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Welcome to our Diary page. This year has been a varied one, with classes, longer workshops, and performance opportunities such as our most recent Diamond Night and Fen Dance at Harcourt Arboretum.
We are really excited to be embarking on our new performance project for 2025: Body Ecologies. Following an initial exploration day in February 2024, themed classes, and a sharing of early ideas at our Diamond Night in April, we are now entering a more concentrated period of research and development. Our weekend open workshop in November was a great success, with more than 20 people taking part and a high level of creativity.
If you are new to our website, you can see previous years' events below, and also take a look at some of our past theatre or site-specific project pages. There are video clips of recent work-in-progress on our YouTube channel, see: Of Wounds and Shadows (2022 version); Virtual Diamond Night: Hidden; Fired Earth
For enquiries and information, please email us. To be kept up-to-date with our news and plans, why not join our mailing list?
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2024
Jan 13 — Class 'The Soul's Unfolding' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Jan 27 — Class 'The Unfamiliar Body' with Ayala Kingsley
Feb 10 — Class 'Body in Transition' with Macarena Ortuzar
Feb 23 — Video Night
Feb 24 — Exploration day 'Body Ecologies'
Mar 09 — Class with Andy Solway
Mar 23 — Class 'Earth Bound' with Helen Edwards
Apr 13 — Diamond Night open platform
Apr 27 — Class 'Transformation of Life' with Helen Edwards
Apr 27 — Fen Dance performance
May 11 — Class with Nathalie Descamps
May 25 — Workshop with Marie-Gabrielle Rotie
Jun 08 — Workshop with Cinthia Patiño
Jun 22 — Class with Lizzy Spight
Jul 13 — Workshop with Constance Humphries
Jul 27 — Class with Andy Solway
Aug 02 — Workshop 'Body Weathers' with Helen Edwards
Aug 10 — Class with Bob Lyness
Sep 14 — Class 'Body Archaeology' with Helen Edwards
Sep 28 — Landscape workshop with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Oct 12 — Class with Lizzy Spight
Oct 26 — Class 'Body Memories' with Ayala Kingsley
Nov 09 — Workshop 'Body Ecologies'
Nov 10 — Workshop 'Body Ecologies'
Nov 23 — Class 'Stimulus & Connection' with Andy Solway
Dec 14 — Class with Helen Edwards
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Video Night
Friday 23 February 2024 — 6.30 for 7.00pm
An informal get-together to watch some of the Café Reason video archive, plus international butoh 'finds'. For venue information please contact Alexandra. Bring food and drink to share.
Exploration day: Body Ecologies
Saturday 24 February 2024 — 10.30–5.00
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
This workshop will set about discovering together – through guided exercises, improvised movement, and discussion – the scope of our corporeal natures and the stories our bodies have to tell.
We will look at the body – materially, conceptually, and emotionally – through an array of different lenses: in culture (how we fit into and are seen by the society around us); in nature (our connection and interaction with the flow of life), in science/medicine (the body as a biological entity), and in imagination (metamorphosis and transcending the given). But we will also acknowledge the porous nature of those lenses and seek an integrated understanding of what it means to be human.
This investigation will be led by Helen Edwards and Ayala Kingsley and is aimed principally at contemporary dancers with experience of improvised work. Moving on from Café Reason's TORCH-funded online project Breaking Free, our ultimate intention is to develop material towards a future performance.
Cost £35/£30
Please contact
Ayala for more information and to book a place.
Diamond Night #22
Saturday 13 April 2024 — 7.30pm (doors open 7.15)
Drama Studio, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, OX3 0FF
The latest in our long-running series of occasional arts evenings, featuring a selection of 'uncut performance gems': dance, music, video, spoken word. The theme for this evening will be 'Body Ecologies'. Please let us know if you would like to contribute a piece.
Diamond Night is an informal platform for sharing new ideas, choreographies, experiments, and collaborations. The Drama Studio at Brookes offers an intimate 'black box' environment for new-minted performances to shine, with seating for a small and appreciative audience.
For more information, see the Diamond Night page of this website.
Fen Dance
Saturday 27 April 2024 — 2.30 pm
Harcourt Arboretum, Nuneham Courtenay, OX44 9PX
This site-specific piece is inspired by a flower; the rare and endangered fen violet. It was created for the Freshwater Habitats Trust and performed at Hinksey Heights Nature Trail in 2022. It has been reimagined for performance in this new setting. The performance is part of the arboretum's Spring Fair: for tickets, please visit their website.
Workshop: Encounters With the Poetics of Space/Time
Saturday 25 May 2024 — 10.00am-5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
A chance to work with performer/choreographer and long-time butoh exponent Marie-Gabrielle Rotie.
This workshop will explore the unique approach to space/time in butoh — duration, endurance, limits, surrender, quietness, stillness — and consider this in relation to space: the space between one body part and another, the spaces of inside/outside, the space between ‘you’ and ‘I’, and in so doing we might then find a poetic and spiritual space of form plus disappearance and dissolving. Simple tasks such as walking, rising, falling, standing all become rich with possibility.
Cost £55/50/45 (plus discount if booking all three summer workshops).
For more information and to book (limited places available) please contact Ayala.
Workshop: The Expression of Being
Saturday 8 June 2024 — 10.00am-5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
Mexico-based artist Cinthia Patiño returns to lead another workshop for Café Reason. Cinthia is an actor, dancer, and stage creator.
