Remnants Project 

Directed by Joan Laage (Kogut Butoh)

Performers:

Joan Laage, Kea Tonetti, Elisa Tagliati, Giulia Leuzzi,

Marco Casiraghi,  Ricardo Sarmiento Munoz

Live music by Tivitavi

Living in Japan and South Korea, Joan became aware of how populations in countryside villages have been declining for years. Recently, she read an article about a Japanese woman who makes dolls and places them throughout her village as a way of repopulating and revitalizing it. Inspired by this story and by a series of white ghost-like sculptures set in a ruined castle on Lake Como, Remnants evokes the ghosts of our ancestors.

The performance was created during a choreographic residency with Joan Laage, organized by Kea Tonetti in Milan, at Spazio Continuum, where it was also presented to public in 2019.

Joan Laage (Kogut) 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