2025 Event Announcement
We are happy to announce a performance and workshop taking place over 25-27 April 2025! Scroll down for details...
Tonight or Never...
Performance by
MutsumiNeiro​
Photo by Raphael Carbinatto Dias
Rebellious Bodies Butoh Weekend
Workshop tickets available from 24 March 2025
​Venue: Chisenhale Dance Space
​
Tonight or Never... and The Goo Remembers
​Double Bill Performance:
Fri 25 April 2025: 7pm - 9:30pm (approx)
Doors open at 7pm, performances start at 7:30pm
EXODUS Workshop (Tickets available from 24 March)
Sat 26 April 2025: 11am - 5pm (including lunch break)
Sun 27 April 2025: 11am - 5pm (including lunch break)
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Ticket prices:
Performance only - £15 / £10
Workshop only - £120 (available from 24 March)
Workshop & Performance combo - £130 (available from 24 March)
Tonight or Never...
Headline Performance by MutsumiNeiro
This is an eternal marriage.
Like Chagall’s blooming dream of love.
Just as the living breathe life into the dead, the dead cherish the living.
Just as everyone thinks of their beloved.
Dancing with you, an eternal six minutes.
I am always with you. Never.​​
​
​​Butoh duo MUTSUMINEIRO's signature piece, performed in the UK for the very first time. It was inspired by what the duo refer to as "Chagall's blooming eternal marriage". Since its premiere in 2014, this piece has been performed in Japan, Israel, Germany, Poland, Brazil, and Ecuador.
MUTSUMINEIRO
Japanese butoh duo comprised of Neiro and Mutsumi Yamamoto. They have been dancing together since 2012, after meeting at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio. They have both also studied for many years with Mitsuyo Uesugi, who performed Melancholia - A Portrait of M at the Rebellious Bodies Festival in 2023. MutsumiNeiro's first duo performance was Tonight or Never..., which toured around Japan, Poland, Israel and Germany. In 2016 they opened their studio Galerie Ame in Tokyo. Their most recent performance is Pink River.
​
​ASIA TRI Butoh Festival, Akita Japan 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-lAApTIE8
Mutsumi
Born in Ehime (southwest Japan), Mutsumi started classical ballet at the age of 3, which she stopped after an injury during her studies at the Tokyo Womens College of Physical Education. She took up dancing again 10 years later, after an accidental encounter with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno's dance. She then moved to Tokyo in 2009 to study long term with Yoshito Ohno, and has since performed several solos, duets, and group performances across Japan and abroad. She has also studied and performed with Mitsuyo Uesugi, and was chosen to model for Yuriko Takagi's photo book Issey Miyake.
​
Neiro
Neiro studied Art Mime at JIDAI, and butoh with Yoshito Ohno. Between 2010-2012 he performed in Stefan Niedziałkowski's Mime Art Theater in Warsaw, Poland. In addition to his work with Mutsumi, he has performed duets with dancers such as Seiji Tanaka, as well as solos such as Bokutoh KI - Dance TANTAN at Theater X in Tokyo in 2020.
The Goo Remembers
Performance by Mai Burns
​​​​​​​​First performance by UK-Japan butoh performer Mai Burns in the UK since her return from Japan.
​​​​​​Mai Burns
Born in London to British and Japanese parents, Mai grew up performing ballet and theatre. She initially worked as an actor, producer and silhouette artist while living in England. After encountering butoh during her masters degree, she moved to Japan in 2016 and studied with master Yoshito Ohno at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio. In 2018 she began studying with Mitsuyo Uesugi, who continues to be her mentor today. Around the same time she began collaborating on butoh-related production work with organisations such as NPO Dance Archive Network. She returned to the UK in 2022, where she continues her practice while also organising events that utilise her connections with the Japanese butoh community. ​
EXODUS
2-day workshop by MutsumiNeiro
Workshop tickets available from 24 March 2025
Workshop Theme
Dance dismantles your wish to understand it.
Never get caught up by your wish to put meaning in it.
Let it just dance!!
Every moment is a new moment, every breath you make is a new breath.
Everything you see, touch, smell, taste, think, feel, and you yourself,
everything is new.
And everything will go and never come back the same.
We are leaving and entering into a vast field where nobody has ever been before.
Unpromised is our reality.
Create body without falling into a fleeting experience. Take it as an engraving, tattooing it into yourself as your life experience.
Never stop throwing off yourself a little more, a little more.
Go out into yourself.
The secret of the body to be created is in your own dance.
Dancer is dance, dance is dancer.
Everything in your life is your dance.
It is an exploration for your dance harbouring extravagant possibilities.​​​​
​What to Bring
Please wear clothes that you can move in. We also recommend a water bottle, and you may want to bring lunch, although there are some shops nearby. Free tea and coffee will be provided.
​
​​Anyone is welcome to join this workshop - you do not need to have prior experience of butoh. However as a 2-day intensive it may at times be physically demanding. Please let us know at the start of the workshop if you have any physical limitations we should be aware of.
MUTSUMINEIRO
Japanese butoh duo comprised of Neiro and Mutsumi Yamamoto. They have been dancing together since 2012, after meeting at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio. They have both also studied for many years with Mitsuyo Uesugi, who performed Melancholia - A Portrait of M at the Rebellious Bodies Festival in 2023. MutsumiNeiro's first duo performance was Tonight or Never..., which toured around Japan, Poland, Israel and Germany. In 2016 they opened their studio Galerie Ame in Tokyo. Their most recent performance is Pink River.
​
​ASIA TRI Butoh Festival, Akita Japan 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-lAApTIE8
Mutsumi
Born in Ehime (southwest Japan), Mutsumi started classical ballet at the age of 3, which she stopped after an injury during her studies at the Tokyo Womens College of Physical Education. She took up dancing again 10 years later, after an accidental encounter with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno's dance. She then moved to Tokyo in 2009 to study long term with Yoshito Ohno, and has since performed several solos, duets, and group performances across Japan and abroad. She has also studied and performed with Mitsuyo Uesugi, and was chosen to model for Yuriko Takagi's photo book Issey Miyake.
​
Neiro
Neiro studied Art Mime at JIDAI, and butoh with Yoshito Ohno. Between 2010-2012 he performed in Stefan Niedziałkowski's Mime Art Theater in Warsaw, Poland. In addition to his work with Mutsumi, he has performed duets with dancers such as Seiji Tanaka, as well as solos such as Bokutoh KI - Dance TANTAN at Theater X in Tokyo in 2020.
COME BACK HERE TO FIND WORKSHOP TICKETS ON 24 MARCH 2025