Showing posts with label CCAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CCAC. Show all posts
March 12, 2026
March 28, 2022
Hijikata Tatsumi ~ Father of Butoh Performance
~
Christina Braun & Dean Santomieri
March 9th was the birthday of Japanese choreographer and founder of the genre of dance performance art called Butoh. In a tribute to him, many Butoh performers from the Bay Area held an event yesterday at Ohlone Park in Berkeley, California.
The event was organized by Butoh performance artist, Hiroko Tamano, in celebration of the Life and Death of Hijikata Tatsumi.
photo by Styrous®
Hiroko and her husband Koichi Tamano have been major influences in the Bay Area Butoh scene and around the world. They performed in a couple of the Sandra Sakata fashion shows for her art to wear boutique, Obiko (link below).
Tom White, Professor Emeritus of the California College of Arts & Crafts, incorporated Butoh movements and concepts into his art and named it, butohDrawing,
which he taught as part of the curriculum in his classes there and
they held performances as part of the completion of the classes.
People call it Butoh Dance; I prefer to call it Butoh movement as dance implys a formal, structured, pretty and controlled act. Butoh
is the complete opposite of Western
concepts of "dance". In its pure state, it is usually improvised with no planned theme or
agenda (there are exceptions) other than to express what is in the heart
of each performer at that particular moment. In no way is it "pretty" by Western standards! It can be
ugly and distorted . . .
. . . it can be comical . . .
. . . often it is excruciatingly SLOW!
But it is beautiful in its own distinct way!
Unfortunately,
I don't know the names of all the performers I photographed during the
event but where I do, I have given them credit. If you recognize
someone, please let me know and I will add their name. Thank you.
The Performance
photos by Styrous®
Mark Deutsch
Kyoko Takenaka
Bob Webb (above & below)
There is a jungle gym
in the park near the performance area; when I was a kid in the early
forties, I thought it was called a "Jungle Jim." I recall hanging by the
back of my knees on the top bar one time; my legs slipped and I landed
on my head! That might explain a lot. Memories of those days long gone
flashed through my mind and it was delightful to watch the kids
scrambling around on it . . .
. . . but they did take time out to watch the performance.
Kyoko Takenaka
Luku Netherthot & Mao Homie
The performance closed with a chant that everyone, including the audience, participated in reciting.
Viewfinder links:
YouTube links:
Styrous® ~ Monday, March 28, 2022
YouTube links:
Christina Braun ~ various videos
Mark Deutsch & Martha Matsuda at TYG
Dean Santomieri ~ various videos Koichi & Hiroko Tamano ~ various videos
Bob Webb ~ Butoh
Styrous® ~ Monday, March 28, 2022
August 23, 2017
Tom White articles/mentions
~
Art:
ButohDrawing
Escaparates mios
Escaparates mios extended
The work of Tom White: Geometrics
Gray Loft Gallery ~
ButohPhoto Workshop
ButohPhoto all over the world
ButohPhoto performance on Vimeo
Exquisite Little Things 2
ButohDrawing
Escaparates mios
Escaparates mios extended
The work of Tom White: Geometrics
Gray Loft Gallery ~
ButohPhoto Workshop
ButohPhoto all over the world
ButohPhoto performance on Vimeo
Exquisite Little Things 2
K Gallery at Rhythmix ~
events:
Corona Virus Isolaton ~
misc.:
mentions:
Gray Loft Gallery ~
Betty Jo Costanzo ~ Portals
Figure closing reception
From One Thing To Another: The Art of Recycle
Los Vecinos ~ 2014
~ settin' it up
~ The Opening
~ ☉ The Show
The Love Show
Love Show memories
Magnificent
Magnificent opening
summer salon
There Is a There There ~ ArtSlant profiles
Robert "Bob" Hartman
Robert "Bob" Hayn
Oakland Indie Awards ~ 2013
Theatre Flamenco ~ Con Nombre y Apellido Pt. 2
January 14, 2015
Ecotopia: The Installations of Celeste Connor
Installations by Celeste Connor inspired by the novel, "Ecotopia: Notebooks and Reports of William Weston"
by Ernest Callenbach
Link to the Ecotopian Archive/East: Exteriors
(located in Walnut Creek on the border of The Open Space Regional Park)
(located in Walnut Creek on the border of The Open Space Regional Park)
The Celeste Connor installations
Sick
and tired of the haste and hyper-mediation of the present Anthropocene
era? (The geologic term for the epoch that began when human activities
started to have a significant, global, impact of the Earthʼs ecosystems.) Try on the post-apocalyptic future! The two-part
installation called, “The Ecotopian Archive”, documented here, provides a
portal to 2084 to witness the results of the Great Earth Cataclysm of
2077.
The Ecotopian Archive, by Celeste Connor, is a portable, expanding, installation-in-process in the Temescal District of Oakland, California at the heart of Oakland Art Murmur. Along with its outdoor Eastern section in Walnut Creek on the border of The Open Space Regional Parkland (links to both archives above and at the end), the visual work uses Ernest Callenbach's 1975 novel, “Ecotopia”, as its libretto. Themes of feminist statehood and collective quests for a sustainable future are appropriated from the prescient novel by Callenbach, an early Earth advocate and founding editor of Berkeley Film Review.
Artists often look to the past for inspiration. The current popularity of thrift stores, collecting of memorabilia, the intrigue of sidewalk shopping, and even the revival of scrapbooking (as well as the increasing number of museums and memorials being built) attest to our culture's obsession with "memory". Not the Proustian kind; but the communal variety.
