15th Annual Wreck Beach Butoh July 10 & 11

With the weather starting to feel more and more like summer, Vancouverites will be flocking to the beaches in droves this weekend. Might I suggest you head on over to Wreck Beach as Kokoro Dance proudly presents the 15th installment of the Annual Wreck Beach Butoh, where fully nude dancers clad only in white makeup will perform on the shores of Wreck Beach at 10:30 AM on Saturday, July 10 and at 11:15 AM on Sunday, July 11 at the foot of the #4 Trail (West of the UBC Museum of Anthropology). Performances take place, rain or shine and admission is by a suggested donation of $5. Thanks to the awesome Crystal Kwon for letting me know about this event.

The dancers – and some audience members – will shed their clothes and embrace the challenges of collaborating with Mother Nature who provides the stage, lighting, score, costumes and even performance times which are conditional to the tidal patterns. The choreography, provided by Kokoro Dance is inspired by the relationship between humans and the environment. Nowhere in the world is this experience replicated which is why it draws international participants, as many as 23 dancers, and droves of crowds that attend annually.

Wreck Beach Butoh was first launched in 1996 at the hands of Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget – founders of the veteran butoh company, Kokoro Dance. Fifteen years later, it has become the signature piece for Kokoro Dance offering audiences and participants alike a dance experience specifically created for the shores of Wreck Beach, Canada’s first and largest clothing-optional beach.

This site-specific, sand and water experience makes full use of all of nature’s elements and is an important source of creative inspiration for Kokoro Dance and its participants. Hirabayashi says it “continually reinvigorates us and puts us in touch with the earth, air and sea. We bury ourselves in the sand, immerse ourselves in the ocean, spin our bodies until the sky swirls in kaleidoscopic patterns of blue, white and green – sky, clouds and trees blending into a vertigo-inducing terror. Some years it rains. Other times the sun beats down in blinding rays…it is our annual pilgrimage, a ritual performance where we are humbled by our smallness and insignificance compared to the majesty that surrounds us.”