Movement Coaching
Movement Choreography
Butoh Movement Coaching
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Movement expertise for film and theatre in horror, ritual, supernatural, pagan, magical, fairytale, human/animal.
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Expertise in costume-led performance, object led movement.
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Experience working with one-to-one with principal casts, or ensembles, large crowds, movement for stunt men, movement for special extras.
Marie-Gabrielle Rotie (Born 4th April 1967) was raised and educated in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, and has over thirty-five years’ experience as a multi-disciplinary artist and movement choreographer. She trained as a painter at Wimbledon School of Art and has since had a long career in movement, working for dance and theatre. She is widely regarded as the UK’s leading expert in the avant-garde dance form of Butoh, seamlessly melding its philosophies with psycho-physical acting approaches and experimental voice work.
Her first commercial breakthrough was as choreographer for Sir Peter Hall’s The Bacchae at the Royal National Theatre in 2002, an opportunity that arose as the lead actor classical actor Greg Hicks, who played Dionysus studied Butoh with her. The work toured to the ancient theatre of Epidaurus in Greece to wide acclaim. Hall (Founder of Royal Shakespeare Company) was fascinated by her solo movement and insisted she also perform with the masked chorus in over 40 shows.
From 1997, she developed a very successful career as a solo dancer and choreographer, creating numerous works funded by Arts Council of England, British Council, and touring nationally and internationally including to the Royal Opera House, Manchester Commonwealth Games, The Place Theatre and Trinity Laban. International touring includes to festivals in Romania, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Portugal, Sicily, and many other countries.
From 2007 to 2011 she was commissioned choreographer for London College of Fashion, creating spectacular showcases for ‘costume-led’ performances, including at the V&A and Royal Academy of Arts. More recent choreographic commissions focus on site-based work, including for the National Portrait Gallery. Ashmolean Museum, Kew Gardens Temperate House, City of London Festival and Nunhead Cemetery. Her artistic body of work is largely informed by the meeting of feminist philosophy with fairytale, mythology and an interest in human to animal transformation, or the question of becoming something ‘other’, crossing into the more-than-human world. In various works she has transformed into birds, crones, ghosts, animal, clouds and so on.
She began working on film as an actress/dancer in 2011 with the Director Ian Pons Jewell, featuring in several prize-winning short films, including Dreamt in Flesh 2011, Crystal Fighters Follow and ¼ inch. More recently she featured as lead performer in the 2021 official video Come Kali Come for influential post punk band Lebanon Hanover, Directed by Tamas Mesner. ‘’ Part David Lynch, part Marina Abramovic, part Kate Bush, this vision of Kali’s incarnation brings chills and awe…it is a marvelous work of performance art, dance, and musical collaboration.'' (postpunk.com)
She was choreographer for indie band The Foals official video for Inhaler (2012), and this gave her the first recognition of having a style and approach to choreography that would work well in film.
She has worked with acclaimed film Director Robert Eggers on three of his films;
The Northman (2021) a Viking epic, with Anya Taylor Joy and Alexander Skarsgaard, Willem Dafoe as well as larger group casts. She created the iconic berserker movement sequence with a cast of 12 'muscle men', stunt men and Alexander himself.
Nosferatu (2025) she worked for 5 months as movement choreographer for Eggers working mainly with Lily Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgard. For the movement she drew mainly upon her expertise with Butoh and Japanese Noh Theatre to research a walk of ghost, hysteria type movement and possession. The film was shot in Prague, produced by Focus Features. The movement has generated unprecedented press coverage as normally movement choreography is rather ignored.
Werwulf (2026) her movement choreography for Eggers latest film, expanded considerably and she worked with many of the featured cast as well as scenes with large amounts of extras (witches, crones and peasants). Her main extensive movement coaching was for Aaron Taylor Johnson and for the young actor Vidal Arzoni. With Aaron, she worked with him over several months to hone a precise choreographic ‘score’ that melded the key beats in Egger’s script, with her movement language and with Aarons extraordinary actor ability for emotional intensity and incredible, athletic, physical prowess. The intention was to create a movement scaffolding that allowed the actor space to delve into a deep emotional well and physically own and embody the material.
