Joan Laage

Residing in Seattle WA for many years, Joan/Kogut is known as the Northwest butoh pioneer. She is one of the few non-Japanese to study with and dance under Yoko Ashikawa in her Tokyo-based group Gnome in the late 80s. She also studied with Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno. Joan has performed and taught at many festivals including the first New York butoh festival, Seattle and Salish Sea Butoh Festivals, Vienna’s Hybrid Butoh Festival, Butoh Festival (Tenri) and En Chair et En Son Acousmatic Festival in Paris, and at the Amsterdam Butoh Festival in 2024. Joan was invited by Vangeline to present her solo Rivers Running Red in New York City. Joan wrote a dissertation on the butoh body and is featured in Tanya Calamoneri’s Butoh America. Joan directs an annual site-specific event in the Seattle’s Japanese gardens. She is pleased to return to the Bay Area, having recently performed at the San Francisco Zen Center, and having had two earlier periods as a contemporary dancer at Margie Jenkins/ODC and at Mills College. Since living in Krakow 2004–2006, she has been known as Kogut (rooster).

http://seattlebutoh-laage.com/