Behind the Body - Mapping what Moves
Saturday Feb 21st - Thursday Feb 26th
Arrival and welcoming tea will take place from 2:00–5:00pm on the 21st. The program will conclude after dinner on the 26th, optional departure after dinner or on the morning of the 27th.
Behind the Body is a 6-day residential art laboratory set in the serene bushland of Dalpura Farm along the surf coast, 1.5 hours from Melbourne. This immersive training blends Butoh practice, somatic inquiry, guided improvisation, and performance building within a beautiful natural environment, supporting a journey of creation and self-discovery.
Participants are invited to engage with their subconscious through dance and movement, and to attune to both the inner and outer landscapes of being. The program encourages the revealing and expression of the human experience, using these discoveries as material for creative work that resonates beyond the personal, connecting with a greater sense of life.
The Training
Throughout the residency, a range of somatic practices, meditative movements, and improvisational techniques are offered to support participants in deepening their relationship with their bodies and the surrounding environment. Working with Butoh fundamentals as our primary vehicle for exploration, we will draw from the Subbody Butoh Method, Body Weather, Noguchi Taiso, Qi Gong and related movement modalities to enhance sensitivity, expand awareness, and support a fluid dialogue between mind and body.
Movement sessions are led by experienced facilitators who guide participants through these practices, holding space for inquiry and fostering a supportive learning environment. Collaborative sessions offer opportunities to experiment and create together, developing a shared language of movement and collective research.
Within this bushland setting, the laboratory cultivates a space where creativity, introspection, and community intersect. Each movement becomes part of an ongoing investigation of self, grounded in presence, nature, and time spent together. Participants will also be invited into moments of discussion and reflection, allowing space to contextualise their experience and artistic process.
The residency culminates in a final performance, presenting the collective work and individual developments that have emerged over the five days, acknowledging both the shared journey and the distinct pathways taken by each participant.
We will be training for 6-7 hours each day with time for performance building at the end. During training sessions participants will be guided to explore:
• Our shifting body landscapes: sensing how breath, weight, and impulse continually shift
• Somatic perception, meeting sensation, space, and body as dance partners
• Butoh fundamentals for dissolving habitual form and expanding movement potential
• Noguchi Taiso conditioning to soften the body and awaken fluidity
• Body conditioning grounded in Eastern cosmologies, integrating the Meridian system, Qigong, Tai Chi, KungFu and Kalaripayattu
• Sub-body inquiry, accessing the subconscious body through imagery and deep listening
• Co-body work, exploring shared timing, resonance, and collective sensing
• Practice witnessing and being witnessed, exploring performance as a mirror for life
• Improvisation and composition, shaping movement without fixing it
• Performance techniques and structures for sharing creative impulses with an audience
The Space
The laboratory takes place in a bush environment, with participants camping on site in tents. Meals will be shared communally, and participants are expected to take part in the simple, collective running of the camp, including cooking, cleaning, and caring for shared spaces.
Who Is It For?
This workshop is for dancers, theatre-makers, movement practitioners, and anyone curious about exploring the body in new ways and in new environments. No experience in Butoh or dance is required, but a general comfortability with camping and moderate level of fitness is nessescary
Further practical details, including what to bring and how to prepare for the environment, are available upon inquiry.
Facilitators
Alexandra Wynne is a nomadic performance artist and movement facilitator from Australia, dedicated to exploring the depths of human experience through Butoh. With a background in physical theatre and a three-year period of study and facilitation at the Subbody Butoh School in Dharamshala, India, her work weaves together influences such as Noguchi Taiso, natural movement, embodied awareness, and holistic practices that bridge body and mind.
Since 2011, Alexandra has travelled extensively across the globe, immersing herself in embodied research, performing, teaching, and curating artistic gatherings. She has studied closely with Butoh masters in Japan and Europe, while also sharing her work in diverse communities worldwide. Her practice invites participants into deep presence and transformation, cultivating authentic expression and a subtle sensitivity to the body’s inner landscapes and subconscious terrain.
Ripley Waters is a Butoh dancer and multidisciplinary artist currently based in Melbourne/ Naarm. With a life-long background in dance and a deep drive to explore truth through the body, her Butoh practice blends technical precision with intuitive inquiry. She first encountered Butoh in India and has since trained and performed across Europe, Japan, and Australia. Ripley’s approach is rooted in the body’s capacity for honesty and the search for honesty and inclusion in art- holding the grotesque, the ecstatic, and the subtle with equal attention. As a guide, she seeks to offer a space for movers to listen for what is true and emerging beneath the surface and to allow movement to be born from natural impulse and the mysterious forces within and without.
Yi Chen is a Butoh based dancer, choreographer and teacher/medium born in China. Her work explores a dimensional space bridging the visible and invisible. Body is the movement; space is the dance. In Butoh, the body’s formlessness shapes form, creating a space that invokes a life force—originating from, yet transcending, the dancer and audience. She is passionate about how this life force reveals the interconnection of all existence in the universe through dance—spanning past, present, and future.
Santeri Vikström is a Butoh practitioner and movement/dialogue facilitator from Helsinki, Finland with a background in Butoh, various wisdom traditions, and improvisational theatre. He has been actively practising butoh since 2012. His work offers spaces to dance meaninful metamorphoses and deepen participation to the depths and hights of existence. He is in mission to build bridges between butoh and other disciplines cultivating the possibility of an emerging artful alchemy. Over the years, he has organised and presented performances, workshops, and long-term courses across the globe in places such as Finland, India, Turkey, Japan, Italy, Australia, Hungary Spain, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Thailand, Nepal, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, etc. He has trained with a wide range of butoh artists, somatic practitioners, and teachers from different traditions.
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About iLiminal Butoh Collective
iLiminal is an international ensemble exploring perception, transformation, and the subconscious through the raw poetry of Butoh. Their work bridges performance and ritual, inviting participants into spaces of deep listening, shared presence, and embodied imagination. Through workshops, residencies, and performances, the collective creates experiences that honour impermanence, relational tension, and the shifting landscapes of the inner world.
Their approach is intuitive, inclusive and experimental, drawing from a variety of lineages and shared research to create evocative, dreamlike experiences that awaken the sense and speak to the hidden language of the body.
For more information about this event, participation and further information please contact
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INSTAGRAM : @iliminalbutoh
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