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@connect4creatives
Safely inside, finding solace surrounded by bees, spiderwebs, and tiny ‘Bertie’ beetles clinging to my fingers. Wonders wander through this ecological cave as I sniff the clean bush air. Underfoot are the rings of rotting wood and the sharp smell of Balga fronds, snapped and strewn to form a new ground beneath my feet. Crouching, chewing sour grass and making bitter grapefruit faces under the canopy of the Woolly Bush
Spatial Anchoring
Pillar of Ash _ Butoh Walk
Corporeality, dense concrete crumbling stillness
The empty body becoming other
Stone
Insect
Wind
Grains of Sand
Corpse
Created with Sketch Fab at the Pica Symposium Boorda Yeyi 2026
breath in ash pillar walk the puppet relinquishes movement residue gravity forgets pause stillness body unthreads story falls away air alg
THE EXPERIMENT - a raw unedited excerpt from a four hour long Butoh Improv session
with Rachael Rei-Rei ensemble gatherer of Dark Morning Butoh Theatre
Players
Funke - live looped percussion & electric guitar
Abertronic - live electric violin 🎻
Steph Pick - butoh player
Anna Avocado - butoh player
Rachael Rei-Rei - butoh player
Rachael Rei-Rei
Director Dancer Improv Player
Dark Morning Butoh Theatre
December 2024-February 2025 Exhibition
Improv Performance Installation designed for Ashe Solo Art Exhibition Opening in an old convent in South West WA. Bunbury Regional Art Gallery
Create
Experience Wellbeing Beach Butoh Labs
Perform
Butoh Installation conceptualised by Rachael Rei-Rei developed in collaboration with Ashe & Molly - performed by the trio in an old convent in the south west of WA, Australia.
Live composed improvised music. Dwight Kostusik aka Funke live looped guitar and percussion (shakuhachi, ocean drum and rain stick) - Brendan Giambazi improvised piano - Aaron Kemp Violin
Butoh players: Rei-Rei, Ashe and Ryan. Artwork by World of Ashe. Ensemble, Development and Performance concept by Rachael Rei-Rei ensemble gatherer
@darkmorningbutohtheatre IG
Butoh on the Beach
Three decades exploring ecological empathy through improv and Bodyweather
Artistic Intention and Presentation
For over three decades, Rachael Kostusik has dedicated herself to a site-specific Butoh and Improv practice, drawing inspiration from the natural world, Australian animals, soundscapes, sound healing, Japanese and Australian artwork, and creative writing. Her latest project centered on Ashe's evocative screen prints, imaginative narratives, and Ryan's intricate embodied textiles. This collaboration began when Ashe invited Kostusik to perform Butoh at her solo exhibition held in an old monastery in the southwest of Western Australia. In response, Kostusik proposed that Ashe and Ryan join her as Butoh performers to create a movement installation for the opening night. Despite their lack of formal dance and performance experience, both Ashe and Ryan embraced the opportunity with enthusiasm.
Following the success of the opening night, the group was invited to reprise their movement installation for the local Fringe Festival at the same historic monastery-turned-exhibition space. Ashe brought her background in Belly Dance to the project, enriching their exploration with rhythmic elements, while Ryan contributed a fresh perspective from her knowledge of movement in the Fashion world.
Under Kostusik’s guidance, their collaboration blossomed into a dynamic investigation of Butoh’s transformative potential. With decades of experience working with non-dancers, Kostusik—who is trained in dance and theatre and also works as a counsellor—values how Butoh enriches participants both mentally and physically, nurturing creativity and well-being.
As part of the creative process, Kostusik and Ryan had the privilege of reading a draft of Ashe's novella. Kostusik selected the Prologue scene as a framing device to establish a strong dramaturgical tone for the exhibition opening performance. Kostusik crafted a written response inspired by Ashe’s screen prints and prose, which she recorded and used as an auditory tool during a Butoh training lab to offer participants an immersive way to connect with their bodies and emotions. Live violin, sound healing tools and professional photographers supported their site specific explorations on the beach. This innovative approach combined reflective storytelling with somatic practice, enhancing the depth of the creative development process.
During one of these labs, Kostusik led Ashe and Ryan through workshops that resulted in four distinct movement scenes she called "Fragments." These Fragments became the foundation for an evolving performance that paid homage to their collaborative efforts. The final performance installation featured Ashe’s stunning screen-printed scrolls accompanied by a didactic panel to enrich the audience's engagement with this unique artistic experience bringing textiles, prose, art and movement together.
This project exemplified how Butoh can unlock creativity and cultivate personal growth while bridging diverse art forms into a cohesive expression.
_______
Isle of the Mirage Anchorites Fragments:
Prepare
Travel
Turbulence
Recover
Butoh sensory engagement with visual art and live music
Butoh-Fu
A unique method of notation for Butoh Choreography
One of the key elements of Butoh-Fu is the Imaginative Space
Words are used to conjure and manage the physical and emotional landscape of a performance
Hijikata‘s visual method of using paintings as sources allow dancers to draw from rich visual context bridging two dimensional art with the dynamic nature Butoh
Rei Rei (Rachael K) 2024 Butoh performance was inspired by Kelsey Ashe screen prints. When Kelsey invited Rei Rei to bring her Butoh group to perform for opening night she was thrilled!
Instead of hiring and training Butoh performers it felt more intuitive for Rei Rei to invite Kelsey to perform Butoh as a wellness part to the preparation pre show and a way to culminate all the hard work into a cathartic movement installation performed in front of an epic screen prints on scrolls
The costume designer Molly - Rei Rei calls her Hope - was also invited to perform Butoh. As a trio they explored and collaborated on the beach - a favourite site for sensory experiences.
Sensory engagement
The practice emphasises the need to heighten bodily awareness and emotional sensitivity allowing performers to engage deeply with the themes presented in the choreography.
Our somatosensory system is a huge network of nerve endings. This controls how we perceive sensations such as touch.
Our urban busy modern lives mean we are subject to excessive sensory input.
By dancing the imagery in Butoh we are enveloping ourselves in unconscious neural patterns that can be tapped into with words that relate to our sense of touch and awaken the memory of our sensations
This awakening can offer profound emotional and psychological transformations. These site specific somatic butoh experiences can lead to increased trust, confidence, and feelings of wellness- enhancing body awareness, which is linked to better Emotional regulation resilience and management of pain.
Love Rei Rei
Dark Morning Butoh Theatre
@rachkutsik_wellpreneur IG
Images courtesy Luka Michelle Griffin
Molly, Rachael ‘Rei Rei’ and Kelsey rehearsing at the beach for Saturdays encore Butoh performance The Mirage of the Anchorites by Rei Reis Dark Morning Butoh Theatre 18.01.25
Rachael Rei-Rei’s Beach Butoh creative development lab winter 2024
Photography @relartizan IG
The red treasure found in the Intertidal Zone is such an inspiration for butoh exercises.
[Ushio Amagatsu’s coreography]
Experience Sankai Juku’s Butoh magic. I saw them perform in Japan 2008 - words are not enough to describe this experience. It was this company that inspired Dark Morning Dance Theatre, Perth’s first Butoh Dance Group (1997). Founded by Rachael Kostusik.
Living in Japan changed my perspective on my arts practice. Their wellness culture is incredible to experience.
research, reflect, collaborate and create
workshops to create and experience visual stories collectively.
Explore
Current societal issues
Ocean habitats
Personal development
Connect and create with movement for wellbeing