The expression of being, the dance of the heart, the link between theatre and dance in its authentic human expression. From a deep state of non-ordinary consciousness and truth, where the being remains connected with its corporeal, rational, spiritual, and emotional realities, arises the personal dance that allows us to expand the energy of the body into movement.
Cost £55/50/45 (plus discount if booking all three summer workshops).
For more information and to book (limited places available) please contact Ayala.
Workshop: The Unbound Body
Saturday 13 July 2024 — 10.00am-5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
Co-director of the 14-year-running Asheville Butoh Festival, and now resident in the northeast of England, Constance Humphries has been creating, performing, and teaching dance for over 40 years. She is dedicated to emergent practices that support curiosity, experiment, and play, seeking to uncover meaning and inspiration for creative practice by excavating the body and interrogating its relationship to its environment and community.
This workshop is a creative investigation into improvisation based on performative approaches, butoh and Noguchi Taiso.
The following practice areas are highlighted as creative tools for improvisation: emptiness, imagination, articulation, invisible forces, subconsciousness, continuous presence, power, relationship to time and space, and transformation.
All aptitudes and abilities are welcome. No previous experience is required. Participants are encouraged to work at their level.
Cost £55/50/45 (plus discount if booking all three summer workshops).
Landscape workshop: Body Weathers
Friday 2 August 2024 — 11.00am-5.00pm
Heath Farm, Swerford, Chipping Norton, OX7 4BN
A free-movement workshop with Helen Edwards
Investigating the relationship of dance to environment, seasonal cycles, and the boundaries between performer and audience. We will work on land and by/in water.
For more information, please contact Helen. To book, please contact Ayala.
Cost £30/25
Landscape Workshop with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Saturday 28 September 2024 — 10.30am-5.30pm
Strawbale Studio and grounds of Michael's Folly, Epping Green, SG13 8NE
Exploring the interconnected pulse of Nature as the elements become our friendly witnesses. By surrendering into a deep somatic state we free ourselves to be simply a part of the living pulse of the planet. We become Earth, every cell in our body a part of this planetary consciousness.
"My passion is to explore a deeper expression of ourselves through Nature and the sensory relationship with the living world... weaving my multilayered inspirations of yoga, dance, Alexander technique,somatic movement, and poetic visualisations to integrate our listening bodies with the voices of Nature, and access a deeper and more authentic essence of movement and expression."
Cost £45/35. Only 8 places available in total. Please contact Ayala to book and discuss car-sharing options.
Body Ecologies weekend workshop
Saturday 9 & Sunday 10 November 2024 — 10.00am-4.30pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
An invitation to all creative practitioners to take part in an imaginative inquiry into how we understand and experience our bodies.
We are physical creatures – flesh and blood, skin and bone; our senses the interface between ourselves and others, and the world around us. Our DNA is passed on to us and by us and we have limited control over how our bodies work or how they look. Our evolution, history, geography, and culture all influence how we regard and inhabit our material selves, and what we do as a result.
In its classes, workshops, and performances, Café Reason has always sought to rediscover the body through the hyper-awareness of butoh; to reveal the authentic body, the primal body, the transformed body.
This two-day workshop will offer an exciting opportunity for individual and group exploration through visual art, creative writing, movement, and discussion. Ideas generated in the workshop will feed into Café Reason’s research and development for performance in autumn 2025. (Workshop participants are not required or expected to take part in the final performance, though there is scope for ongoing involvement.)
It is possible to attend just Day 1, or both Day 1 and Day 2. Day 1 will range widely through all media, while Day 2 will harvest the fruits of Day 1, but focus on movement.
Cost, Day 1: pay what you can (£25 suggested amount). Day 2: no charge
For more information on workshop structure, facilitation, and accessibility, please download the flyer.
To book a place, please fill in the sign-up form here.
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2023
Jan 14 — Workshop with Cinthia Patiño
Jan 28 — Class 'Transition & Paradox' with Ayala Kingsley
Jan 28 — Park People pop-up performance
Feb 11 — Class with Bob Lyness
Feb 25 — Class 'Spring Emergence' with Helen Edwards
Mar 11 — Class with Andy Solway
Mar 12 — Workshop with Vangeline
Mar 25 — Class 'Anchoring' with Lizzy Spight
Apr 15 — Class with Fabrizia Verecchia
Apr 22 — Diamond Night open platform
Apr 29 — Class with Macarena Ortuzar
May 11 — Class with Nathalie Descamps
May 27 — Class 'Mapping the Body' with Cath Blackfeather
Jun 10 — Class 'Mass & Space' with Ayala Kingsley
Jun 24 — Class 'Ikebana & Focus' with Bob Lyness
Jul 1 — Landscape workshop with Helen Edwards
Jul 8 — Class with Helen Edwards
Jul 16 — Fen Dance performance [POSTPONED]
Aug 12 — Class 'Mapping the Body' with Cath Blackfeather
Aug 26 — Class 'Transition & Paradox' with Ayala Kingsley
Aug 26 — Park People promenade performance
Sep 9 — Class 'Decay & Renewal' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Sep 23 — Class 'Moving & Being Moved' with Juliet Henderson
Oct 14 — Class with Bob Lyness
Oct 28 — Workshop 'The Power of Words' with Helen Smith
Nov 11 — Class with Lizzy Spight
Nov 25 — Class with Andy Solway
Dec 9 — Class with Helen Edwards
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The Authentic Expression of Being
Saturday 14 January 2023 — 10.00am-5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
This workshop explores the meeting point between theatre and dance – the sacred rite of the stage act – in its authentic human expression, from a deep state of non-ordinary consciousness and truth, where the being remains connected with its physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional realities. It is the personal dance that allows us to expand the energy of the body in movement, to express and sublimate from within the being through dance. Using personal talismans, significant garments, childhood photographs and song memories, the process will involve awakening non-reactive impulses, guided improvisation and body drama, giving rise to organic movement and the authentic expression of each being. Cost £50/45/40
Cinthia Patiño is an actor, dancer, and stage creator based in Mexico, who has been practicing and teaching butoh in Mexico City and beyond for over 15 years.
