Belonging to a third generation of Butoh artists, Yumiko Yoshioka has developed a personal style of bodywork called Body Resonance, which integrates Butoh practice with features of Noguchi Taiso gymnastics and various other Asian training methods to help prepare the body to receive and transmit dance and inspirations.

Body Resonance starts from the idea that the world, including our body and soul, consists of vibrational waves that create constant resonances like echoes. When we tune our body to that frequency, we receive images, feelings and sensations accordingly. For this to happen, we need first to shake off unnecessary tension. In effect, we make a white canvas of our body to paint new colour on it. I teach this as neutralization, encouraging a close-to-zero state, scouring off rust and polishing antenna to catch waves from profound layers of the body. The transformations and concentrations of dancing break up the eggshell of form. They melt down the armour of our ego, allowing resonant memories to emerge from our cells that are floating in the primal liquid of time.

Yumiko Yoshioka is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer from Tokyo. Since 1988 she has been based in Germany. Yumiko is a former member of Ariadone, the first female Butoh company, which was founded by Ko Murobushi and Carlotta Ikeda in 1974. In 1978, she performed with Ko and Carolotta in Paris, LE DERNIER EDEN – PORTE DE L’AU-DELA, the very first Butoh performance to be presented in a public theatre outside Japan. In 1988 she met Minako Seki and delta RA’i in Berlin, with whom she founded tatoeba THÉÂTRE DANCE GROTESQUE. This experience, along with work with the Butoh dancer Kim-Itoh, encouraged Yumiko to start to unfold her own personal style of dancing and choreography.