Directed by Joan Laage with Kea Tonetti

Original music by Michael Shannon & Joey Largent

Costumes by Joan Laage & Shoko Zama

Performed by Joan Laage & Kea Tonetti

“Rivers Running Red” is a new duet that pays homage to the female body and menstruation. The piece is greatly inspired by an article exposing the practice in certain traditional societies of sending women off to the mountains to remain in huts and, all too often not surviving the harsh conditions, fueled by the belief that women are unclean while menstruating. The piece is also a reflection on this monthly cycle being celebrated as a sacred passage in other cultures.

Presented at Sala Alma Rosè- Artepassante, in Milano

Joan Laage (Kogut Butoh) studied under butoh masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa and performed with Ashikawa’s group Gnome in Japan in the late 80s, and more recently, has enjoyed training with Atsushi Takenouchi. After settling in Seattle in 1990, she formed Dappin’ Butoh, a company known for its appearances in Seattle’s fringe theater and dance festivals. Joan has performed and taught at national and international butoh festivals, was a featured artist at the UCLA Butoh Symposium in May 2011 and has been an adjunct faculty at Cornish College of The Arts (Seattle). She is featured in Dancing Into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, And Japanand Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemyby Sondra Horton Fraleigh.She performs frequently at the Seattle Japanese Garden where she is a docent. Joan is a founding member of DAIPANbutoh Collective which produces an annual butoh festival in Seattle. In 2017 and 2018, Kea Tonetti joined Joan’s Earth Tomes Project with performances at Spazio NU in Pontedera, and along with Maruska Ronchi, Kea performed Joan’s new work “Three Little Pierrots” at Spazio NU. Joan presented her work “Rose” at Kea’s studio on an evening with solos by Kea Tonetti and Marek Jason Isleib. In 2019, Joan returned to Milano to direct the “Remnants Project” and to perform Two Little Pierrot with Kea, that they also performed for the Paris Butoh Festival 2019 at the Espace Culturel Bertin Poirée.