MARIANNA TSAGKARAKI & GINA ORA YOLI
Being Moved, Being Seen

1st Week – 3 hours/day
13:00 – 16:00

A collaborative workshop using the practice of Authentic Movement and Butoh.

Authentic Movement was developed by its founder Mary Starks Whitehouse in the 1950's. The method evolved from Mary's roots in dance (Mary Wigman and Martha Graham) and Jungian studies. Authentic Movement is a practice where Movers move with eyes closed while being witnessed by a Witness. There is no music. No guidelines on the movement. Here the Mover is self-directed, following the inner organic impulse to move. This is a practice of Presence. The Mover is present to emerging form, sensation, image, feeling, and memory. The Witness is present to the Mover, in an attitude of non judgement and is present to their own inner responses.

Butoh is an avant¬-garde form of art, born in Japan in 1959. The word derives from “buyo” -meaning circle or dance and “toh”¬ carry or the stamp of the foot. Pioneers of this movement art form were Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Butoh is not only “dance”, it is the denial of the concept of “dance” as we perceive it in general. It’s a path where the mover, through improvisation, explores other forms of existence besides the human form, using as guidelines both the seen and unseen in the natural world. It is in these moments we have the possibility to come into contact with the fundamental process of “metamorphosis”.

The similarities between Butoh and Authentic Movement are many while simultaneously being very different disciplines. The facilitators are excited to explore the ways in which the practicing of both might enhance and nourish each other offering participants a very rich way to practice presence via embodied creative expression that seeks to reveal our authentic selves.

Participants will have an opportunity to move both in the studio and in the natural landscape. The workshop will include exercises of breath and sensory awareness and the use of sound and silence. There will be opportunity to discuss themes that arise from the movement experiences and their application to our lives. We will seek to explore: who we are as movers and witness in our lives, the role of fantasy, memory and feeling as body expression, our place as embodied beings in the natural world.

Marianna Tsagkaraki

Marianna was born in Athens. She graduated from ''Rallou Manou'' Professional Dance School in 2001. She has 15 years of experience as a teacher and dancer. She teaches contemporary dance, butoh, kinesiology to actors and recently she became a hatha/vinyasa yoga instructor.

She has participated in many contemporary dance festivals in Greece and abroad, including the Cultural Olympiad 2004 and the Olympic Flame opening ceremony for the Paraolympiad in Greece and a Contemporary Art Festival in Luxembourg.

She has studied butoh with several distinguished teachers/dancers such as: M. Iwana, I. Garagouni, Y.Yoshioka, S. Koseki, K.Kan, A.Takenouchi. She has been presenting solo butoh performances since 2009 and has danced with A.Takenouchi in Aeschylia Festival.

In 2011 & 2015 she participated in the International dance eXchange & butoh Festival ''eX..it!'' in Germany ( K. Mai, T. Iwaoka, A. Pintus, S. Ishikawa, D. Fujiwara, Batarita, N. Nakaijima, Y. Waguri, M. Furutani, M. Havier Ciria, V. Tszin, Y. Umiumare, R. Lee etc).

She is a founder member of the dance group ''Constant Flux'' and ''Apallou Fermeni'' physical theater group. She has been working with the visual artists Maria Zervos and ''2formotion'' since 2010 participating in several festivals (Athens, Syros, Malta, Cannes, Madrid, Milano, Venice, New York, etc.).

Marianna always had the sensation that the body is sacred. She believes dance is a beautiful quality inside every person and wants to help reawaken this memory. Her interest in the flow of energy through the body as a reviving and healing process led her to become a holistic massage therapist. She has attended a one year course in Somato-psychopedagogie and has attained the first level in Reiki.

Gina Ora Yoli

Gina Ora Yoli began studying jazz dance at age 15 and later Modern Ballet. She received her BA (Columbia College, Chicago Ill.) in Performance & Choreography and her MA in Expressive & Dance Movement therapies (Lesley College, Cambridge MA). She began her career working as a Dance Movement therapist in both psycho educational and mental health settings. Over time, in her work there evolved an interest in exploring the places where dance expression, healing and spirituality converged.

Gina set out for Asia to see and experience as much multi ethnic dance as possible and pursue studies in meditation. She was fortunate enough to come across masters in both Dance and Meditation. It was here she experienced an embodied connection to Spirit while allowing expression through spontaneous movement. This experience offered her a different way of understanding herself, others and the world while deeply influencing her work as a therapist. She began studying Authentic Movement in 1998 and has been facilitating the work since 2004. Gina continues to study and explore embodied consciousness and healing modalities studying with a Peruvian shaman and teachers of Non Duality.

Gina was born in the U.S and grew up in Jerusalem Israel. She loves to move about the globe and offer the space to practice Authentic Movement.