Kokoro Dance readies for the return of Wreck Beach Butoh workshops and performances
Training at the KW Studios to culminate in the well-known outdoor show on the sand, July 12 to 25
A 2014 performance of Wreck Beach Butoh. Photo by Robert Seaton
Last year, Kokoro Dance’s well-known Wreck Beach butoh performance workshop looked unlike any other previous one: it took place only as a duet between founding artists Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi due to COVID restrictions.
But now, the plan is for the event to return to the picturesque setting for its 27th annual edition. Workshops run July 12 to 25 at KW Studios, culminating in rehearsal and then performances at Wreck Beach (at the foot of the #4 trail).
Keep an eye on the link here for updates and schedule.
Kokoro Dance expanded its stage to nature, on Wreck Beach, in 1995—about a decade after the founding of its company. The event started with Hirabayashi, Bourget, and just a few other dancers for the first year and, since then, it has grown to workshops that are open to anyone who is willing to face challenging performing conditions.
“Before I met Jay, he went to University of B.C., and he spent a fair bit of time there,” Bourget has said. “I think the first year we did it was 1995. The vista there is incredible, with the mountains and the city skyline and the ocean. It’s a beautiful beach. We thought it would be wonderful to do a piece there that would be partly about the performance and the space, but also a good training ground for butoh.”
Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi at last year’s extra-stripped-down duet on the beach. Photo by Yvonne Chew
The Kokoro Dance artists saw the Wreck Beach location as a twist on their regular performances in theatres. On the nudist beach, the audience would be in as “natural” a state as the dancers, who appear naked with white body paint.
For Bourget ,Wreck Beach Butoh remains one of her favourite things in each Kokoro Dance season. “People actually come from the U.S. and other parts of Canada to see the piece now,” she has said, adding the company has tried it in different environments: “We did it in San Francisco in the late ’90s, and because of riptide we couldn’t go into the ocean. Here we don’t have those same kinds of restrictions. We’ve thought about doing it on a lake but it’s not the same. There’s no tide. At Wreck, we start when the tide is at a low point, and by the time we’re finished it’s coming in.”
As the show and workshop have grown, the pair have come to realize how well-suited the location is to butoh.
Part of butoh training is to create different environments within your consciousness; the rain, cold, wind, or heat that they experience physically at Wreck Beach performances only add to that embodiment. In addition, dancers can fully focus on their performance with the natural sound and lighting outdoors, without the distractions of performing in a theatre.
“It’s rich for us, in terms of an experience and a journey that we can undertake. It’s in touch with nature and touches something inside us that is harder to find in a more formal setting,” Hirabayashi has said. “It’s kind of a cleanser for us.”
The annual Wreck Beach Butoh performance intensive workshops consist of two-hour morning classes and three-hour afternoon rehearsals at KW Studios in the Woodward’s Heritage Building for nine days. In the classes, Kokoro works on butoh methods of generating movement through the use of interior poetic imagery and develops a movement score. On the second Friday of the workshop, the group heads to Wreck Beach for an “undress” rehearsal, followed by two public performances on Saturday and Sunday.
To participate, head here.
The 2008 Wreck Beach Butoh. Photo by Peter Eastwood