For more information and to book (limited places available) please contact Ayala.
Park People
Saturday 28 January 2023 — 3.00pm
St Mary and St Nicholas Church, Littlemore, OX4 4PB
Meetings, interactions, and transformations at a park bench. An improvised performance, with live music from Malcolm Atkins, to accompany an exhibition of paintings by Juliet Henderson, originally inspired by pandemic walks in Florence Park.
To download a flyer about the exhibition, look here.
Tea and biscuits provided. Donations to St Mary and St Nicholas church for the
wonderful work it does in its community warmly accepted.
Vangeline workshop
Sunday 12 March 2023 — 10.00am–5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
This one-day workshop is a rare opportunity to work with renowned butoh artist Vangeline France. Vangeline is artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute. She specialises in trauma-informed butoh and the nervous system, while her socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism. You can find out more here.
The workshop will be based around Vangeline's critically acclaimed book, Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which explores the intersection of butoh and neuroscience. Butoh, she writes, "cultivates a special relationship between gravity, consciousness, and our experience of time."
For more information please contact Ayala.
NOW FULLY BOOKED
Vangeline will also be performing Eternity 123 at the Old Fire Station on Saturday 11 March. It is the third instalment of a feminist dance triptych that traces the symbolic journey of women’s liberation across time. With this piece, Vangeline also celebrates the impact of women on butoh, exploring the link between women, butoh, and 'cabaret'.
Diamond Night #21
Saturday 22 April 2023 — 7.30pm (doors open 7.15)
Drama Studio, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, OX3 0FF
The latest in our long-running series of occasional arts evenings, featuring a selection of 'uncut performance gems': dance, music, video, spoken word.
Diamond Night is an informal platform for sharing new ideas, choreographies, experiments, and collaborations. The Drama Studio at Brookes offers an intimate 'black box' environment for new-minted performances to shine, with seating for a small and appreciative audience.
As there is only limited space, please book in advance through Eventbrite. Tickets are free, but we are grateful for any donations on the night, as this enables us to pay something to the people that help us.
Please be on time as latecomers can only be admitted during breaks in the performance.
For more information, see the Diamond Night page of this website.
The Breathing of Life
Saturday 1 July 2023 — 11.00am-5.00pm
Heath Farm, Swerford, Chipping Norton, OX7 4BN
A free-movement workshop with Helen Edwards
Becoming aware of the sensuous and the sentient, of the breathing of life in the cradle of the body. Bringing attention to the breathing of the earth and the cradle of the sky to recognise the reciprocity of our dance with the elements. Working on land and by water, bridging the worlds of inner imagery and outer, physical reality.
For more information, please contact Helen. To book, please contact Ayala.
Cost £30/25
Fen Dance
Saturday 16 July 2023 — [POSTPONED — new date tbc]
Oxford Botanic Garden, Rose Lane, Oxford OX1 4AZ
This site-specific piece is inspired by a flower; the rare and endangered fen violet. It was created for the Freshwater Habitats Trust and performed at Hinksey Heights Nature Trail in 2022. It will be reimagined for performance in the Botanic Garden.
Park People promenade performance
Meetings, interactions, and transformations
Saturday 26 August 2023 — 3.00pm
University Parks, South Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3RF
Who are the people we pass as we walk round the park? What are they thinking? What are their secrets?
This improvised performance, inspired by a series of paintings by Juliet Henderson, explores and celebrates the freedom and restoration that parks offer in the increasingly hostile environment of modern cities, their histories as public spaces, the activities they embrace, and the uniqueness of the people who use them.
The performance features live music and a cast of unlikely characters, each with their own mysterious story, plus a park bench, which has a transformative effect on the people who sit on it.
This is a free event, booking not necessary. Discover the 'park people' as they make their individual journeys across the park (towards the North Walk).
The Transformative Power of Words
Helen Smith
Saturday 28 October — 10.00am–5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
This workshop will explore how language can capture images and inspire movement to create choreographic scores. It draws on Tatsumi Hijikata’s unique method of notation — butoh-fu — to explore some of butoh’s core priniciples, including empty body, being moved, and transformation. Participants will learn both visible and invisible techniques to enhance their participation in and observation of butoh performance.
Helen's teaching draws on years of concentrated study in Japan with several butoh masters, as well as on her work as a physical theatre performer and drama teacher. Helen's Masters thesis focused on the practice and performance of butoh and she is currently writing a book on the teaching of butoh.
Cost: £55/50/45 as you can afford. Please contact Ayala to book (places limited).
