Initiated by GIO JU
Dharamshala Butoh School
BUTOH HIMALAYA
2025 Autumn Course (10weeks)
15 Sep-23 Nov : Completed
16 March-22 May : Completed
2026 Autumn Course (9weeks)
14 Sep-21 Nov
Registration is in progress.
2027 Spring Course (9weeks)
1 Mar- 7 May
Registration is in progress.
<2026-2027 courses>
Registration information is below.
2026 Spring Course (10weeks)
<A brief course introduction>
Butoh in Dharamshala
Butoh allows us to explore various layers of existence and transformation. Particularly during a long-term course, we delve into the mystery of expanding into unpredictable depths and dimensions. Dharamshala, India, is an ideal location for an extended Butoh experience. This unique place blends chaos and tranquility, as the shelter for pilgrims of life and death with the mysterious energy of the Himalayas. Participants will engage with local natural spaces, ruins, and distinctive environments.
<Dharamshala Butoh School classes>
Short and long term Butoh course
It is a process of shedding socialized thinking, listening to the pure body language, experimenting, digesting, fermenting, and discovering dance that defies expectations. It is a fierce process of rebellion against our molded intellects and habituated bodies. It is a process of deep love that shifts from the control of the mind to the resonance of skin and cells, embracing the vulnerability of our lives and dissolving boundaries between self and others.
Exploring Butoh, a discipline that resonates with pure body language rather than merely understanding it intellectually, is a long-term endeavor. Slow breathing is necessary to traverse relaxation and experimentation, chaos and liberation, multidimensionally. A group that can vibrate across diverse boundaries and a multi-genre artistic sensibility encompassing movement, sound, writing, and drawing will be great supports for expanding and integrating Butoh exploration.
About 2026 Autumn 9-week Course (Sep 14-Nov 21)
4 weeks course-1 week break-4 weeks course - 1 week creation course
Mon-Fri
10:30
-17:30
Opening multi-layers : Body training that breaks habits. Medi-motion, Resonance touch and experiencing Subbody Butoh conditionings as collective womb experiences. Encountering hidden bodies and hidden worlds, discovering one's own unique butoh as a dance of blood.
Expansion : Through the exploration of the infinite group(Cobody) resonance patterns, we will discover new selves, invisible us through dance. We will transcend the boundaries between self and others, dancing the space in between(Ma), crystallizing potential bodies. In addition to utilizing the school's indoor studio, garden, and outdoor spaces, we will also embark on exploratory trips to nature, ruins, and interesting local communities. These include riverside, mud, hot springs, and Himalayan nature exploration.
We explore Butoh scores by Hijikata who is one of butoh founder, which are Quiet house, Sick dancing princess, Bugs walk, Size walk, Ash walk. And we create our own score.
Creation and Sharing dance experience (Performance/life ritual/Life resonant Art creation) : To experiment what is butoh communication with world, audience, and others. It is a kind of sacrifice that desperately discovers the world within oneself in the unfamiliar darkness and illuminates the hidden world within the audience. Experimenting the boundaries between self and others, between performer and audience. It is the art of being to communicate our existence as it is, between shame and pain, longing and love, life and death.
Guide to Autumn Course Registration
The class schedule and flow for the Autumn course is shown in the table above. After completing the 4-week course, we will take a full week of break before starting the next 4-week course with different content. This break is a time to digest and ferment the intensive exploration process of the preceding four weeks, and to refresh for next step.
Following the completion of the second 4-week course, the 9th week is an experimental creation and production course. Classes continue in the 9th week, where experiments in creation and performance based on Butoh Essence will take place. As before, this may take the form of a festival, or performances may be held in various spaces, such as unique local sites or nature including school. The details of the 9th week's creative course is determined at the start of the second 4-week course.
You can register on a weekly or monthly basis, or the entire 9-week course.
If you need practical information regarding participation in this course, please submit this form about what information you need to.
.If you wish to proceed with registration for this course
Please send us your answers to the questions below via email(dustgiobody@gmail.com) so we can start to communicate each other. Butoh exploration engages with various layers of life and opens up diverse relationships between self and others, which can lead to unexpected dynamics. Therefore, to create a safe space for all participants, we conduct preliminary communication and mutually confirm final participation.
.Questions.
1. From when to when, and for how long, do you wish to participate?
2. What is your connection to Butoh, or what is your curiosity about it?
3. How did you know about this course, and what are your reasons for wanting to participate and your expectations?
4. This course combines various explorations between individuals and groups. Particularly when participating in a long-term course, various dynamics may arise. Do you anticipate any difficulties?
