Minako Seki

Minako Seki, a 3rd generation Butoh dancer from Nagasaki, Japan, danced in Tokyo with Dance Love Machine and came to Berlin in 1986 on invitation of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien. She stayed and in 1987 co-founded tatoeba – Theatre Danse Grotesque, the first Japanese-German Butoh-Ensemble. Since then she has created 55 productions as dancer, choreographer and director. She calls her style “Dancing Between.” Since 1990 she has been teaching at tanzfabrik Berlin and since 1992 at teatret cantabile 2 in Denmark.

In 2007 she got a professorship at University Gießen, Institut für Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft. She also organizes her own school programs and last year she co-founded KIM – World Wide School Of Moving Arts, which e. g. has a 3-month seminar in India in 2009. (www.physicaltheater.net)

What do you teach? I associate all movement with water. For example movement as floating water, splashed water, steamed water, water surface, waves, body as a waterbag etc. Pictures of water translate into different qualities of movements. I call it “Body Consistence.” Presence on stage and energy work as “We are all hanging from the earth” (Metaphorically I’m hanging on a thread, which on one ...