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2022
Jan 8th — Class 'Interbeing' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Jan 21st — Video Night 'Hidden Dance' with Bob Lyness
Jan 22th — Class 'Conversation' with Cath Blackfeather
Feb 12th — Class 'Hidden Dance' with Bob Lyness
Feb 29th — Class 'Hidden Things' with Ayala Kingsley
Mar 5th — Virtual Diamond Night 'Hidden'
Mar 12th — Class 'Small Dances' with Andy Solway
Mar 26th — Class 'The Between' with Helen Edwards
April 9th — Class with Lizzy Spight
April 23rd — Workshop with Yumino Seki
May 14th — Class 'Breathing Earth' with Helen Edwards
May 28th — Class with Helen Edwards
May 29th — Fired Earth performance
June 11 — Class with Bob Lyness
June 25 — Sound/body workshop with Anne L. Ryan
July 9 — Class 'Walking with Shadows' with Ayala Kingsley
July 9 — Of Wounds & Shadows performance
July 23 — Class 'The Space Between' with Lizzy Spight
August 6 — Remembering Nagasaki performance
August 13 — Class 'Form and Flow' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
August 27 — Class 'Sculpting Earth' with Helen Edwards
August 29 — Fen Dance performance
Sep 10 — Class 'Starting from Zero' with Ayala Kingsley
Sep 24 — Class 'Becoming Dance' with Karen Goonewardene
Oct 8 — Class with Bob Lyness
Oct 22 — Class 'Breathing Earth' with Helen Edwards
Nov 12 — Class 'Stories and Memory' with Andy Solway
Nov 26 — Class 'Threshold and Transition' with Ayala Kingsley
Dec 10 — Class with Lizzy Spight
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Video Night
Friday 21st January 2021 — 7.00-9.00 pm
Florence Park Community Centre, Cornwallis Rd, OX4 3NH
An evening of butoh films and memories, curated by Bob Lyness, including workshop sessions with Yoshito Ohno and performances along the way. Donations.
Virtual Diamond Night: "Hidden"
Saturday 5 March — live-streamed on YouTube from 7.00pm
We are excited to be putting on our first Diamond Night in three years. Diamond Nights, hosted at Oxford Brookes Drama Studio, were an important regular event for Café Reason, enabling us to present our fledgling ideas and works-in-progress to a small, supportive audience, as well as sharing the space with other performance artists. This virtual show will be primarily dance solos and duets, with each performer offering a different interpretation of the 'Hidden' theme.
Access to the performance is via this YouTube channel. (NB Content will only appear when we go live and will not remain after the performance. Edited highlights will be uploaded subsequently: see here).
A Point of Transformation: workshop with Yumino Seki
Saturday 23 April — 10.00 am–4.30 pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston
The workshop will make an inquiry into the transformative nature of the body, exploring unique individual expression through Butoh with a somatic approach, integrating the body, mind and emotion whilst using movement as the main exploratory tool.
Shifting attention from ‘action’ to ‘active listening’ we will explore the body’s complex expression through Butoh's culturally diverse perspectives, such as ma — in between, wabi — humbleness, and sabi — the process of decay, shadow and cycle of life.
"…trusting that the body has its own intelligence and experience. Not moving but being moved. Raw yet subtle, meditative yet self-destructive, stark yet sensual. Conflict and harmony coexist in an ambiguous way. I explore and reflect the inner landscape where the body becomes mere ‘being’ and where a point of transformation occurs."
For more information and to book, please contact Ayala.
Cost: £50/45
Fired Earth: Fusing the Five Elements
Sunday 29 May — 2.00pm
Wytham Woods
This performance is a special commission from the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum, as part of their Japan-themed summer party, which also includes a visit to the Anagama traditional pottery kiln (see booking details). The theme of the piece is the Five Elements or 'Godai' of Japanese philosophy (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void).
There are many qualities and attributes associated with each element, but nothing consists solely of one element or another. Everything is a result of their combination and interaction. The pottery vessel (‘fired earth’) represents the coming together of all the elements: water and earth in the clay; air and fire in the kiln; and also contains the void.
Dance can be understood this way, too: body (earth), movement (wind), energy (fire), time (water), and space (void).
The concept of emptiness is very important in butoh, where great attention is given to 'Ma' – the space between things, the silence between notes of music, the stillness before movement. The void is before, after, within, and around everything.
We are very pleased to welcome musician Keiko Kitamura, who will accompany us on the koto, as well as the support and input of Joanna Matthews as Production Manager/Dramaturge.
See Peter Jones' edited video of this performance (8 min) on YouTube.
Being Body Sound Bridge
Saturday 25 June, 10.00am–1.00pm
Mortimer Hall
Anne L. Ryan leads this special class: "Being with our body, encouraging slow movement, and focusing gently on the breath, our body becomes relaxed. Taking time to tune to our own rhythm, our body slow into motionlessness. From a deep quiet space, we tune to the impulse to resonate sound. As our voice connects with our body, this resonance opens the body's sound portal. From this place, we work with resonance to shape our inner-landscape into sounding butoh movement."
Of Wounds and Shadows
Saturday 9 July, 3.35pm
St Mary & St Nicholas Church, Littlemore, OX4 4PP
'Summer Celebration for Peace and Planet', 1.00pm — 4.45pm
This performance with live music, previewed last summer in Florence Park, is linked to the Decolonising Florence Park Street Names project and seeks to embody the emotional and psychological landscape of colonial pasts and presents. It takes as its inspiration this paragraph by international speaker and writer, Bayo Akomolafe.
Touch the tender places; that's where the wound is: Decolonization is not a return to a fixed past or the resuscitation of a pure original. Decolonization is never done; it never arrives, it can only approach. Something is always at stake; something is always haunted and troubled. The place of the decolonial is the site where we sit with the trouble, engaging it, knowing that we are embodied by our relationships with shadows.
