with GIO JU
SUBBODY BUTOH TUSCANY
ITALY 2025
BUTOH Residency in ITALY
14-22 Aug 2025, Tuscany, near Siena
Intensive weekend 15-17 Aug
Full Residency 15-22 Aug
We hope that this precious retreat time will become a space where we can meet the power of stillness in life,
a space where we can listen to ourselves, life, and nature deeply, and bloom our own flowers.
In this journey, we follow a multidimensional map that encompasses everyday mode and butoh mode, deepening the dimension of listening at every moment. Together, alone, following a directionless direction. Each day, we will be guided on a unique experience, encountering unexpected moments of serendipity.
Every morning before breakfast Meditation or Medi-motion
Every day 2 Sessions of Subbody Butoh(Each session 2.5~3 hours)
Evening Creative improvisation (whole group or extra small group session) or relax in nature.
Aug 14 Arrival. Landing and opening ceremony
15-17 Intensive Subbody Butoh weekend.
(15 hours training, creation process and performances included)
Aug 18-19 Body relaxation session and Exploration of local countryside (natural body, exploring water, forest, ruins and local adventure. Butoh and art(paining, nature installation) collaborative exploring.
Special workshop "INVISIBLE ME" A project by Luciana Bencivenga
More details are below.
Aug 20-21 Intensive Subbody Butoh Integration and creation
22 Closing circle, cleaning and departure
Residence flow
Subbody Butoh Session with Gio Ju
Preparation 1: Stretching to Break Habits of Body and Mind
Why do we repeat similar stretches every day? The language of the body is infinite, unique, and subtle, more so than we might realize. Each morning, we begin with a distinct stretch that unfolds new connections and releases tensions, traveling from our toes to our hair, and from the innermost parts of our bodies to the surrounding space. Stretching opens the door of multi dimensional dance, resonating with the condition of various bodies and expanding our presence.
Preparation 2: Strengthening and Relaxation Training
Through our Butoh journey, we ultimately experience the freedom of infinite transformation. To embark on this path, discipline and patience must accompany us. Butoh is a dance grounded in the power of rising from the earth. The energy that ascends from the earth through our feet fills the dantien(energy center), creating a solid foundation for the lower body, while the upper body moves with deep relaxation. 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
Journey 1. Medi Motion
& Shift to subbody mode (BUTOH mode)
Medi Motion is a meditative movement practice that helps release tension and intention from both the body and mind. Through this practice, we connect with our bodies and ultimately transcend their physical limitations. The Subbody, which represents the subconscious and subtle aspects of our being, is where body and mind merge into one. It is an ocean of infinite life history, free from concepts, thoughts, or judgments.
Journey 2. Collective womb and self research
We transition into Subbody Mode by exploring various conditioning experiences, opening eight channels: body, movement, sound, imagination, emotion, relationships, self/world, and awareness. This process allows us to experience Butoh Mode, which guides us through multidimensional worlds via resonance and dance.
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. In that space, I am both myself and not myself. Sometimes we are alone, and sometimes we are with others as we cross various boundaries and open the secret door together.
Integration
Subbody Cobody Free Resonance
Stone Garden
It is the integrated process of the trip we have been through. In the abyss Butoh mode, between daily mode, it will be guided by various free resonance fields that crosses multiple boundaries between the focus on self and the relationship with others. Like a wind that is unconfined, you will face an infinite transformation dance of the body that is not limited to the social frame.
We love to listen deeply to each other moment to moment, encourage multidimensional creativity, life sharing, and the simplest, most natural community experience.
Subbody Butoh Midwife
Gio Ju
Gio's guide(midwife) comes from deep and multiple listening. Japanese butoh masters, Korean martial arts masters and shamans, Indian spiritual teachers, and numerous butoh practitioners have taught her how to deeply listen to life and existence; she places silence practice at the center of her process.
For her, Butoh is the recovery of listening to immerse herself in a multidimensional world. Every morning during the session, she lets herself dive into an empty space(Mu 無) in long silence. In that silence, she perceives a directionless direction of guidance and engages with the participants and spontaneously finds Jo(beginning)-Ha(change/climax)/Kyu(break/ending) in each session while listening to the real-time resonance of all the participants inside and out. She sometimes guides them and sometimes dances together and sometimes disappears.
By Samantha Claire Zaccarie
Organizer
Jakob “Jack” Brunner
Jack finds joy in movement, stillness, qigong and taiji practice, good food, silly jokes, music, dance and contemporary performances, community bonding activities, social re-culturing, mountains, the sea and everything in between. He longs for a lighter life, where ease reigns. He loves to open spaces where people can connect and transform. He used to organize the “Tranzform”-Dance&Taiji Retreat and the “kribiskrabis”-Music&Arts Festival both in Italy.
He danced butoh even before he knew what butoh was. Contemporary Dance opened a new way to explore life and the way he presents his art led him to Gio. Now he is very happy to invite her to Italy to create something special together.
For further information, pricing and registration please write an email to Jack: Jakob.brunner07@gmail.com
Thank you and see you at the mill!
Collaboration Artist and organizing team
Luciana Bencivenga
Collaborative workshop "Invisible Me"
We invited the artist Luciana Bencivenga from Italy to do a collaboration. She will lead a workshop that is connected to the subbody practice.
As a visual artist and explorer of the artistic process and the inner movements of the unconscious linked to the creative act, Luciana is here at this moment to propose a collective workshop.
Inspired by the principles of art therapy, which invites us to explore our internal experience—feelings, perceptions, and imagination—and to express it through the non-verbal language of art, she proposes that we
explore together, without judgment, the images and colors of our unconscious.
Images can help us understand who we are and overcome inner resistance. Artistic expression serves as a cushion between the inner and outer world, and images often emerge before we can express emotions and thoughts with words. It is far healthier to externalize energy-laden images through artistic expression rather than repressing and holding them back.
Creating art, even alone, always has a positive effect.
Collaboration Artist and organizing team
Samantha Claire Zacccarie
Beautiful space by Bruna & Mulino Piermaggiore
