Noguchi Taiso workshop with Melissa Lohman

Sunday January 4th, 2026 only

Noguchi Taiso is the foundation of Butoh dance; dive into the relaxing world of Noguchi Taiso with expert Melissa Lohman, visiting us from Italy. No experience is necessary.

115 Wooster Street

2F

Soho

Dates and times

Sunday January 4th, 5-8 pm

Noguchi Taiso (Noguchi gymnastics) is a gentle practice of deep observation of physical movement open to anyone who would like to explore awareness through physical movement. It can accompany the process of the dancer, actor, performer, or artist who uses their body in their work.

This method, founded by Michizo Noguchi in post-WWII Japan, considers the body as aqueous and separated from the outside by the thin membrane of the skin. The internal space of the body is not clearly separated from the space around it. This characteristic allows the individual to receive and transmit impulses to move and be moved. 

Feeling the aqueous body’s weight in relation to gravity allows for fully embodied observation and more complexity of movement.

At any time, the body can move in reaction to energetic impulses which pass through it. Specific exercises allow participants to explore natural movement patterns and bring attention to how these patterns flow efficiently through the body without excess muscle tension.

Melissa Lohman is a teacher, performer, choreographer, and visual artist from New York City, currently based in Rome, Italy. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2000. Since the mid-1990s, she has created work for theaters, museums, galleries, and unconventional spaces internationally. In her artistic practice, Melissa approaches the body as one element within a larger constellation of relationships, rather than as the sole focal point of a composition.

Recent projects include Tramite (2024), a performance created within Fabrizio Crisafulli’s light installation of the same title, presented in the burial chamber of the Pyramid of Caius Cestius in Rome for the project Piramide Contemporaneo. Also in 2024, she presented her durational work The Practice of Space within an installation by architects Grazzini, Tonazzini, and Colombo for Open House Rome XII Edition.

In 2023, she performed a durational piece for Crisafulli’s installation Transiti at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara. In 2022, she danced alongside her Noguchi Taiso teacher Mari Osanai in Deposition at the Kyoto International Butoh Festival. Additional recent works include Across, a site-specific performance with Flavio Arcangeli at the MAXXI Museum in Rome for the event The Heretical Body: Butoh Dance from Its Inception Until Today (2022), and A Sweet Topia, a site-specific performance and solo exhibition at Museo delle Mura, Rome (2021). From 2018 to 2020, she was invited to perform at the New York Butoh Institute Festival.

Melissa teaches a workshop of her own creation titled The Conductive Body.

This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the New York Department of Cultural Affairs and the City Council.

Non refundable.