AVANT-GARDE NIGERIAN ARTIST DEVELOPS BUTOH-VOCAL THEATRE

In August, Eseohe Arhebamen led a Butoh dance workshop at The Living Theatre, a performance space located in downtown Manhattan.  Known as the “Dance of Darkness,” Butoh is a contemporary avant-garde dance form which was originally performed in Japan in 1959. Butoh combines dance, theater, improvisation and influences from the Japanese artist tradition and performance art.

Born in West Africa, Nigeria, Eseohe is an international multi-media performer residing in Brooklyn, NY. She is also known on stage and in performance, as Edoheart. Eseohe has taught different art forms to adults and children for many years in Detroit and New York; as Edoheart, she intimately incorporates language into her Butoh dance workshops.

An award winning poet, writer, and student of both Butoh and African theater, it is Eseohe’s “passion for language” (her own Nigeria boasts 512 of them) that has led her to explore “the semiotic nature of audio/visual communication” and “the channeling of language through movement.” Typically known for its extreme imagery and white-body makeup, the addition of vocalizations to the art form is quite an innovation coming from the Nigerian artist. (more…)

During my visit to Estonia recently as part of the Diverse Universe 2009 European tour in which I participated, I was invited to perform at The Writer’s House in Estonia by curator, Al Paldrok. I read from my chapbook, Seeding the Clouds (Ornithology Press, 2003) and to demonstrate how I become language, I also gave my butoh-vocal theatre performance of my poem-dance choreography, “eAIR Butoh”. Post performance, I was approached backstage by a woman who introduced herself to me tearfully, told me she was quite moved by my work and that she too was a poet and visual artist. Below is one of the gifts she gave me, an excellent poem.

Punk’s song

Infested with high science
like a rash-ridden man
fuck you!,
you nuclear shroom groomer –
let punk be the name for the century!

What are you staring at with these slit eyes?
Progress soiled his pants, or rather pissed.

Mother’s milk not tasted, fathers unknown,
young slut’s tits as the only remorse,

came the punk, intriguing on the rush hour
urinating freely, boldly and with anger,

successfully ridiculing the bourgeois,
born to a world, where the wanking humanity,

shed all the ideals, reaches an orgasm,
having stroked the brains with his palm.

written by Kai-Mai Olbri
(Translated by Tristan Priimägi)
www.kai-mai.pri.ee

Fire Butoh 2, Part 1

Fire Butoh 2, Part 2

Fire Butoh 2 Credits:
Eseohe Arhebamen performs fire Butoh at Grace Exhibition Space, New York 2008.
Choreography: Eseohe Arhebamen in collaboration with Vangeline
Sound: self-propelled machinemusik by Eseohe Arhebamen and Toshio Kajiwara
Stage design by Eseohe Arhebamen
Lighting design by Jene Youtt
Visuals: Ruby Gold + room 404 media + dinosaur fight of the zuvuya collective
Video: Austin Donohue, Firewalker Productions
Notes: Eseohe is calling this type of butoh performance, Butoh-vocal theater. The sound/music she has created and termed her Butoh-singing.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Jorge Rojas, Curator
keoqui@gmail.com

FiveMyles in Brooklyn, Diaspora Vibe Gallery in Miami, and labotanica in Houston Present Low Lives

Saturday, August 8, 2009, 6 – 9pm (EST)

(Brooklyn, Miami, Houston)– Low Lives is a one-night exhibition of live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time at three venues throughout the U.S.– FiveMyles, Brooklyn; Diaspora Vibe Gallery, Miami; and labotanica, Houston in partnership with Project Row Houses (5 – 8 pm in Houston). Low Lives examines works that explore the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks, though seldom utilized for performance art, provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting and viewing performances. (more…)