#expressive dance

July 30, 1958

Birthplace: Bexleyheath, Kent, England

Dance That Speaks Without Words Contemporary Dance by Forever Dance Crew is a performance that connects deeply with the audience — blending modern technique, emotional storytelling, and expressive choreography. Every movement is layered with meaning, making it perfect for art showcases, corporate storytelling, brand identity events, and cultural presentations. Why Our Contemporary Dance…

Dance That Speaks Without Words Contemporary Dance by Forever Dance Crew is a performance that connects deeply with the audience — blending modern technique, emotional storytelling, and expressive choreography. Every movement is layered with meaning, making it perfect for art showcases, corporate storytelling, brand identity events, and cultural presentations. Why Our Contemporary Dance…

Butoh is a form of expressive dance invented in the 1950's by Tatsumi Hijikata. The concept of butoh not only aimed to oppose "the rigidly prescribed forms often found in both traditional and modern dance but it has also demanded a philosophical uprooting which categorically refutes all modes of ready-made 'culture'. (Here, 'culture' includes not just the performing arts of dance, theatre, mime, music, etc. but also literature and other categories.) This opposition of prescribed and ready-made culture is sustained not by the the body as a functional object as demanded by society but the body as a living and changing sculpture fashioned by life itself. We refer to this latter body as 'nikutai', and it is a body that resounds with the desire for individual life, one which encompasses individual history and experience."

Historically, the butoh of Tatsumi Hijikata possessed a specific method and philosophy which would be inherited from a master to an apprentice, this form of butoh would be called ankoku butoh. "Present-day butoh [can be understood more] as a 'tendency' that depends not only on Hijikata's philosophical legacy but also on the development of new and diverse modes of expression."

It's a case of, like the old adage says, dancing like no one is watching and allowing the sacred to emerge. You will find it's that elusive feminine aspect and she will swell at being allowed the free rein to express as she chooses...no particular movements or correct postures, no positions with names, no routines to follow...just exactly as she likes to express. Allow her to have her say and she will bring all the most disparate aspects of you together into a new kind of coherence, imparting the kind of strength that is an inside job. It's a female thing; we have known about this forever and we used such movements all the time until mass amnesia caused us to forget all but what was channelled into the sparse remnants that became the separate dance modalities that are enjoyed by the few today (far outbalanced by such widespread self-consciousness that most women bearly allow themselves to move their bodies fluidly at all). This is their forebear...and she's really wild! When we break the bands that hold us so rigid and proper, so apologetic and stiffled, so self-doubting and humiliated, we spill over our own edges and such healing flows out of us that we need no other source. In fact I recommend doing even just five to ten minutes a day of this kind of free-flow dance or even just arm and hand movement to music to all women in search of healing and wholeness; self-consciousness put aside, you might be amazed at what comes up out of yourself.

A couple of years ago, the urge to dance rose up in me so sharp and strong it had to be answered and I tried Nia for a few months. That (for me) didn’t work as the hour-long aerobic-ness of it only triggered more pain and chronic fatigue in the longer-run. If I’m honest, I also found the routines, the track-list and the repeat movements a little repetitious; nor did it work for me going to a…