Outside of her work with Eggers, in 2025 she returned to collaborating with advertising Director Ian Pons Jewell’s, as movement choreographer for Kyller Instinct for Nike brand, featuring the footballer Mbappe, which has gone on to won multiple industry awards. She was also choreographer for Season 3 of The Witcher on Netflix 2022, working with the entire main cast on an iconic ballroom scene. She recently completed some very ‘light touch’ movement coaching for some of the demi-gods in Elden Ring (2026/releases 2028) for director Alex Garland. Currently, she is movement coach for the remake of Possession directed by Parker Finn, and she is working closely with lead Margaret Qualley.
Rotie is an internationally recognized Butoh exponent. She trained in Japan and Europe with Ko Murobushi, Masaki Iwana, Carlotta Ikeda, Kim Itoh, Motofuji-san, Yoshito and Kazuo Ohno, Atsushi Takenouchi, Oguri, Yumiko Yoshioka, Tadashi Endo and many others and has collaborated on duet performances with Ko Murobushi and Atsushi Takenouchi. However, she developed her own distinctive and influential aesthetic world and language, building from this training. She has trained a whole three generations of artists who use Butoh in their practice.
When not working on international film sets, she shares her expertise as a Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. Rotie is also regular visiting tutor to Central School of Speech and Drama, Laban and numerous other UK universities, teaching Actors, Dancers, Directors, Visual Artists and Costume Designers. She leads annual environmental performance workshops in Pembrokeshire, Wales, a landscape that profoundly shapes her ongoing personal artistic work in experimental film and photography.
Selected Press Quotes
Mutations review by Total Theatre 2003
the emotional, mental images that the dancers provoked were haunting: images that one recalls in one's sleep.
Flying chair for Da Vinci review by Londondance.com 2002
The ghost of Mary Wigman haunts in the shadows
Flying Chair for Da Vinci review Place online reviews 2002
An eloquent exploration of momentum, suspension and gravity .. both painful and disturbing to watch but compelling in its madness
Human Zoo Trilogy reviewed in Dance Theatre Journal 2000
A truly hypnotic blend of movement, lighting and sound - bodies take on an alien almost eerie quality.
Refract review by Dance Europe 2002
a wonderfully evocative piece of quiet intensity - minimal movement to maximal effect .
Mutability reviews by Western Mail 2003
intense and accomplished ...
a remarkable display of control and internalised emotion.
Mutability reviews by Dance Europe 2004
Rotie mutates into various animalistic forms in a solo journey- she cranes her neck, pokes at the space, as if hatching out of an egg, feeling her way through life. In a costume that is like a second skin or some sort of cocoon and with sparse lighting, the piece has a purpose, a focus and simplicity that is very engaging.
Brutality of Fact review by Criticaldance.com 2004
Marie-Gabriele Rotie choreographed Brutality of Fact. This work was danced intensely with Rotie, Pei-Jen Tsai and Yuan Zhang. Its inspiration was the 1944 Triptych Studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion by Francis Bacon. Its movement aesthetic was tempered by Rotie’s knowledge of Japanese Theatre and Aesthetics. The dancers’ moves, varied shapes in standing, sitting and then moving through space conjured all matter of angst and disgust with reaches of legs, arms and head. All postures had a particular resonance that brought their own sense of horror at the sight of unspeakable torment. From the sparse vocal sounds to the clarity in movement shapes of contortion, balance and flow it was evident that Rotie had a clear vision and the specific compositional tools to render this extraordinary work.
Darkness Cycle 2 The Place Theatre February 2009
review by Ballet Magazine.
Darkness Cycle 2 was a reworked piece of Marie-Gabrielle Rotie Productions, for 15 performers of varying ages and abilities. To really appreciate this drama-based piece, I decided you needed to be a vamp-fan, which unfortunately I am not. So I sat back and tried to enjoy the clawed hands, possessed looks, evil cackles and smeared blood.
