With Julie Becton Gillum

During the workshops, participants will explore movement and stillness by investigating the body's natural anatomical potential, including floating, hanging, and using strings. Exercises from Noguchi Taiso water body practice and aspects of butoh will help remove customary societal and cultural behaviors, guiding dancers toward bodily emptiness. Without the constraints of old habits, the unconscious body can respond freely to sensations, forces, and emotional states, becoming a fully expressive body. Dancers will be instructed in lessons to expand their range of movements, including subtle, unrestrained, fading, animal, and revolutionary styles.

Cost: sliding scale $20-45 dollars 

Contact info: jbgbutoh@gmail.com

Julie’s Biography:

Julie Becton Gillum, artistic director of the 14-year-running Asheville Butoh Festival, has been creating, performing, and teaching dance in the US, Europe, Asia, and Mexico for over 40 years. She has practiced butoh for 27 years. Gillum was awarded the 2008-09 North Carolina Choreography Fellowship and used the funds to travel to Japan to study Butoh. 

Julie has recently returned from training and performing in Japan with butoh masters Katsura Kan, Saga Kobayashi, Moe Yamamoto, Mari Osanai, Seisaku, and Yuri Nagaoka. Julie performed her own choreography as well as that of the butoh masters. On February 18, she performed with Katsura Kan at a festival in Kyoto at the URBANGUILD; March 30, Julieperformed with Moe Yamamoto in Kanazawa, Japan. On April 19 she performed at the Aomori Cultural Arts Center and Chuo Simin Cultural Center in Aomori Japan with Mari Osanai. 

Since 2019, Gillum has been active in India, Serbia, Georgia, Greece, Mexico, and the USA. Recent performances at the Amsterdam Butoh Festival (October 2023), Seattle Butoh Festival (November 2023), NYU Abu Dhabi Art Museum (February 2024), UNFIX Festival in NYC (May 2024) were well received. 

Julie’s most influential mentors in butoh have been: Anzu Furukawa, Diego Piñon, Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, and Seisaku. Noguchi Taiso has become equally important for Gillum whose studies with Mari Osanai and Emre Thormann have refined her practice. She has guided butoh for 25 years and Noguchi Taiso for 10 years. 

Here are the links to videos:

Dusk - (Seattle Butoh Festival 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQbisLrX7s

Holes in Clay (excerpt) - Art Museum, NYU AbuDhabi (2024) 
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EyE2NaVe_lc

Sever -  Chiapas, Mexico (2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRqieX5mxGg