But what about a memory of the future? In recent years visual artists have created archives and collections as part of their creative practice. What kinds of stories are being preserved? Which stories are being omitted? An archive can be a powerful force of subversion; a portal between an unfinished past and a reopened future.
Philosophical notions of transformed futures have a long, venerable history in the West. Early schemes were memorably drafted by communitarian thinker Saint Thomas Moore, artist and designer William Morris, socialist-sufferagist Charlotte Perkins Gilman; later ones were crafted by artist members of liberationist movements of the 1970's. The alternative future is the pivot around which Connorʼs 3-D collection of toss-away Things gyrate.
Connorʼs work, at heart--like that of her historical predecessors--is an act of social criticism. And, like Callenbachʼs, it is directed pointedly at Americaʼs role in instigating and exporting wasteful and unsustainable ways of living. What distinguishes Connorʼs critique is its intense visuality and vital materiality, its humor and optimism. What The Ecotopian Archive adds to the vocabulary of The Just Society is a quite literal experience of the archeological remains of one.
The 3-D, assemblage, “Ecotopian Archive,” embodies evidence of a woman-led nation, an evolved and sustainable state called Ecotopia, that seceded from the United States in 1980 when Reagan was elected President. Now, in the Gregorian Calendar year 2084, Earth has outlasted the devastating, global cataclysm of 2077. That small portion of planet Earth formerly known as “America” (and most of its living habitats) were vaporized by ceaseless firestorms, volcanic flows, and eruptions of hyper-geysers. Ecotopians survived; but most migrated off-planet. Connor’s comic, post-apocalyptic visual work includes rare Ecotopian video recordings, diverse archeological finds collected by those Ecotopians who volunteered to remain behind to tend Earth’s recuperation for the return of their Neotopian descendents. The Archive they assemble is a unique collection of trans-categorizable Things (Dings) gleaned from the detritus of the U.S and pre-cataclysm Ecotopian societies. Visitors are welcomed to examine the evidence with care and draw their own conclusions.
Celeste Connor email: rrosaseconda@gmail.com
The Ecotopian Archive, by Celeste Connor, is a portable, expanding, installation-in-process in the Temescal District of Oakland, California at the heart of Oakland Art Murmur. Along with its outdoor Eastern section in Walnut Creek on the border of The Open Space Regional Parkland (links to both archives above and at the end), the visual work uses Ernest Callenbach's 1975 novel, “Ecotopia”, as its libretto. Themes of feminist statehood and collective quests for a sustainable future are appropriated from the prescient novel by Callenbach, an early Earth advocate and founding editor of Berkeley Film Review.
Artists often look to the past for inspiration. The current popularity of thrift stores, collecting of memorabilia, the intrigue of sidewalk shopping, and even the revival of scrapbooking (as well as the increasing number of museums and memorials being built) attest to our culture's obsession with "memory". Not the Proustian kind; but the communal variety.
But what about a memory of the future? In recent years visual artists have created archives and collections as part of their creative practice. What kinds of stories are being preserved? Which stories are being omitted? An archive can be a powerful force of subversion; a portal between an unfinished past and a reopened future.
Philosophical notions of transformed futures have a long, venerable history in the West. Early schemes were memorably drafted by communitarian thinker Saint Thomas Moore, artist and designer William Morris, socialist-sufferagist Charlotte Perkins Gilman; later ones were crafted by artist members of liberationist movements of the 1970's. The alternative future is the pivot around which Connorʼs 3-D collection of toss-away Things gyrate.
Connorʼs work, at heart--like that of her historical predecessors--is an act of social criticism. And, like Callenbachʼs, it is directed pointedly at Americaʼs role in instigating and exporting wasteful and unsustainable ways of living. What distinguishes Connorʼs critique is its intense visuality and vital materiality, its humor and optimism. What The Ecotopian Archive adds to the vocabulary of The Just Society is a quite literal experience of the archeological remains of one.
The premise of the Archive
The 3-D, assemblage, “Ecotopian Archive,” embodies evidence of a woman-led nation, an evolved and sustainable state called Ecotopia, that seceded from the United States in 1980 when Reagan was elected President. Now, in the Gregorian Calendar year 2084, Earth has outlasted the devastating, global cataclysm of 2077. That small portion of planet Earth formerly known as “America” (and most of its living habitats) were vaporized by ceaseless firestorms, volcanic flows, and eruptions of hyper-geysers. Ecotopians survived; but most migrated off-planet. Connor’s comic, post-apocalyptic visual work includes rare Ecotopian video recordings, diverse archeological finds collected by those Ecotopians who volunteered to remain behind to tend Earth’s recuperation for the return of their Neotopian descendents. The Archive they assemble is a unique collection of trans-categorizable Things (Dings) gleaned from the detritus of the U.S and pre-cataclysm Ecotopian societies. Visitors are welcomed to examine the evidence with care and draw their own conclusions.
Celeste Connor email: rrosaseconda@gmail.com
The Book
Link to the Ecotopian Archive/East: Exteriors
(located in Walnut Creek on the border of The Open Space Regional Park)
(located in Walnut Creek on the border of The Open Space Regional Park)
video of the President of the State of Ecotopia, welcoming her post-cataclysmic citizens back to Earth on Vimeo
The Archive is open to the public by appointment only.
for info: rrosaseconda@gmail.com
for info: rrosaseconda@gmail.com
Styrous® ~ Wednesday, January 14, 2015
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