5. The course participation process is based on the principle that, barring special circumstances, all members attend on time and do not miss classes, and listen to the body language and subtle signal with ‘no talk’ throughout the class time, including breaks. In addition, please write down any specific suggestions you may have to foster an atmosphere where individuals and the group respect and support one another.
If answering this question raises any questions regarding the course organizers or the space, please do not hesitate to ask. Also, please ask if there is anything specific you would like to discuss.
. Please let us know if you need information regarding transportation, accommodation, or local life after registering for the course. We will send you a small booklet containing all the information.
Email : dustgiobody@gmail.com (Gio Ju)
Gallery _ 2025-2026 courses
Photos by Marina Whang, Chris Oliveira, and cobody
<Course Daily Flow>
#. Strengthening and Relaxation
Through our Butoh journey, we ultimately experience the freedom of infinite transformation. To embark on this path, discipline and patience must accompany us. Each morning, we train to attune ourselves to both the visible and invisible aspects of our bodies through dantien training, gravity, relaxation, and the flow of energy.
#. Everyday various conditionings
- Shift to subbody Butoh Mode
Various internal and external conditions through eight channels:body, movement, sound, image, relationship, emotion, world, and awareness. It creates safe personal space where we can fully face to self, and group work(cobody) where we can explore relationships between various boundaries and ultimately expanding self into multi dimension. We will be guided to mysterious places. This place may be a time and space close to the present, or it could be an abyss that exists beyond memory.
#. Resonance touch and various releasing after butoh mode
Butoh explorings sometimes bring unexpected tensions and emotions, both large and small. It is important to let them flow and circulate them. Before returning to daily life after a Butoh exploring, we proceed with a closing chapter that facilitates the relaxation of body and mind through various methods. Through diverse approaches such as resonance touch, body relaxation techniques, and verbal communication that listens to each other’s body, we support to release tension and undergo transformation during the long butoh course.
Gallery _ 2026 Spring courses _Nature exploring
Photo collaboration with David Joshua Jennings
With Midwife
GIO JU
Photo by David Joshua
History of dharamshala butoh school
Dharamshala, meaning "shelter for travelers and pilgrims," is a special place where multi national spiritual, artistic, and life travelers and pilgrims stay and create their own lives. The Dharamshala Butoh School was founded here in 2005 by Butoh master Rhizome Lee(Japan) He moved from Japan to Dharamshala, initiating Subbody Butoh Method and he ran the school until 2019. In 2024, the school was reborn as Butoh Himalaya by Gio Ju(Korea), a collaborative research school for Butoh explorers.
Gio Ju started butoh exploring in this school in 2010, and began guiding classes in Europe and at the school with Rhizome Lee since 2016. As the school's longest-trained and collaborative researcher, Gio Ju as the next generation is running the school after Rhizome Lee, developing own co-research method and facilitating various butoh and body exploration approaches from her various teachers and experiences.
In subbody Butoh, there is a midwife instead of a teacher. When we explore the space between ourselves and the world through Butoh, hidden story, character, emotion, memory, and relationship, etc. within us are embodied in our bodies, just as a fetus comes into the world. Midwife creates multidimensional support for the subbody fetus, listening all internal external conditions. The midwives listen to the body together, dance together, and resonate, integrate with blurring the boundaries between participant and midwife.
The midwife of this entire process is Gio Ju. Gio is the longest-serving student, collaborator and a midwife of the previous subbody Butoh School. In addition to subbody butoh, deeply influenced by other Butoh masters, she has developed her Butoh approach by traversing the contemporary and primal aspects of Indian, Korean, and Japanese cultures..
Unlike other Butoh methods, this school emphasizes collaborative exploration across multiple dimensions, both individual and group.(Subbody-Cobody) By exploring these infinite patterns of collaborative exploration, the school helps participants discover their own unique dance, art, and Butoh through unexplored experiences between self and others, and self and the world. Thus, since its founding, collaborative research among participants has been a key asset, with the development of a unique resonance butoh method. Furthermore, the school's facilities, combined with the mystical surroundings of the Himalayas, provide a truly unique space, a collective womb for Butoh explorers. Within this framework, Butoh Himalaya, which relaunched in 2025, serves as a collective womb, a home of dance explorers and a community space for collaborative research for Butoh dance explorers from around the world. Butoh Himalaya's long-term vision is to expand and relocate the school of Butoh explorers across diverse spaces and environments on the earth by resonating with visible and invisible entities, nature, and life stories from around the world, and discovering dance and art within them. Butoh Himalaya will exist as a Butoh school that transcends boundaries such as physical condition, age, and nationality, expanding and rediscovering the essence of Butoh.
Gallery of school history
Looking forward to dancing together.
Thanks!!
