ButohOUT! Festival 2018
’Body~Our Closest Nature’
April 2018 at Abbotsford Convent - Oratory, Melbourne Australia
Body~Our Closest Nature
The focus for the 2018 festival was ‘body-specific’. Over two months, ButohOUT! delivered public workshops, performances and a forum to explore and discuss what Australian Butoh aesthetics are, by offering a new, challenging and potentially confronting experience for participants and the audience. Through the two months of intensive workshops facilitated by Yumi Umiumare and Tony Yap, we generated new ensemble and solo works with the participants, that were performed at indoor and outdoor venues at Abbotsford Convent.
Local performers were Tony Yap & Brendon O’Conner along with musician Reuben Lewis, and Yumi Umiumare accompanied by musician Ayako Fujii, as well as Weave Movement Theatre. Our international guest artists were Agung Gunawan and his Breathing Forest Dance Theatre and Whiffling of the Forest Gamelan Ensemble - fourteen dancers and musicians from East Java, Indonesia.
The two-week performance season attracted an audience of 540. Over the two month festival 88 individuals participated in the series of workshops.