Ambra Gatto Bergamasco: this is me

Ambra is on the forefront of developing the visibility of Butoh in Ireland through regular weekly classes at Dance Ireland/dance House, workshops and performances. She is the director of the Butoh Festival "Moving Bodies Festival" which was created in 2014 and followed from Butoh Festival Dublin created in 2012- and touring Italy Ireland and Scotland bringing internationally acclaimed butoh artists  Yumiko Yoshioka, Minako Seki, Ken Mai, and the new generation Natsuko Kono Yuri Dini Paul Michael Henri and Ambra G. Bergamasco to Torino, Galway, Cork, Glasgow and Dublin.

Currently, Ambra is deepening her project on Francis Bacon through Butoh dance and is developing her new one called "ritualize-me" on the themes of sustainability transformation and recycling both emotionally and ecologically.

Ambra runs online participative group and one to one sessions though embodied processual art practices. These sessions are open to all. The core of the work proposed on line is that of developing embodied techniques that can aid to shift our creativity and our approach to life in those moments of monolithic times by exploiting what that means and transforming it into  kaleidoscopic,  making sure we can bring the outcome to a practical pragmatic presence. For more info contact ambrabutoh@gmail.com

Academic engagement

Academically, Ambra is a PhD fellow of Nirsa/ Geography Department at the National University of Maynooth, Ireland. Her PhD research wishes to set forwards a practical critique to the concept of the creative city thought the implementation of a  art practice-based methodology. She is involved in the development of research projects that see Applied Arts and Medical Humanities bridging over to conventional medical settings. Ambra has worked as a theatre facilitator and educator for more that a decade in health scapes working with disabilities and mental health. Her primary interest lays in developing possibility of reintegration in situations of post-trauma and violence.

Training 

Ambra learned her first artistic theatrical skills from her parents Ulla Alasjarvi and Beppe Bergamasco. Ulla started her theatrical carrier working and studying with Eugenio Barba in Denmark in the 70s. Ulla, from Helsinki, met and worked with Grotowski, Butoh practitioners, and all those that were promoting a new understanding of performance and aesthetics. Beppe, from Torino, artist and director, studies at the HI-Tech - Sorbonne Paris, was part of the ZOO art movement with Michelangelo Pistoletto, Guido Scategni and many others...Ulla and Beppe met in Amsterdam and funded the Mobile Action and then CSD Dramatic experimental theatre company. Their work can be read in contemporary theatre book and art therapy. They have over 40 years of theatre life experience. They can be found in Espace Teatro in Torino. Be aware, Beppe likes his lights simple. Its your eye that has to do the job!

at a glimpse: I learned form them and the artistis they have invited like La Mama Ellen Steward - lamama.org/ellen-stewart-theatre/; Students from Performing Art School of NY, Carmelo Bene; and those I have invited and worked with such as Mamadou Diume - actor and part of Peter Brook's research centre - and Mallika Sarabhai www.darpana.com www.mallikasarabhai.com.

Butoh wise I trained with Anna Vullo in 1998 as she had just come back from her experience in Japan learning from Yoshito Ohno. After an intense training I proceeded with Daisuke Yoshimoto, Carlotta' Idea's dancers, Minako Seki, Ken Mai, Iwashita Toru.

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