SALISH SEA BUTOH FESTIVAL is an annual artistic convergence in Port Townsend, Washington to celebrate and deepen the study of Japanese Butoh and Butoh performance. Since 2021, our annual summer festival has featured immersive Butoh dance workshops taught by veteran Butoh artists from Japan and around the world. Organized by Executive Producers Iván-Daniel Espinosa and Robyn Bjornson, our annual festival also features artist talks and lectures with Q&A open to the public, participatory student workshop performances and outdoor site-specific dances in nature, and stage performances featuring our international teaching artists. The stage performances give festival attendees and audiences the opportunity to witness artworks by renowned Butoh practitioners as well as emerging artists, offering a potent immersion into this powerful dance form and an intimate glimpse into what Butoh is and can be.
Our summer festival takes place in a beautiful coastal town called Port Townsend, which is located in the SALISH SEA region of Western Washington state, USA. We celebrate the beauty of this ecologically diverse region and its greenspaces, which for thousands of years have been inhabited by the Coast Salish Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. We acknowledge with gratitude and respect that this region is on the ancestral Coast Salish indigenous homelands of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stillaguamish, and Muckleshoot Tribes and the S'Klallam peoples of the Olympic Peninsula.
All of our events are open to artists of any medium/background who are curious about Butoh and also to people with little or no dance/performance experience. Feel free to contact us at salishseabutohfestival@gmail.com
Iván Daniel Espinosa
— Co-Founder and Executive Producer
IVÁN-DANIEL ESPINOSA is a Latino dance choreographer and academic scholar primarily working in performance, installation and Butoh. Iván-Daniel is currently a PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He also holds a Master of Arts degree in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU). Iván-Daniel has presented his ecology-themed artwork nationwide at venues such as the world-renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York City, the Seattle International Butoh Festival, the Seattle ARTS IN NATURE Festival, Houston Fringe Festival and at numerous academic forums including the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center's BUTOH NEXT Symposium, UCLA Center for Performance Studies Conference, Goddard College M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program, York (Toronto) University’s Imagining Differently: Research-Creation Practices in Urgent Times conference, Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC), College Art Association (CAA) conference, and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Iván-Daniel’s recent multimedia dance installations exploring mycelium fungi networks and mycelium bioacoustics are at the forefront of interspecies performance, and Bio-Art and a chapter-length discussion about his artwork with fungi was featured in the Routledge publication by Dr. Angenette Spalink titled “Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene.”
Iván-Daniel's choreographic work and performance work are highly influenced by his extensive studies of Japanese Butoh. Since 2013, Iván-Daniel has studied and trained with many renowned Japanese Butoh master teachers from the senior generation of Butoh including Natsu Nakajima, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano, Saga Kobayashi, Semimaru and Dai Matsuoka of SANKAI JUKU, and Yuko Kaseki. He has also taken numerous workshops with many North American Butoh artists such as Sheri Brown of DAIPANbutoh, Diego Piñón of Butoh Ritual Mexicano, and Jacquelyn Marie Shannon. Iván-Daniel began his formative Butoh training with Seattle Butoh pioneer Joan Laage, who continues to serve as his foremost teacher and collaborator to this day. He is deeply grateful to Joan Laage for providing him with a continuous stream of inspiration and connection. Iván-Daniel has frequently collaborated with electroacoustic sound artists and avant-garde musicians, like TATSUYA NAKATANI, as well as with art-makers of various mediums, to create his multi-layered, sensorially immersive environments.
Robyn Bjornson
— Assistant Producer
Robyn Bjornson is a Seattle-based somatic dance facilitator, movement coach and physical trainer, youth mentor and performing artist. She draws on her long-time studies of Yoga, contact improvisation, acrobatics, partner dance and Butoh as the foundations for her unfolding practice and lifestyle. Robyn was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, nurtured by her love of connection with Nature, creative movement, and community building. Over the past 15 years, she has followed her passion for deep mind/body/spirit connection, which has led her to dive deeply into Contact Improvisation dance and Butoh.
Robyn began her study of Butoh in Seattle with Maureen Freehill in 2014 and performed for the first time in 2015 in a piece choreographed by Alycia Scott Zollinger. In 2016, she immersed deeply in the practice of Butoh at The Evergreen State College by working extensively with fellow Butoh practitioner Iván Espinosa and performing in many of his choreographies. Robyn has also trained in Butoh with Diego Piñón, Mushimaru Fujieda, Natsu Nakajima, Joan Laage, and Sheri Brown while performing in several staged and public park performances.
Robyn completed her Bachelor of Arts from The Evergreen State College, with an emphasis on psychology, somatic studies and dance education. She has also studied brain-compatible dance education with the founder of the Creative Dance Center in Seattle, Dr. Anne Green Gilbert, and is certified to teach Dr. Gilbert's "Braindance" that is used in schools and centers all over the world. Robyn currently teaches yoga, somatics, functional movement and creative dance workshops in the Seattle area. She aims to bring vibrancy into the lives of others through connection with our bodies and with the earth. Robyn continues her deep appreciation for the elders of Butoh and is humbled to serve as a co-producer for the Salish Sea Butoh Festival.