For the group of young women in front of me, the performers reaching between the legs and gesturing as though licking their own juices was just too much, and there were gasps, squeals and turning away in disgust. The show was stolen by the talented acting abilities of the little evil one whose giggling, whispering, squeaking interludes provoked irresistible laughter in the audience.
Audience responses to Mythic solo 2011
Thank you for a beautiful performance - just got home and still hearing, seeing and feeling it. Congratulations to you and Nick and the team.
Daniel Somerville
Your show last night was so beautiful .. Emily
So lucky I just got there in time to see mythic last night, I thought it was beautiful.
Hebe Reilly E15
Inspiring performance . thankyou for sharing.. Hulya Baytar
Your performance was so beautiful Yuliya V Krylova
Had a fantastic time last night watching Mythic, well done and thank you Lydia Kay
"Thank you & congratulations for last night Marie. Captivating as always.
Andrew Macauley
I saw 'Mythic' last night at Rich Mix and it is one of the beautiful pieces I have ever seen. Helena Astbury
Articles
In books -
Images and text of her performance in Don Juan Who? by Anna Furse appear in Theatre in Pieces: Politics, Poetics and Interdisciplinary collaboration' Methuen, 2011 edited by Anna Furse.
Writing about her work:
Stewart, Nigel Henry (2019) Moving in Medias Res: Towards a Phenomenological Hermeneutics of Dance Improvisation. In: The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Fraleigh, Sondra (2010) Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy. University of Illinois Press, Part Two, 9, Da Vinci, p.139
Calamoneri, Tanya. "Dancing Hamlet in a World of Frogs:1 Butoh and the Actor's Inner Landscape." Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 7.3 (2016): 375-88. Web.
Selection of Articles in notable UK Publications.
Articles will download in seperate windows.
Articles
for all extensive press on movement for Nosferatu please visit this page
Mentions of Choreography for
The Northman 2022: Directed by Robert Eggers
Schon 13 online style magazine.'Butoh:Dance of Darkness'
written by Emma Ruttle
Article 19 Hannah Buckley on Marie-Gabrielle Rotie and Mythic, January 24th 2011
Total Theatre 2003 Mim King review of Out of Bounds Festival of New Butoh
LondonDance.Com feature on Marie-Gabrielle Rotie by Carole Kew 2002
Dance Theatre Journal volume 21 no2 2005 'Becoming Other- Dancing Dissolution' Stephen Barber talks to Marie-Gabrielle Rotie
Dance Theatre Journal volume 16 no 2 2000 Article by Carole Kew reviewing Out of Bounds Festival of New Butoh.
'Releasing the Ancients' Dance Expressions Stewart McGill 2002 on Marie-Gabrielle Rotie's work with the National Theatre.
'Between Fabric and Flesh' by Marie-Gabrielle Rotie
Blue Pages Newsletter of the society of British Theatre Designers, volume 3 2009,
Dance Theatre Journal volume 13 no 1 Summer 1996
'The Reorientation of Butoh' article by Marie-Gabrielle Rotie
Interviews -
Following the premier of her commissioned duet Incarnate and her solo Mutability Marie-Gabrielle Rotie was Interviewed by Nigel Stewart, Nuffield Theatre, University of Lancaster for Cascpp (centre for advanced study of contemporary performance practice). May 2005.
Click here for Transcript.
interview with Alison Clissold for a publication arising from her BA dissertation University of Falmouth(coming soon).
ON DVD -
Marie-Gabrielle's teaching methods feature on two DVDS Produced by Pumpkin TV, a leading Uk provider of educational material for schools and colleges.The DVD's feature her teaching methods and work through workshops, performance and live interiews.Rotie's methods are featured alongside companies such as Goat Island, Forced Entertanment and Sankai Juku.
Creating Physical Theatre’- The Body in Performance
‘How to Teach Artaud’
Marie-Gabrielle Rotie