Buried TeaBowl- OKUNI: Ready for Tour!
Buried TeaBowl -OKUNI is an intimate and epic solo performance installation bringing together dance, text, song and tea ceremony. The work was premiered in May 2022 with sold out season and now ready for touring around the globe!
“...the traditional Japanese tea ceremony a 21st century feminist spin. ... a Proustian, unruly one woman show, a work of pleasure and bite.”
“…so strange and grotesque, it almost defies description”
“dense and visceral at the same time.”
INSTALLATION - PERFORMANCE - TEA
ABOUT
Buried TeaBowl -OKUNI is an intimate and epic solo performance installation bringing together dance, text, song and tea ceremony with stunning film captured in 2021 during the lockdown.The work is inspired by the Japanese historical female dancer and shrine made Okuni, who initiated Kabuki theatre in the early 1600s, which women were banned from performing after these times.
At the height of her powers, Yumi Umiumare, Melbourne performance legend and Australia’s leading Butoh artist, unearths precious sacred female power which has been buried throughout history.Yumi channels the multifaceted character of Okuni who was so powerful, yet fragile and complex, to reawaken her spirit through excavating these buried stories and myths.
CREATIVE TEAM
Created and Performed : Yumi Umiumare
Cinematographer/ Editor : Takeshi Kondo
Composer/ Sound Designer : Dan West
Lighting designer: Emma Lockhart-Wilson
Dramaturg/ Maude Davey
Provocateur : Moira Finucane
Producer : Kath Papas productions
Photographer: Vikk Shayen
Graphic design : Mariko Naito & Taka Takiguchi
Calligraphy: Hisako Tsuchiya
Publicity : Diana Wolfe
PHOTO CREDITS
Vikk Shayen (Above)
Takeshi Kondo (Below)
The show was premiered at the BlackCat Gallery in May 2022.
SUPPORT & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS for the premiere season
The premiere season was supported by the Besen Family Foundation and BLACKCAT Gallery.
IN-VOCATION たまおこし Performance in FRAME: biennial dance festival
Performed at FRAME in 2023 at Dancehouse
Performed by Yumi Umiumare, Kayo Tamura and Kyoko Amara
Installation by Jacqui Stockdale
Sound by Ai Yamamoto
Punk, playful, and exuberant, this is an intimately epic and profanely sacred ritual.
When: 21 (Tue) March 7pm and 28(Tue) March 7pm and 9pm ( 3 shows ONLY )
Where: Dancehouse 150 Princes St Carlton North, Victoria
BOOKING
Entangling old world Kabuki mystique with volumetric 3D video, “IN-VOCATION たまおこし” summons the sacred power of female archetypes and deities.
In collaboration with a clairvoyant from Japan, local artists, and an international guest performer, Yumi Umiumare opens a Jujutsu 呪術 (Magic) portal to discover the colourful characters of OKUNI — an initiator of Kabuki Japanese theatre.
Evolving out of Yumi’s solo work, “Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI”, the team of mystics return to prod their collective memories and discover the many essences of the divine feminine.
Punk, playful, and exuberant, this is an intimately epic and profanely sacred ritual that incites an audience revolt of the spirit.
CREDIT
Choreographer: Yumi Umiumare
Performers: Yumi Umiumare, Kayo Tamura (Theatre Group Gumbo, Osaka), Kyoko Amara (Taiyosha, Iwate)
Visual Artist: Jacqui Stockdale
Sound Designer: Ai Yamamoto
3D Video: EMD Studio, Centre for Transformative Media Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology.
Original score from “Buried TeaBowl – Okuni”: Dan West
Original video from “Buried TeaBowl – Okuni”: Takeshi Kondo
Image credits: “IN-VOCATION たまおこし” (2023), Yumi Umiumare. Photo by Vikk Shayen.
Buried TeaBowl- OKUNI
Buried TeaBowl -OKUNI is an intimate and epic solo performance installation bringing together dance, text, song and tea ceremony with stunning film captured in 2021 during the lockdown.The work is inspired by the Japanese historical female dancer and shaman Okuni, who initiated Kabuki theatre in the early 1600s, which women were banned from performing after these times.
INSTALLATION - PERFORMANCE - TEA
Buried TeaBowl -OKUNI is an intimate and epic solo performance installation bringing together dance, text, song and tea ceremony with stunning film captured in 2021 during the lockdown.The work is inspired by the Japanese historical female dancer and shaman Okuni, who initiated Kabuki theatre in the early 1600s, which women were banned from performing after these times.
At the height of her powers, Yumi Umiumare, Melbourne performance legend and Australia’s leading Butoh artist, unearths precious sacred female power which has been buried throughout history.Yumi channels the multifaceted character of Okuni who was so powerful, yet fragile and complex, to reawaken her spirit through excavating these buried stories and myths.
CREATIVE TEAM
Created and Performed : Yumi Umiumare
Cinematographer/ Editor : Takeshi Kondo
Composer/ Sound Designer : Dan West
Lighting designer: Emma Lockhart-Wilson
Dramaturg/ Maude Davey
Provocateur : Moira Finucane
Producer : Kath Papas productions
Photographer: Vikk Shayen
Graphic design : Mariko Naito
Calligraphy: Hisako Tsuchiya
Publicity : Diana Wolfe
The show was premiered at the BlackCat Gallery in May 2022.
