Sounds cab-solutely fabulous

Experience Butoh Cabaret, a provocative, dance-infused art performance with a cast of talented dancers and performance artists, at Newport’s Primaltones Community Venue this Friday, June 9.

Butoh is an avant-garde performance art originally developed in the 1950s and 60s. In the words of American butoh icon Joan Laage, it is a "philosophy of the body," a process of questioning and exploring the boundaries of the human experience.

Butoh’s unconventional movements and aesthetics invite those who are witnessing to reimagine existence and their own expectations of art, society and the body.

Around the same time and place as the inception of butoh, dancers began experimenting within the cabaret and nightlife scenes of the Tokyo underground. Butoh Cabaret invites a more festive and flirty fusion approach to the typically dark and heavy themes of butoh. Butoh and butoh cabaret are informed by surrealist imagery and implement structured choreography as well as improvisation.

The producer for the performance is Sophia Solano, an artist, activist and community organizer currently living and dancing in and around Newport. The daughter of flamenco guitarist José Solano, she began studying butoh in 2017 with Iván Espinosa and more recently studied and performed with Laage, including several iterations of her environmentally charged project “Earth Tomes.” Her dance work has explored the intersections of butoh and flamenco over the past few years.

Butoh Cabaret will feature both local and out-of-town guest performers.

The show begins at 9 pm. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $25 for reserved seating with better views of the stage.

The venue has a bar serving wine, beer, cider, champagne and non-alcoholic drinks.

Primaltones Community Venue is located at 2925 SE Ferry Slip Road in Aquarium Village, South Beach. For more information, go to primaltones.com.