Remembering Nagasaki
Saturday 6 August, 2.00pm
This promenade performance will take place on Hiroshima Day – the 77th anniversary of that city's destruction by the first atomic bomb) and will travel from Stile Road to 2 New High Street ('The Shark House'). It seeks to make the connection between the Headington Shark, which was erected on 9 August 1986 (the 41st anniversary of the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki) and – against the current backdrop of the invasion of Ukraine – how the violence and barbarity of war and feelings of bewilderment, fear, and helplessness still affect us all.
Fen Dance
Monday 29 August, 2.00pm
Hinksey Heights Nature Trail; part of their Big Nature Day 10.00am-4.00pm
This site-specific piece is inspired by a flower; the rare and endangered fen violet. The performance forms part of the Freshwater Habitats Trust Wetland Arts Public Engagement Programme 2022, which seeks to enhance human engagement and understanding of the lives of rare wetland plants and the importance of their conservation.
There will also be outdoor dance workshops with Lizzy Spight (11.00am) and Helen Edwards (12.00pm).
See the Eventbrite page for all sessions.
Mapping the Body
Saturday 8 October, 2.00–5.00pm
POSTPONED TO 2023
Mortimer Hall
Following on from our online research project Breaking Free: On the Limitations of the Dancing Body, which took place during lockdown, this afternoon session aims to look at our bodies in culture, as ourselves, not specifically as dancers, but every-body. It will be an exploratory workshop with a view to eventually developing a full-length piece for future performance.
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2021
Jun 12th — Class with Cath Blackfeather
Jun 26th — Class with Bob Lyness
Jul 10th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Jul 10th — Of Wounds and Shadows workshop
Jul 24th — Class with Bob Lyness
Jul 30th — Mycelium outdoor workshop with Helen Edwards
Aug 14th — Class with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Aug 28th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Aug 29th — Of Wounds and Shadows — POSTPONED
Sep 11th — Sound/body workshop with Anne L. Ryan
Sep 25th — Contact class 'Connections' with Andy Solway
Oct 9th — Class 'Mass and Space' with Ayala Kingsley
Oct 23rd — Class 'Beyond Form' with Helen Edwards
Nov 6th — Body of Water workshop: Marie-Gabrielle Rotie
Nov 13th — Class with Lizzy Spight
Nov 27th — Class 'Inner State' with Cath Blackfeather
Dec 11th — Class 'Hidden in the Dance' with Bob Lyness
Dec 18th — Class 'Starting from Zero' with Ayala Kingsley
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Mycelium free-movement workshop
Friday 30th July 2021 — 12.00-6.00 pm
Heath Farm, Swerford, Chipping Norton, OX7 4BN
Time to earth…exploring bodies and connectivity…regeneration…decomposition…a myriad view… A special outdoor session in the lovely grounds of Heath Farm, led by Helen Edwards. See flyer.
Helen was a member of Café Reason from 2000-2007, teaching and performing with the group. She has trained in Japan, Indonesia, Europe, and the UK exploring Butoh, Amerta Movement, and improvised and environmental dance and art. Helen has danced in nature all her life. Her interest is in becoming more aware of the ecological body and the dynamic flux of life.
For more information and to book, please contact Ayala or Helen. Cost: £25.
Of Wounds and Shadows
Sunday 29 August, 3.00pm
Florence Park, Oxford
This performance is now postponed until 2022, as the City Council would not allow us to go ahead without obtaining and paying for a licence to use the space. We will post details once new plans are in place.
This semi-improvised promenade piece, with live music, is linked to the Decolonising Florence Park Street Names project and seeks to embody the emotional and psychological landscape of colonial pasts and presents. It takes as its inspiration this paragraph by international speaker and writer, Bayo Akomolafe.
Touch the tender places; that's where the wound is: Decolonization is not a return to a fixed past or the resuscitation of a pure original. Decolonization is never done; it never arrives, it can only approach. Something is always at stake; something is always haunted and troubled. The place of the decolonial is the site where we sit with the trouble, engaging it, knowing that we are embodied by our relationships with shadows.
Being Body Sound Bridge
Saturday 11 September, 10.00am–1.00pm
Mortimer Hall
Anne L. Ryan leads this special class: "Being with our body, encouraging slow movement, and focusing gently on the breath, our body becomes relaxed. Taking time to tune to our own rhythm, our body slow into motionlessness. From a deep quiet space, we tune to the impulse to resonate sound. As our voice connects with our body, this resonance opens the body's sound portal. From this place, we work with resonance to shape our inner-landscape into sounding butoh movement."
Body of Water
Saturday 6 November, 10.00am–4.00pm
Mortimer Hall
A chance to work with performer/choreographer and long-time butoh exponent Marie-Gabrielle Rotie. The workshop takes its inspiration from the photography exhibition Water Lily, portraits of Kazuo Ohno, by Keiko Ikeuchi (at the Oxford Playhouse 15 October to 15 November) and will focus on the idea of the body as a water sac and images of flow, fluidity and liquidity. How can we be moved by the image of water, become water, and inhabit a watery world?
Cost £50/45
Please note that this workshop is now full and there is a waiting list. However, do email if you are interested, as if there are sufficient numbers, we could repeat the session on 7 November.
