Two Little Pierrots - Butoh Performance with Joan Laage and Kea Tonetti
Two Little Pierrots
Directed by: Joan Laage
Performers: Joan Laage and Kea Tonetti
Original music: Scott Adams
Costumes: Shoko Zama & Joan Laage
Inspired by the famousCommedia dell’Arte figure known for its naivete and tragic/comedic escapades, this work premiered at Spazio NU in Pontedera in spring 2018 with Kea Tonetti and Maruska Ronchi, then in the summer Shoko Zama joined Joan in a performance at the Seattle International Dance Festival. In 2019 Joan and Kea Tonetti presented the piece in Milano at Spazio Continuum and at the Paris Butoh Festival at Espace Culturel Bertin Poiree.
Composer: Seattle resident Scott Adams is a composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist who has performed with an improv theater group, composed for full orchestra, co-written musicals, and is a recovering elementary school music teacher.
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. Since severals years she brings her teaching and performances in Europe. In Milano she has collaborated with Kea Tonetti for the duo Two Little Pierrot and with some advanced Kea students they created the performance Remnants Project, with: Joan Laage, Kea Tonetti, Elisa Tagliati, Giulia Leuzzi, Marco Casiraghi, Ricardo Sarmiento Munoz, and the live music by Tivitavi.