JAPANESE BUDO – PERFORMANCE PRACTICE
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
The program involves an introduction to the kinaesthetic, motor and performance patterns of the
Japanese budo, both theoretically and practically. Many directors, theatre and dance educators of
the twentieth century used the principles of Japanese martial arts and therapeutics to create their
own acting or, more broadly, performing methods. Some of the most famous are certainly Jerzy
Grotowski, Peter Brook, Eugenio Barba or Phillip Zarrilli.
The participants of the workshop will try to refer somatically and critically to the various systems
of Japanese budo and the structures of movement that we find in them, that is, to view them in the
context of their own performative practice, ie their own dance-acting-performing research. In
addition, they will be able to create their own model of proprioception, kinaesthetic and basic
motor training for a performance, acting, or other more systematically or loosely choreographed
process, that is, to program some principles of Japanese martial and therapeutic skills into their
own performing practice, in almost all of its
stages, from preparatory to the so-called. hot performance circle.
The target group of the program is: professional or amateur actors and dancers, performance artists,
choreographers, all interested in movement or performance and kinesthetics, but also people who are
not primarily concerned with it. No special physical predispositions are needed.
SCHEDULE & PRICE
May 15, 2021, SATURDAY / 10:00-12:30 and 14:30-17:00
May 16, 2021, SUNDAY / 10:00-12:30 and 14:30-17:00
Registration fee: 300 kn.
ABOUT THE TEACHER
Leo Rafolt was born in 1979 in Zagreb, where he finished elementary school and
gymnasium. From the earliest childhood he has been engaged in Japanese budo, mostly nanbudo. He
dealt, in parallel, with sankukai karate, judo and nanbudo. He has participated in a large number of
international seminars led by various martial arts masters (Tsukada, Kamohara, Ueshiba, Mochizuki,
Hino), most notably with the guidance of Yoshina Nanbu.
Since 2006 he has been the Chairman of the Education Commission of the World Nanbudo Federation. He
has participated in many nanbudo demonstrations in Europe and Japan. He continuously leads seminars
and workshops for the Japanese budo, both for practitioners of various martial arts and performing
artists, dancers, actors and somatic therapists – in Europe, Africa and Asia.
He graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in 2003 with a degree in
Comparative Literature and Croatistics and a PhD in 2006 with a Theatrical Theme. He worked at the
Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb from 2003 to 2017.
He currently teaches performance studies, theatre theory and transcultural performance techniques at
the Academy of Arts and Culture at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, where he also
runs the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Sciences (InterScArt). He has been a
guest lecturer at a dozen European, American and Asian universities. He has studied several times at
foreign universities and research centres, most notably in France, Poland and Japan.
He has written more than a hundred articles for encyclopaedic and lexicon publications and has
received the
National Science Award (2008), the Annual Award of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Zagreb (2009) and the "Judita" Award (2009) for his research work.
More about Leo Rafolt.
