Dance and learn about Butoh together at a three day retreat

07:40pm, Sunday 5 March 2023




You are invited to connect to nature and your True Self through Butoh dance with Anais Carmen Bourquin April 16-19, 2023 at Faasai Resort and Spa, Kung Wiman Beach, Chanthaburi, Thailand

The Butoh and authentic movement retreat will be led by Anais Carmen Bourquin, a holistic artist and Butoh practitioner of more than 15 years who has worked with Butoh masters in Japan and Shamanistic and animist dancers across Asia, Indonesia and India.

This is a rare opportunity to see a performance and learn with Anais, a Butoh master who describes her art as a celebration of life, experiencing the divine inside and outside yourself.

The retreat costs 9,000 baht covering three nights' accommodation, meals and retreat.

For more information or to book: email Bronwen at bronwenannevans@gmail.com Anais at anaisbourquin@gmail.com call Faasai Resort at 081 342 6234, contact Bronwen at WhatsApp +66868892595 or visit our websites anaisbourquin.com and faasai.com



RETREAT SCHEDULE

Sunday April 16 - welcome and solo performance by Anais to welcome in the Thai New Year followed by a meditative walk in silence from the forest to the sea to invoke Peace on Earth and for the participants to meet the Spirit of the Land as Faasai is a highly vibrating place

Monday April 17 - held in the gardens
Morning session - body techniques > standing, moving and taking the space in Butoh
Afternoon session - creativity and self-expression > meeting your heart and inner landscapes
Evening session - dinner and group discussion (historical and theoretical points + body weather)

Tuesday April 18 - held by the beach
Morning session - body techniques > the 3 looks, the 3 gestures and the 3 rhythms of Butoh
Afternoon session - creativity and self-expression > merging the ″inside″ and the ″outside″
Evening session - dinner and group discussion (Questions & Answers from the participants)

Wednesday April 19 - held by the lake
Morning session - body practice > from the individual body to the collective body
Afternoon session - solos and collective performances > danced storytelling and Oneness
Evening session - ending the retreat with dinner together


RETREAT PURPOSE

This three-day retreat is a journey deep inside your Self, experiencing connections to your heart, the relationship between your heart and Mother Earth and finally the merging point of your heart into the Cosmic Land beyond space and time.

Butoh dance is an offering to your Self and a prayer for a Peaceful World inside and outside.

It works through deep tissues, hidden emotions and penetrating to the core of your essence as a being.

During the retreat, you will be exploring several transformative states of your body. This will be supported by the Spirit of the Land itself as Faasai is a highly vibrating place. Anaïs will guide you to connect to your organic history, your known and unknown memories and lineages.

Welcoming your own dance, born form your ancestral past, you will practice being in the present moment, free from any sufferings and worries, tensions or desires. Beginning to heal your inner Self, discovering the true You within.

This retreat will be held outdoor: in the gardens in order to connect with the land and to resonate with the vegetal world, at the beach in order to connect with the water element and to wake up the ocean existing within the mind, and at the lake in order to connect both of the 5 elements and to find harmony within the body through the body.

Butoh starts with the breath and first movements of life and lead to universal awareness by being in the now, experiencing your many layers or seven bodies connection to the World.

At the end of the three-day retreat you will be invited to perform your own solo in nature. Also, there will be a collective performance including all the participants to end the retreat and express our gratitude to the Land and the received teachings and healings.

During the retreat you may also book a reading from Anaïs using Anandi's Oracle, a divinatory card game based on a historical practice that originated 200 years ago and which is known as the Oracle of Belline. (This requires additional cost / Can be done at Faasai or online).


ABOUT BUTOH

Some people say that Butoh is a dance-theater. Others say it's a non-dance. From the Butoh archives and the research I did, I would simply say that Butoh is a deep call for inner Peace.

As an art form it was officially born in 1959 when Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno met and the performance Kinjiki (Forbidden Colors) was revealed to the public. It was a reaction to the post-war crisis and a desire to create something which differed from the strict, classical forms of Kabuki and Nōh theater.

Butoh doesn't follow conventions of dancing but it is an expression of the life force that flows through the dancer.

Anais has developed her own school - Bhakti Butoh. Bhakti means devotion. For her there are two steps in the practice: the step where you meet your True Self and the step where you merge with the Divine within. At some point, there is no more difference between the dance and the dancer. You are. And this is an offering, a prayer, an expression of Bliss.

Bhakti Butoh is about finding your own authentic movements. It connects you with your emotions and ancestral linages, opening a path to healing, and helping you to expand.


ABOUT ANAÏS

Born in West Berlin and growing up in France and Africa, she graduated in visual arts at the University of Paris. While exploring different modes of expression for her art she discovered Butoh and spent more than 15 years practicing with masters such as Akaji Maro San and Yoshito Ohno San, the first dancer of Tatsumi Ijikata San and the son of Kazuo Ohno San.

Her journey took her from Europe to Japan, then from Mongolia to India, and eventually from the Himalayas to Kerala where she is now living as a visual artist and a monastic. Her dot ink drawings and her textile sacred dolls are sometimes exhibited in Switzerland or in France but more often people connect with her directly through her website and ask for special orders.

After being trained by Great Butoh masters, she spent seven years in Asia, Indonesia and India improving her knowledge and practice about sacred dances. She was initiated and trained in specific dances from Shamanism, Buddhism and Hinduism which are connected to the spirit of Butoh and its roots, like temple dances from Bali, Manipuri dance or Baul Path.

She has dedicated her life to making spiritually inclined creative tools supporting well-being, awareness and inner joy (like books, oracle game, creative retreats). Through sacred and holistic art imbibed with ancestral wisdoms and subtle techniques she supports people in their desire to open their heart and reach meeting points between I and One.

Biography

1985 Born in West Berlin (Germany - French part)
1986-1999 Nomadic childhood (Europe, Africa, US, Polynesia)
2003 High School Degree of Literature
2006 Bachelor of Visuals Arts
2008 Master of Scenography and Exhibition Curating

Art Journey

2006-2015 Theater of Emotions: Butoh dance focus
2015 Butoh dance as a contemporary shamanism: conference at the National Institute of Art History (INHA EHESS, Paris, France)
2015 - 2018 Deep Far East: Initiatic journey from Asia to India about sacred dances in the East (Mongolia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Borneo, Bali, Japan, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal)
2018 Art of the body and the voice: training for professional artists in order to be able to share the knowledge, wisdom and techniques from the West and the East
2019 Vayodhatu (The textures of the Air): Holistic Sacred Visuals Arts and Dances including dot ink drawings, spiritual tools, personalized therapy, specifics retreats and unique art projects



WWW.ANAISBOURQUIN.COM

www.faasai.com










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