Improv Maureen Freehill dAY One/April 13th

This day, I went to go meet with the Butoh dancer I have been hearing about in the Northwest for a while, for years, who I never could quite got in touch because of the circumstances.  Recently,I saw the chance! I have leaned OVER THE SNACK TABLE when I finally saw her at the Dance Art Groups'http://www.danceartgroup.org/ annual Benefit SFADI's hot diggidy DAG , (where I finished performing with Christian Swenson http://www.humanjazz.com/ the human jazz improvisation artist) and asked if she would be able to dance with me.She is Maureen Freehill ( or Momo)one of the original people who danced in the Seattle's Dappin Butoh and has her own company : Momo Butoh Dance Company.She lives in the Whidbey Island, where she daily trains as well. This day  I asked her,She had a cowboy hat on, I think, and always had a free spirit twinkle power in her eyes and steps.I had a huge food mass stuffed in my face,my eyes rattling around black and white from release from the nervousness and hunger after the performance.She SEEMED SUCH AN IMMEDIATE and LIVELY person, already dancing across the snack table.

We walked into the Discovery Park, and I felt I was slowly shifting into a world, a realm of the senses and playfulness while I followed curiously in the trails after Maureen, while she introduced many things to me, spoke and spoke of  her approach and philosophy to her way of the  Butoh, her teachings, and her love, and inspirations in the woods. She continiously picked wild plants for us to eat, it started to feel like we were in a HUGE WILDERNESS SALAD BOWL after a while, because she kept finding some edible plants, and kept sharing them with me to eat.She showed me the diffrences of the Cedar tree leaves, the pine, and the Fir tree.She pointed to a bulbous crazy trunk tree ( I love it !) I think was called siccamore.It looked like a texture of swamp mudd dried out, and is bulging out like fat bubbles. (!) We saw the smooth skinned madrona tree, and one of my favorite root vegetable GOBO (burdock root) growing wild, that she pointed out for me.I asked carelessly if we could pull them up and see the root, but  did you know, that the root is SO  LONG that you would have to dig couple of feets down? GOODNESS. I got sucked into immediately the ease of just totally BEING, with her,slipping into many diffrent inner states, like a relaxed mind of children. She seemed so air-born NATURAL (?) to this state.I sensed her joy, her love to the dance, her love to the mentor Kazuo Ohno,her philosophy, and it seemed to be manifested very much through her expression and her movement.I felt grateful that she offered me a butoh EXPERIENCE , not a butoh training that I often do daily.  She has a wonderful blog, and PICTURES!!! of this day and more details and her view at: 

http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/2010/04/moving-discovery-with-haruko-nishimura.html

Please enjoy!