H A U T

Breaking Forms: Butoh, Voice, and Digital Bodies

Exploring how voice, comic energy, and AI can disrupt and expand the deep sensitivity of Butoh performance.

Format: IN DEPTH
Genre: Performance / Butoh / Theatre / Digital experimentation

Date: 26th May – 22nd June 2025
Place: Performing Arts Platform, Aarhus

The artistic research

In this research, the artist aims to expand the scope of their artistic language as a performer. Yael Gaathon´s work has for many years been rooted in Butoh  - a practise with focus, sensitivity, and vulnerbility. While these qualities continue to form a core of Gaathon´s artistic identity, a sense of confinement has emerged over time, in relation to recurring tempos and embodied forms. 

This residency marks a pivotal moment - a deliberate step toward liberation from established patterns and expectations. It offers an opportunity to re-engage with elements from Gaathon’s earlier acting training: the use of voice, comic expression and more dynamic energies. Rather than abandoning the essence of Butoh, Gaathon seeks to layer it with new performative textures, cultivating a space where depth and playfulness coexist.

The exploration of AI and digital tools will also play a part during this residency - not as mere instruments, but as creative partners that can disrupt habitual methods, challenge perceptions, and open up unexpected performative possibilities.

About the artist

Based in Aarhus, Denmark, Yael Gaathon is a performer, choreographer, and teacher working with butoh and theatre. She is the artistic director of Blue Cliff and has been active in the performing arts for over 35 years - performing, creating, teaching, and developing her own artistic language. Yael sees butoh as an extreme form of sincerity, revealing intimacy, darkness, joy, and vulnerability. Her approach can be summed up by a quote from butoh master Kazuo Ohno:

“It is the soul that dances, and the body follows."

Yael began her career as an actress, graduating from Nissan Nativ Acting Studio (Israel) in 1993. After graduation, she joined the internationally acclaimed Itim Theater Ensemble, performing worldwide, including at The Barbican Centre (London), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), and Adelaide Festival (Australia). Yael began practicing butoh in Israel in 1995 and later made several trips to Japan to study under Yoshito Ohno, as well as Natsu Nakajima, Yukio Waguri, and others. 

Today, Yael choreographs, directs, performs, and teaches. She has worked with institutions such as The Royal Danish Theatre, The Danish National School of Performing Arts, and the Danish Actors Association. Her latest performance, "Shinpai Shinaide – Don't Worry About Us", was nominated in 2019 for two Reumert Awards in the categories of Best Performance and Best Performer.

Read more the performing arts company Blue Cliff at https://www.bluecliff.org/ 

About IN DEPTH

IN DEPTH is HAUT’s 3-4 weeks residency that gives experienced performing artists the opportunity to research, investigate and rethink their artistic practice. During the residency the artists can enter into dialogues with sparring partners of their choosing, which can contribute to their artistic research.

This specific residency is co-curated and made possible through collaboration with Performing Arts Platform in Aarhus.

The residency is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, The Bikuben Foundation and The Municipality of Copenhagen.