Living one full moment: Embodying Sound and Time.

A Butoh intensive workshop focusing on how the body listens, how it receives sound.

How is music received? How do we relate to it? Do we follow it? Are we taken by it? Do we dance to the music?

A weekend about space, the reception of sounds - outer sounds and inner sounds - about absorption, about the birth of time and rhythm within; about tools to shape time; about creating sound and time with the body and being free to move.

What do we call dance, what is it? What do we call music, what is it? Is it only dance that moves? Is it only music that makes sounds? What moves and sounds?

When we move or play a sound, it is already late -  if we can sense the moment before or even the origin of it, then where does the movement come from before we move? Is it from stillness? Is stillness still?

Where does the movement come from before we move? Does it come from silence? What is silence? Does silence exist? Or does it contain movement? What is contained in stillness? What is between stillness? What is time? What is in a moment? What is between moment and moment?

In this class, we will approach dance and music as space, time and body through breath and skin touch.

Moving from this "solid" body to a "subtle" one, we will begin to scan the body with an approach similar to Vipassana meditation, slowly mapping the body, part by part, focusing on smaller parts and initiating micro-movements, subtle adjustments, microscopic movements, observing and scanning from a gross anatomical body level to the smallest micro, molecular, energetic level.

These small movements open up the body's functioning and the concept of the body itself as "空体" Karada, empty standing or empty existence.

Certainly, the big shift here is the concept of the body itself, and later of time and space. Slowly we can learn different ways of experiencing time and space, not in an imaginative way, but through precise guidance, where we slowly reduce as much as possible the effort in the joints and in the muscles.

The more this happens, and the more our perception is sharpened, the longer and softer our breath becomes, the lighter our body becomes, and the more our muscle control and nervous system are released.

In the space between the voluntary and the involuntary, between the "executing" muscles and the "autopoietic" muscles, with somatic awareness, the "unnoticed" emerges and the subtle is felt. We enter into a multisensory experience of sensations and qualities that will enrich the life of every single moment, breath and movement.

And then, as if by magic, the dance comes....

About the teacher: Tiziana Longo

Based in Berlin since 2010 Tiziana is an independent international performing artist, choreographer, dancer and teacher. She specialises in the dramaturgy of movement, dance composition, and Japanese contemporary “butoh” and is the co-founder of Motimaru Dance Company.

As Motimaru she developed the internationally acclaimed solo MUT and together with Motoya Kondo the duo piece TWILIGHT.
After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts at the University of Bologna, she spent five years in Japan. She studied at the renowned Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio and danced with and technically assisted Yoshito Ohno, the legendary butoh master and son of Kazuo Ohno, the co-founder of Japanese Butoh dance. During het time in Japan she won a scholarship as a foreign artist from the Japanese Ministry of Culture to conduct research on Japanese Contemporary dance involving the Hijikata Tatsumi Archive at the Art Center of Tokyo Keio University.
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Later she did fieldwork research on Eastern Dances in Japan, India, Nepal, Bali. In those travels, she experienced the cultural/artistic aspect of dance and also its primitive, social and psychological aspects. Her spectrum of body-mind research has expanded further to the philosophy of Yoga (Hatha Yoga Teacher Training), to Levine’s psychology of trauma’s healing, and the T.R.E. (Trauma/Tension Release Exercise Method Certified Provider).​

As a choreographer and dance coach, her work focuses on the movement behind the dance, the dance itself, and its possibilities for expansion. She is an experienced teacher who is leading regular classes and intensive, thematic workshops in Berlin and abroad since 2010. Over the past 15 years she has performed internationally and worked in residencies in more than 30 cities in Europe, Australia, and Japan. She performed at the 2010 Venice Biennale in Italy – selected by and under the direction of Ismael Ivo, at “No Ballet” in Ludwigshafen 2014, at “Lucky Trimmer” International Dance Festival in Berlin 2016, “Dance ga Mittai” Contemporary Dance Festival in Tokyo 2016, “Oulu Dance Festival in Finland 2016, etc…

Practical:

Saturday - Sunday 5-6 April 2025, 10.00-16.00

Location: Zaal Zirkus, Zirkstraat 36, 2000 Antwerp

Fee: €200
To book: Please fill in this google form. Your place is reserved after payment of a deposit van €100 by 1 March. The remainder can be paid by 15 March at the latest. Or you can pay the whole amount in one go. Please pay into account BE22 9795 5169 1747, Sofie-Ann Bracke.

Photo: Gabriele Cafici