PACKAGE

Community volunteers: professional and amateur dancers, children, their parents take part in this Bhuto-based dance on the city streets, costumed by Shusaku Takeuchi after a series of 4-6 free workshops with Shusaku Takeuchi.

The Bhuto-based dance consists of a series of movements that are a hundred times more slow than the typical human movement. The highly concentrated dancers move like “living statues” – butterflies, and create a sense of peace, serenity and reflection within the hectic environment of the city. The workshops teach the elements of Shusaku’s dance technique and ultimately the principals of Bhutto to the volunteers of all levels, both dancers and non-dancers.  In the process, the participants find a way to communicate with each other in a serene and supporting manner. As Shusaku recently wrote to me describing the process: “It was nice to see that older children began to take care of younger ones during the working process…  And one of the aims of this work is developing sensory ability to see what is happening around in the society, as well as the world as a whole. Watch the antenna of the butterflies.”

The culminating result is a procession of gorgeous “butterflies,” performers in costumes designed by Toshiko Takeuchi, spilling out in the streets creating a stunning environment. Anywhere between 12 and 80 volunteers can participate, we suggest pairings of mothers grandparents and grandchildren; any community members; professional and amateur dancers.

ABOUT SHUSAKU TAKEUCHI:

SHUSAKU TAKEUCHI, choreographer, dramaturg
Shuasaku Takeuchi comes from Japan, where he studied painting, sculpture, and graphic art at the University of Osaka (1968–1971). In 1972 he traveled to Europe and settled in the Netherlands where he has originally worked with the dancers Butho Eiko & Koma, the Argentine choreographer Graziella Martinez, Jango Edwards, and others.

In 1974 he founded his own group, which combines elements of visual art, expressive theatre, pantomime, and dance. This group later evolved into Shusaku & Dormu Dance Theater. During these years Shusaku was very influenced by modern art. He has given many performances with his group around Europe, and since 1980 also in the countries of eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Russia – his group was the first to perform with official permission on Red Square in Moscow).

In the 1980s he began to experiment with other art directions: combining expressive theatre with the world of computers, life effects, and virtual reality. Site-specific projects at various summer festivals became his specialty: Freiburg International Theater Festival, Summer Festival of Copenhagen and Kempnagel International Theater Festival in Hamburg.

In subsequent years he continued to create – now considerably monumental – site-specific projects: Floating Silhouettes from 1994, held in an old Amsterdam port, a performance for an ‘industrial mausoleum’; Reservoir (1995) and Bolt (1997) in abandoned Amsterdam docks.

In 1999 he did choreography for Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and in 2000 he began his trilogy for NDT 3 (Sight, 2000; Windage, 2001, and Land, 2002). Since the 1990s Shusaku has also been teaching alongside his work as a director and choreographer.

Shusaku’s short film Shelter won the Student Prize and the Czech Crystal Prize at the Golden Prague Television Festival in 2003.

420PEOPLE is a collective of artists who insist on the values of exceptional quality of performance and professionalism. Their pieces are playful and courageous, bringing on stage a wide vocabulary of contemporary dance. Improvisation is a natural part of their creation and so is informal dialogue with the spectator in the form of after-show discussions. 420PEOPLE that is, above all, Václav Kuneš and Nataša Novotná, the founding members of the company and former members of Jiří Kylián’s Nederlands Dans Theater. Together with their colleagues from diverse art’s fields they carry out their artistic vision and effort to produce works of the label Made By Czech that are nevertheless proud and integral parts of the international dance scene. “Presently, 420PEOPLE are doubtless the best of Czech contemporary dance companies.

The virtuosity and the way the dancers use their bodies are on the world’s top class level.“(K.Slezáková, Hudební rozhledy)

For more information, technical riders and touring schedule, contact Sonia Kozlova, unicycleproductions@gmail.com 917-685-7853