos of the youths who danced with me......

There was some cute group of shopping girls who were watching for a while got a courage to take photos and ran over next to me so I posed... and then more people taking photos, couple of old ladies staring intensely, I saw some family with little kids stopping and watching intrigued.Someone hiding in the bushes video taping  too.... all kinds, all kinds of people stopping, smiling,gawking, and looking confused, too! The youths that danced with me thanked me so sweetly I was stunned and confused myself. Something blurrted out of my mouth because I thought I must say something to respond, and I acidentally bit my tongue..( I was still dancing, feeling  all of a sudden nervous and shy ,I looked over to Rex who has stood pretty far away, trying so hard not to be in the way of the interactions, he was grinning VERY BIG.Joshua came this time too, I can see him in the corner of my eye..and has gave me moral support, it was so nice:) I saw an intense man walk  slowly by, also homeless, he even stopped to stare. The guards who wore bright yellow ( my friend Colin calls them copsycles because they are on bikes) came over, and ofcourse first I tensed up ready to be warned or to be yelled at, but they seem to be so caring and gentle, I couldnt tell what they were saying to the homeless folks, but later Joshua told me that they even knew every single person's name and they seem to all know each other and were almost councelling them... One of the guard in a dark uniform walked over to me and kindly told me that the police would not give me hell if I stayed in a certain area.While I was dancing, Rex seemed to made many friends with the community down here! He has such a warm and welcomming energy, and always give encouraging words,always seemd to give everyone an equal respect. he was telling the youths that he will bring the photos next sunday and meet them, perhaps to do a session with them also. I later went to the movement jam at the Velocity Dance Center.I got to dance with some new people there...ofcourse it felt surreal to be there after the earlier encounters....but I felt encouraged , got more courage to ask people to dance with me there.Ok, thankyou for today....everyone, everyone.