Body/Mind/Funk/Time: A movement primer with dance theater artist Michael Sakamoto

Butoh and American street dance each grew out of conditions of socio-economic crisis in the post-World War II era in Japan and the U.S. With elements inspired by both movement practices, Michael Sakamoto leads students through vocabulary and exercises to demonstrate a unique blend of intercultural dance theater embodiment. 

Limited space: Registration is sliding scale, $20–$30. Workshop runs 90 minutes.

Michael Sakamoto is an artist, scholar, educator, and curator in dance, theatre, photography, media, and culture. His creative works have been presented in 15 countries, including at Dance Center of Columbia College-Chicago, Vancouver International Dance Festival, REDCAT, TACTFest Osaka, and other venues. Recent works include: Flash, a butoh/hip-hop collaboration with Rennie Harris; the dance theater trio, Soil, featuring Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian performers; and blind spot, an intermedia performance with digital musician Christopher Jette. Michael’s current project is time/life/beauty, a dance-music-multimedia project with composer-musician Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky inspired by artist-activist Ryuichi Sakamoto. His scholarship appears in journals and anthologies across disciplines. His book monograph, An Empty Room: Imagining Butoh and the Social Body in Crisis, an autoethnography of butoh history, practice, and theory, was released by Wesleyan University Press (2022). Michael serves as director of programming and Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture program director for the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center.