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2020
Jan 4th — Class
Jan 11th & 12th — Tipping Point performance
Jan 25th — Class with Cath Blackfeather
Feb 8th — Class with Andy Solway
Feb 22nd — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Mar 14th — Class with Macarena Ortuzar
May 18th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Sound Fields score
Jun 1st — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): The Green Fuse score
Jun 13th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Half a Duet score
Jun 27th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Breath, Pulse, Wave score
Jul 11th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Break-dance score
Jul 25th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Mindful Moon Magic score
Aug 8th — August outdoors Unboxed
Aug 16th — August outdoors Landscape workshop
Aug 30th —August outdoors Presence & absence
Sep 12th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Sep 26th — Class with Adam Koan
Oct 10th — Class with Lizzy Spight
Oct 24th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th January 2020 — 7.30 pm
Tipping Point
Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College, Merton Street, OX1 4JF
With the clock ticking for action on climate change, Café Reason presents its topical and urgent new show. This eclectic and provocative performance features original live music, projection, bizarre costume, and found objects, and offers a creative, challenging response to the threats facing our fragile planet. For more information see the Tipping Point page.
Tickets (£12) are on sale through EventBrite. Click here to buy. Discounts for groups of 10+ are available: contact Ayala to arrange.
Bite-size butoh
This is a series of fortnightly movement prompts or 'scores' written by our class teachers to enable class members and others to develop their practice while live classes are not possible. Participants are then invited to a Zoom meeting a week or so later to 'show and tell': feedback can be in movement, art, writing, or just talking about the experience.
As with Café Reason butoh classes, there will be a variety of approaches. Future scores will come from guest teachers Macarena Ortuzar, Andy Solway, and Lizzy Spight: information about the scores will be added to the website as it becomes available.
8 — 18 May: Sound Fields (Cath Blackfeather) invites us to play with the sounds in our environment, embodying them and taking them into choreography. You can find this score here.
Zoom meeting 18 May 6.00 — 7.30pm.
22 May — 1 June: The Green Fuse (Ayala Kingsley) investigates the process of vegetative growth — the impulses and mechanisms that carry a plant out of the soil and into maturity and bloom, and finding the parallels in our own bodies. You can find this score here.
Zoom meeting 1 June 6.00 — 7.30pm.
5 June — 13 June: Half a Duet (Andy Solway) is an intriguing exercise in dream-memory and sensory imagination. You can find this score here.
Zoom meeting 13 June 11.00am — 12.30pm
18 June — 27 June: Breath, Pulse, Wave (Cath Blackfeather) takes simple repeated movements and examines the effect of changes in intention or image. You can find this score here.
Zoom meeting 27 June 11.00am — 12.30pm
1 July — 11 July: Break dance (Lizzy Spight) focuses on rhythm, internal and external, and how breaking that rhythm can lead to new movement discoveries. You can find this score here.
16 July — 25 July: Mindful Moon Magic (Karen Goonewardene) is an invitation to create a 'sacred circle', then a cylinder, then a bubble, to fill with your dance – a moving sculpture. You can find this score here.
Zoom meeting 25 July 11.00am — 12.30pm
August outdoors
Saturday 8 August, 10.30-12.30: Unboxed
South Park, Oxford
Exploring interactions of scale, space, isolation, and relationship as we emerge from lockdown and rediscover the wider environment. Places are limited, and the event is weather-dependent, so please email Ayala if you are interested in coming, including phone contact details. Bring a blanket and packed lunch if you'd like to have a picnic social afterwards. Donations
Sunday 16 August, 2.00-5.30: Landscape workshop
Strawbale Studio and grounds of Michael's Folly, Epping Green, Hertfordshire.
A somatic inquiry into the transformative ability of the body, in order to access deeper and more authentic movement and expression of ourselves in tune with the natural world. Explore the interconnected pulse of Nature, as the elements become our friendly witnesses. For more details and to book, email Fabrizia. £25
Sunday 30 August, 10.30-12.30: Presence and absence
Headington Hill Park, Oxford
How much space do we normally occupy? How can we change the strength of our presence? Can we expand our presence to reach beyond the 2-metre threshold? Can we withdraw it to become almost absent? What about connections through touch – connections to the environment, and transmitting touch to people from a distance?
To book, please email Andy if you are interested in coming, including phone contact details. Bring a packed lunch if you'd like to have a picnic social afterwards. Donations
Special guest teacher Adam Koan
Saturday 26 September, 10.00-13.00
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston
We are delighted to welcome guest teacher Adam Koan, who will lead our Saturday morning class on 26 September. Adam is an international butoh performer, teacher, and writer. He was a facilitator at the Himalaya Subbody Butoh School and is curator of the 2-week Serbia Butoh Retreat. He writes: I live to dance. I dance to live. Included in the light side of life are also the shadows. I dance the shadows too.
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2019
Jan 5th — Exploration Day
Mar 30th — Diamond Night #19
Apr 24th — Oxford Dance Forum Scratch Night
May 16th — Tipping Point performance
Jun 1st — Gemma Peramiquel workshop
June 22nd — Outdoor workshop with Macarena Ortuzar
July 12th — Trio De Femmes performance
July 13th — Trio De Femmes workshop
Aug 24th — Cycles of Life workshop
Sep 14th & 28th — Classes
Oct 12th & 26th — Classes
Nov 9th & 23rd — Classes
Dec 14th — Class
Saturday 5th January 2019 — 10.30–4.30
Exploration Day
Eynsham Baptist Church Hall
This workshop is aimed at experienced contemporary dancers, who are invited to join Café Reason for the day. Through guided exercises and improvisation we will conduct an investigation into the theme of climate change, to find our own emotional and movement responses to the threats that face our fragile planet. Our ultimate intention is to develop a new work for performance.
