PZI Events Calendar
W E L C O M E to the PZI Events Calendar! Here you will find all upcoming events and registration links for PZI Zen Online retreats, sesshins, and weekly meditations & talks. Search by individual event, day, or month. Save to your Google Calendar or iCal Calendar. No experience required to participate. All event times are Pacific Time. Questions? Contact Lucas at PZI Support.
F E A T U R E D
April 26: What Is This Light That Everybody Has? – Deep Sit Sunday Zen with John Tarrant & Tess Beasley
May 7–10: Say A True Word & I Will Stay The Night – Open Mind Retreat with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill
June 8–14: Dragons & Tigers, Oh My! – Our Great Summer Sesshin with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
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PACIFIC ZEN LUMINARIES: Japanese Butoh & the Heart of Zen – Jon Joseph & Friends in Conversation with Denise Fujiwara
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Denise Fujiwara is one of Canada’s leading contemporary dance artists.
She has won numerous awards for her highly creative choreography and dance, most recently in 2025 the Canada Council’s Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts and Lifetime Achievement, recognizing “the highest artistic merit and career achievement by a professional artist in music, theatre, or dance.”
Denise’s nearly half-century in performance dance began in the 1970s as Canadian champion on the Rhythmic Gymnastics National Team. She went on to co-found the Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise (TIDE), where she performed for over a decade. In 1991 she founded Fujiwara Dance Inventions to support her solo performances that toured throughout Canada, the US, Europe, South America, and Asia. And in 1997 helped found CanAsian Dance, where she remained involved for twenty-five years.
Some of her many original performances have been influenced by the avant-garde Japanese dance called Butoh, which she began studying under Tokyo master artist Natsu Nakajima in the early 1990s.
“Butoh,” she writes, “challenged the very foundations of my understanding of what dance is.”
Her singular performance known as Eunoia, a multimedia adaptation of Christian Bök’s award winning book of poetry, sold out its Toronto debut, was nominated for several awards, and continues to tour ten years later.
Denise has been an active member of the Pacific Zen Institute for nearly fifteen years. On retreat with PZI, she often leads participants in an exploration of the embodiment of Zen through her lens of contemporary dance.
Jon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars, writers, poets, translators, activists, artists, teachers, and more.
All proceeds for each event, including teacher dana, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests.
