We are proud to invite Colorado, USA based Butoh teacher, Nathan Montgomery from the Movement and Ecology Sanctuary of Art to join us at Panya Forest to facilitate a transformative exchange between Land and ancestral memory. Using dance as the primary vehicle, together we will generate a space of ritualized offering. The aim is to make a prayer, an apology and a commitment to our shared Mother Earth.

In our post-modern daze, we tend to neglect the truth that all we are is because of all our shared Mother eARTh has granted us. Peoples of more in-tact ways of living throughout the world have always known this and as such have birth ritualized ways of offering thanks to continually keep our awareness of this strong. Yet for most of us, a nagging feeling of loss and neglect weighs on our hearts. What did we miss?

Dance offers us a method of memory activation and an opportunity to not only be healed but to offer healing. As we journey together into our second year at Panya Forest we wish to revive the lost arts of feeding the land via ritualized art. Such acts are not performances, they are embodied offerings. No one is an observer, there is no audience. We come together not for the purpose of being seen but of seeing. We wish to honor our Forest. We wish to let our forest know that we see Her.

Butoh (舞踏, Butō) is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The art form is known to “resist fixity” and is difficult to define; notably, founder Hijikata Tatsumi viewed the formalization of butoh with “distress”. Common features of the art form include playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, and extreme or absurd environments. It is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion. Over time however, as all thing do, the artform as taken on many incarnations. We are honored to have long time student/teacher of Butoh share with us is unique take on Butoh with us, as an act of feeding the Holy in Nature.

Each day will include physical exercises designed to open the joints and energy centers of the body as well as specific dance forms, choreography and improvisational scores. We will be working both inside the studio, but even more so outside at Panya Forest. Over the course of the retreat, participants will be supported in creating a group site specific score for a public offering on the last day. This will be a ritual feast and performance to celebrate and reveal what we called forth from our creative work during the retreat. We will create a performance with the symbolic food of our explorations as well as cooking and providing real food for the public.

Panya Forest will be providing delicious food for us grown on the farm as well as simple accommodations for participants during the workshop. In community for 5 days we honor our 

 
“To dance Butoh one must embody the spirit of life itself.  In this way we encounter the full paradox of embodiment within the mystery of existence.  The most profound and transformative moments in Butoh practice are not the dance trainings or the performances, but rather are experienced in the re-emergence of culture in daily life together. When someone asks me, what is the daily training for a butoh dancer? I always say cooking! The authentic spirit of Butoh is realized in community where art and daily life are in constant dialogue. What better place to encounter this Butoh spirit then a place like Panya Forest.”

~Nathan