aula nostra

Butoh innato

Butoh happens in a body untied from time. The origin of dance lies in the matter of which we are part, and this matter takes root in the subsoil. It was there before birth, it will be there after death.

From birth we cover that information with layers of concepts, habits, judgements, identities. The aim is to learn, in the sense of sanding down, removing, giving birth, ridding ourselves and freeing ourselves. To recover a foetal mind that coexists in the body with the conventional mind of the citizen. To uninhibit the curiosity of the baby body, a body that resonates with the world, that listens and observes as it sets itself in motion. A body that dances without end.

We want to discover what only you know.

Love is what remains when you take away everything else. (Kazuo Ohno).

Butoh innato enjoys the formal freedom that each singular being needs in order to un-discover itself. It is not a reproduction of established forms but a rebirth of the dance that only each body knows. The intensive 9-month programme trains students to swim in strong currents, to cultivate serenity in disorientation and to reconcile the passion for precision and control with the acceptance of chaos.

AULA NOSTRA

Butoh innato training · Madrid, 2019–2025

Aula Nostra —butoh innato training— was founded in 2019 by Matilde J. Ciria and Jonathan Martineau in Madrid. The training emerges from the confluence of Matilde’s ni.butoh and Jonathan’s Ars Nascendi, creating a unique methodology that seeks to become dance through thought in movement.

Aula Nostra was the first butoh school with intensive, continuous training in Europe. Four days a week, nine months a year, from October to May. Not a workshop. Not a series of classes. A programme of sustained immersion in butoh innato — the dance that is born when the body stops imitating and begins to be.

Over five seasons, Aula Nostra did not only train dancers: it generated a scenic community. Each course ended in bodies capable of creating, and those bodies created. Aula Nostra’s showings occupied theatres, parks, museums and unconventional spaces in Madrid: the Teatro Pradillo, La Neomudejar, La Pedriza, the Casa de Campo, the Parque del Retiro, the Teatro exlímite. Eleven scenic pieces in six years. Collaborations with Obscena – Naturaleza Insólita, the Museo La Neomudejar, the Teatro Pradillo.

What Aula Nostra brought to Madrid’s scene was not just a catalogue of shows. It was a way of understanding training as a cultural act: the process of learning to dance as something that already belongs to the public sphere, that already produces meaning, that already transforms the fabric of a city.

Aula Nostra is on pause. Its imprint remains active in all the bodies that passed through it.

Direction: Matilde J. Ciria and Jonathan Martineau Venue: Espacio en Blanco, Madrid Seasons: 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2024-2025