02/06/2026
A butoh-fu exploring metamorphosis, elemental embodiment, and the dissolution of form. The score guides dancers through a narrative arc of immersive states: beginning in the cold cradle of the ocean, becoming a creature learning humanness, gravity, heat, and communion for the first time. Drawing from butoh’s lineage of transformation and from ritual motifs of rebirth, the piece investigates what it means to shed a body, inhabit a new one, and then relinquish even that. It asks: What remains when every layer has burned away?
This offering begins with collective intention-setting, grounding each participant into their own inner landscape before movement begins. A somatic warm-up follows, preparing the body to enter heightened states of sensation, imagination, and permeability. From there, dancers move into the butoh-fu itself: a guided imaginative score that uses metaphor, sensation, and image to evoke physical transformation beyond habitual movement patterns.
After completing the score, we transition into a brief butoh-focused exercise to deepen the embodied themes of the piece and allow participants to explore its imagery more interconnectedly. The session closes with an integration circle, creating space for reflection, grounding, and shared meaning-making. From Ocean to Ember is, at its core, an invitation into deep imaginative somatics, ritual slowness, and the alchemy that happens when a body enters the unknown.
TEACHER BIO
Maya Kaufmann is a movement artist, educator, and ritualist prayerformer whose work is rooted in the belief that the body is a site of knowledge, devotion, and transformation. Raised by Zen meditation teachers and authors, she grew up immersed in contemplative practice, shaping a movement philosophy grounded in presence, listening, and reverence for what emerges through the body. Drawing from modern dance, belly fusion, butoh, and somatic traditions, her approach honors both form and flow, structure and surrender, inviting movement to arise as inquiry rather than display.