Please contact
Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place.
Saturday 30th March 2019 — 8.00 pm
Diamond Night #19
(See the main Diamond Night page for general information about these events.)
The nineteenth in our series of arts evenings, bringing 'uncut performance gems' (ours and others') into the spotlight.
Oxford Brookes University Drama Studio
Headington Hill Campus
Headington Hill, Oxford
Cost: FREE (Donations very welcome.)
Time: 7:30 pm for 8:00 pm start
Directions... map
...from central Oxford, follow High Street over the river to the roundabout at The Plain, take the first exit (St Clements) and continue past traffic lights and straight on up Headington Hill, past the park, and then take the first driveway to the LEFT near the top of the hill, into the Brookes University Headington Hill Campus. Go past the gatehouse and take the 2nd turning on the right. The Drama Studio is a smallish, squarish building with railings outside the door, set back from the main driveway. It is usually possible to park there on Saturday evenings.
...from London, buses go every ten minutes at peak times and run all night. Catch either the Oxford Tube, or the X90, and ask for the'Gyspy Lane' or 'Brookes University'stop. Get off the bus and CROSS THE ROAD. There are two campuses, and the one you want is the less obvious one, a few metres further down the hill towards Oxford city centre and on the right hand side of the road.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE ENTRANCE DOOR OPENS DIRECTLY ONTO THE STAGE. IF YOU ARE SO LATE THAT THE PROGRAMME HAS ALREADY BEGUN, THERE IS NO WAY TO LET YOU IN WITHOUT DISRUPTING THE PERFORMANCE. IF THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY BETWEEN PIECES THE DOOR WILL BE OPENED TO CHECK FOR LATECOMERS, BUT PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK UNLESS AN INTERVAL IS CLEARLY IN PROGRESS!
Wednesday 24th April 2019 — 7.30 pm
Oxford Dance Forum Scratch Night
Arts at the Old Fire Station, 40 George St, Oxford OX1 2AQ
Ayala Kingsley will perform 'Wrap': a semi-improvised performance that while exploring the possibilities of one of the more ubiquitous household materials, also enters the darker experiences of entanglement and constraint. With Cath Blackfeather and Karen Goonewardene.
Tickets £5. Visit the Old Fire Station to book.
Thursday 16th May 2019 — 7.30 pm (time tbc)
Tipping Point
The Forum, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB
In a commission by the University of Hertfordshire, Café Reason presents its latest large-scale show 'Tipping Point'. With just 12 years for the world to act on climate change, this eclectic new work features original live music, projection, bizarre costume, and found objects, and offers a creative, challenging, multimedia response to the threats facing our fragile planet.For more information about the show see the Tipping Point page.
To book tickets visit UH Arts.
Saturday 1st June 2019 — 10.00 am - 1.00 pm
'Holding the Space' workshop with Gemma Peramiquel
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
Contemporary dancer/teacher/choregrapher Gemma Peramiquel (also performing at the OFS on 24 April) will lead a movement workshop, using somatic techniques to strengthen the relationship between the mind-body balance and the space it holds.
Cost: £15 (by 25/05) then £20.
Please contact
Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place.
Saturday 22nd June 2019 — 10.00 am - 4.00 pm
'Outside, In' workshop with Macarena Ortuzar and Dana Iova-Koga
Wytham Woods
A one-day outdoor workshop that offers a diversity of movement explorations aimed at attuning the body to itself as well as to the natural environment, first addressing the concrete elements of the body: muscles, bones, and connective tissue, and from there working in ever-widening circles of subtle energetics and sensitivities to our own internal landscapes and the landscape around us. See also the workshop flyer.
Cost: £60
Please contact
Macarena for more information and to book a place.
Friday 12th July 2019 — 7.30 pm
Performance by Trio De Femmes (USA): Girly Show —
What We Sacrifice for the Dream of Love
Burton Taylor Studio, Gloucester St, Oxford OX1 2BN
A rare opportunity to see a performance by members of Seattle-based group DAIPAN, on tour as Trio De Femmes.
A feel-good show with heart, soul and disco-ball sparkle. Trio De Femmes’ anarchic concoction of Butoh, song, storytelling and clowning, generate a dynamic narrative on modern life and loving in the #MeToo era; sharing shadows, secrets and real life experiences growing up in an unpredictable and complex age.
Tickets: £10, available soon from the Oxford Playhouse.
Saturday 13th July 2019 — 10.00 am - 4.30 pm
Workshop with Trio De Femmes: The Heroine’s Journey —
navigating personal mythology
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
A wonderful chance to work with the 'Trio De Femmes' Sheri Brown, Lela Besom, and Marina White Raven of the DAIPANbutoh Collective.
This transformational butoh-inspired workshop will feature explorative dance, meditation, visual art and self-enquiry. Sheri, Lela, and Marina will create a progressive journey into and beyond self, each taking the lead at a specific part of the process, connecting with our subtle elemental body, dancing through matter, image, personal stories, and ancestral pasts into new unknown territories.
Cost: £45 (by 15/06) then £55.
Please contact
Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place (places limited).
Saturday 24 August 2019 — 10.00 am - 4.30 pm
Cycles of Life Workshop —
led by Cath Blackfeather, Ayala Kingsley, and Karen Goonewardene
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
An immersive day of creative exploration and opportunity to return to the wellspring of our connection with the earth. As autumn approaches we will find our new beginnings, and as the planet moves towards the Equinox, of balance between light and dark. Through guided exercises and improvisation, we will explore the eternal themes of life and death, creation and destruction, loss and grief, regeneration and hope.
