LEGACY
Yhue Soto was born in Mexico City and, influenced by his Japanese heritage on his mother’s side, developed an early conceptual and critical thinking framework marked by a strong interest in internal structures, mechanisms, and processes.
Through his father, Coco Villarreal, Butoh dancer and director of Ix-Butoh Ritual Dance and Theater, Yhue was exposed to Butoh practice during childhood, attending workshops as a regular participant. He stepped away from the practice before adolescence and returned to Butoh as a young adult. Upon his return, he began assisting his father in workshops and performances, a role he has continued for approximately four years, deepening his understanding of transmission, structure, and pedagogy within the form.
In 2022, Yhue formalized his Butoh practice, training with teachers such as Adam Koan, Alessia Mallardo, and Santeri Vikström. Since then, he has continued his formation through individual classes with various teachers, and one on one formal classes with his father Coco Villarreal pursuing an ongoing investigation into the multiple ways Butoh can be manifested.
Recognizing that Butoh emerged within a historical context strongly influenced by rural labor—an activity no longer central to contemporary daily life—Yhue’s current research focuses on how the bodily conditions that informed the form can be accessed today. Rather than reproducing labor or its gestures, his practice investigates how use-based physical engagement can grant an embodied experience of the self, and how this state can be translated into contemporary bodies and everyday contexts.
He has performed at the Butoh Festival Amsterdam VI (Amsterdam, Netherlands) in the group piece Oniria by Ix Butoh Ritual Dance and Theatre; at Festival Transmutaciones (La Rinconada, Spain) with the group piece “Sweet Spot” by Ix Butoh Ritual Dance and Theatre, which included the solo work My Way by Yhue Soto; at Teatro La Fundición (Seville, Spain) with the Butoh play Oniria by Coco Villarreal; at the Private Gathering El Calabacino (Huelva, Spain) with the solo piece In the Vines; at Beyond Limits (Huelva, Spain) with the duo Cheap Flight by Clémence Robert and Yhue Soto; and at STOA – Center for Arts, (Sirince, Turkey) where he presented the solo works Rebirth and The Fall.
“It is often taken for granted that every artist wants to express something.
This ‘something’ is called the content of the work.
The way in which this ‘something’ is expressed is its form.”
— Viktor Sklovski
DANCING VESSELS I – STRINGS
Dancing Vessels proposes the body as a site of tension, transmission, and form within the practice of Butoh.
Working with real strings attached to the body, the practice introduces external points of tension that pull, suspend, and articulate movement. Attention is directed towards the amplification of internal impulses, allowing movement to arise from friction rather than intention.
The body is gradually emptied of habitual patterns and learned restraints, creating conditions for a more direct and raw mode of expression characteristic of Butoh.
Strings, the first edition of Dancing Vessels, focuses on controlled movement initiated by multiple points of tension distributed across the body. By negotiating the pull of the strings, participants explore independence, fluidity, and coordination between different body parts.
No thoughts, just pure movement.
The first step.
Date: February 8th, 2026 – 18:30h
Location: Park Studio, Berlin – Am Treptower Park 42