Shared between the three session leaders, this workshop will use a variety of simple butoh techniques and visualisations, props, sound, and other stimuli, to facilitate deep connection and authentic movement in a day of discovery, grounding, and inspiration.
Cost: only £20!
Please contact
Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place (places limited).
2018
July 1st — Piece of You
Aug 25th — Yael Karavan workshop
Sep 22nd — Diamond Night #18
Oct 10th — Ana's Time
Oct 13th — Random Variable
Sunday 1st July 2018 — 2.30 pm
Piece of You
SS Mary & John Church, 271 Cowley Road
This specially devised, 15-minute group piece, choreographed by Michelle Azdajic, is presented as part of the Marhaba event at the Cowley Road Carnival. Woven into the movement and expressed in the colourful paper flowers are some of the things we remember about the late Ana Barbour and her unique and lighthearted presence and movement.
Marhaba at the Cowley Carnival.This free event, which runs from 12.00 — 6.00 pm, comprises an exciting and varied programme of music, poetry, dance and visual art, featuring:
2.00*: Dabke workshop by a visiting group from Ramallah, supported by music from Confluence.
2.45*: Rumi for One More — work of the poet Rumi expressed through dance, music, and various languages.
4.00*: The Littlemore Oratorio — a new work reflecting the past, present and future of the whole community.
*Timings are approximate.
Throughout the day there will be tributes in dance and music to Ana. As well as Café Reason's new piece, there will be work by Mue, Nini Sakhri and Lizzy Spight, Catherine Rush, Peter Jones, and others.
Saturday 25th August 2018 — 10.30 am - 4.30 pm
Butoh Workshop with Yael Karavan
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH
This workshop will explore transformation and metamorphosis, dance through imagery, presence, embodiment, awareness, and the tension between opposites. The aim is to free the body from its mundane domestication and habitual gestures and movements, and thus allow access to a deeper and more authentic essence of movement and archetypal expression. It is suitable for all levels of experience.
Cost: £40 (by 28/07) /£45 (by 18/08) /£50 (after 18/08).
Yael Karavan is an award winning performer, dancer and Artistic Director of the Karavan Ensemble. In her dance research she travelled across Japan and Europe searching for a physical language of expression which bridges East and West, dance and theatre. She studied and worked with butoh masters such as Kazuo Ohno, Tadashi Endo, Carlotta Ikeda, Yumiko Yoshioka, Akiko Motofuji, Ko Morobushi and Katsura Kan.
Please contact
Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place.
Saturday 22nd September 2018 — 8.00 pm
Diamond Night #18
(See the main Diamond Night page for general information about these events.)
The eighteenth in our series of arts evenings, bringing 'uncut performance gems' (ours and others') into the spotlight.
Oxford Brookes University Drama Studio
Headington Hill Campus
Headington Hill, Oxford
Cost: FREE (Donations very welcome.)
Time: 7:30 pm for 8:00 pm start
Directions... map
...from central Oxford, follow High Street over the river to the roundabout at The Plain, take the first exit (St Clements) and continue past traffic lights and straight on up Headington Hill, past the park, and then take the first driveway to the LEFT near the top of the hill, into the Brookes University Headington Hill Campus. Go past the gatehouse and take the 2nd turning on the right. The Drama Studio is a smallish, squarish building with railings outside the door, set back from the main driveway. It is usually possible to park there on Saturday evenings.
...from London, buses go every ten minutes at peak times and run all night. Catch either the Oxford Tube, or the X90, and ask for the'Gyspy Lane' or 'Brookes University'stop. Get off the bus and CROSS THE ROAD. There are two campuses, and the one you want is the less obvious one, a few metres further down the hill towards Oxford city centre and on the right hand side of the road.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE ENTRANCE DOOR OPENS DIRECTLY ONTO THE STAGE. IF YOU ARE SO LATE THAT THE PROGRAMME HAS ALREADY BEGUN, THERE IS NO WAY TO LET YOU IN WITHOUT DISRUPTING THE PERFORMANCE. IF THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY BETWEEN PIECES THE DOOR WILL BE OPENED TO CHECK FOR LATECOMERS, BUT PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK UNLESS AN INTERVAL IS CLEARLY IN PROGRESS!
Wednesday 10th October 2018 — 7.00 pm
Ana's Time
Film Oxford, 54 Catherine Street, OX4 3AH
A film show in memory of Ana Barbour, who died last year, including many of her remarkable dance films. The evening has been organised by Dariusz Dziala and Malcolm Atkins, who collaborated with Ana on both films and live work. This free event is supported by Film Oxford, who also worked with Ana. There will also be poetry by Ayala Kingsley and live music accompaniment by Bruno Guastalla to a specially prepared film by Dariusz about Ana.
Saturday 13th October 2018 — 2.45-3.30 pm
Random Variable
Long Room, Oxford Town Hall, St. Aldates
This semi-improvised performance will take place as part of the Oxford 'IF' Science & Ideas Festival. It will support a presentation by Juliet Henderson: 'Breaking the Rules in Research Writing (and Dance)' and will explore the ways established patterns and conventions can be disrupted and transformed. We are delighted to have the involvement of other Oxford contemporary dancers in the development and performance of this piece.
Cost: Free to book, then PWYD (Pay What You Decide). Tickets are now available from Eventbrite.
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