Date/Time:
Thu 5 May 8:30pm – Preview
Fri 6 May 8pm – Opening
Sat 7 May 8pm
Sun 8 May 6pm
Wed 11 May 8pm
Thu 12 May 8pm
Fri 13 May 8pm
Sat 14 May 8pm
Sun 15 May 6pm
Duration: 80 mins
Tickets:
Full: $35 / Con: $25
Superiori-TEA: $50 incl. drink on arrival
Address:
BlackCat Gallery
420 Brunswick St
Fitzroy 3065
Vic Australia
PHOTO CREDITS
Vikk Shayen (Above)
Takeshi Kondo (Below)
SUPPORT & AKCNOWLEDGEMENTS
This season is supported by the Besen Family Foundation and BLACKCAT Gallery.
Buried TeaBowl a new solo work in progress 2021
Yumi is creating a new solo work Buried TeaBowl, an interdisciplinary work with dance, text, song and poetry, inspired by Japanese female dancer/shaman, Okuni in 1600’s. The work in progress was completed in Aug 2021, and will be premiered in a live and digital performance in 2022.
photo by Vikk Shayen
Yumi's new solo work Buried TeaBowl, a work in progress, Aug 2021
Buried Tea Bowl is a new solo interdisciplinary work in development by Yumi Umiumare, bringing together dance, text, song and poetry with tea ceremony to create an intimate and epic work with both live and digital iterations.
Buried Tea Bowl channels the character of Okuni, a Japanese female shaman who initiated Kabuki during the Edo period (1600s). Kabuki comes from the word ‘Kabuku’, meaning bent or out of the ordinary, and was regarded as a subversive non-art form, passionately expressing ugliness and beauty. Later women were banned from performing Kabuki – the male performers who took over the art form can be seen as the first Japanese Drag Queens. Even though she was one of the most powerful female figures in theatre history, not many people know about Okuni, even in Japan.
Combining Yumi’s practice of Japanese tea ceremony, which flourished at the same period as Okuni was alive, she is choosing the ‘tea bowl’ as a creative metaphor of precious sacred female power which was buried under history.
Creative Team for Creative Development 2021
Created and Performed by Yumi Umiumare
In collaboration with
Cinematographer/ Editor : Takeshi Kondo
Composer/ Sound Designer : Dan West
Dramaturg : Maude Davey
Provocateur : Moira Finucane
Vocal Artist : Emma Bathgate
Shamisen Artist : Noriko Tadano
Photographer : Vikk Shayen
Producer : Kath Papas productions
This project has been assisted by
The Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body
City of Darebin, Cultural Infrastructure Grants
Abbotsford Convent Foundation, Pivot 2021
Wanna Be a Rabbit? by Weave Movement Theatre is now postponed till 2022
Wanna Be a Rabbit? the show by Weave Movement Theatre directed by Yumi Umiumare is postponed till 2022
A dynamic collaboration between Yumi Umiumare and Weave Movement Theatre. Highly visual physical theatre with a sense of the ridiculous.
Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, the show is postponed till 2021.
Wannabe a Rabbit? is the outcome of the unique chemistry between Yumi Umiumare, international 'Butoh Cabaret' artist and Weave, a company of disabled and non-disabled performers.
Through Butoh-esque absurdity, highly visual physical theatre, text and startling installations, the work humorously reverses societal perceptions. It probes the human compulsion to categorise and judge. What are you? A wife, a worker, disabled, a refugee, black/white, an Aussie oi oi, a rabbit?
CREDITS
Director/Choreographer : Yumi Umiumare
Co-creator/Performers:
David Baker, Willow J Conway, Trevor Dunn, Janice Florence,
Zya Kane, Greg Muir, Emma Norton, Anthony Riddell, Takashi Takiguchi
Producer: Janice Florence (Artistic Director, Weave Movement Theatre)
Sound Designer : Dan West
Installation artist: Pimpisa Tinpalet
Costume designers: Joe Noonan & Brynna Lowen
Lighting designer: Rachel Lee
Videographer : Tan Kang Wei
Photographer: Vikk Shayen
Outside eye: Maude Davey
Photos (below) by Paul Dunn
Wanna Be a Rabbit? with Weave Movement Theatre
Wannabe A Rabbit? invites audiences on an investigation between the surreal ad the absurd; exploring universal human themes like:Will I ever be perfect? Am I invisible? How do I get out of here? My sheets need a wash. It’s dark. Is that a rabbit? The show is going to be premiered 2020.
The Performance season in June 2020 were both Cancelled Due to the COVID-19.
new dates is going to be announced soon.
Will I ever be perfect? Am I invisible? How do I get out of here? My sheets need a wash. It’s dark. Is that a rabbit?
Wannabe a Rabbit? is directed and Choreographed by Yumi Umiumare in collaboration with Weave Movement Theatre. A fusion of Butoh and Physical Theatre, the work moved between the surreal and absurd; humorously reversing the perceptions of difference.
Wannabe A Rabbit? invites audiences on an investigation between the surreal ad the absurd; exploring universal human themes like:
Surfacing in reaction to the atrocities caused post World War II and initially referred to as the ‘Dance of Darkness’, Butoh converges themes of naturism and humanism. ButohOUT! intends to activate the spirit of Butoh through the local and national, contemporary dance community.
“Their strength lies in the performers’ ability to make the banal magical” – The Age
(review for Weave’s previous work)
Credit
Director: Yumi Umiumare
in collaboration with Weave Movement Theatre
Producer: Janice Florence
Sound designer: Dan West
Costume designer: Matilda Woodroofe
Lighting designer: Jennifer Hector
Installation artist: Pimpisa Tinpalit
from ButohOUT!2018 photo by Mifumi Obata
Butoh OUT 2019
ButohOUT! 2019 is a festival to celebrate creative communities in Australia and beyond through the profound performance art medium of Butoh. 4 public workshops and 2 weeks performance season are held at Abbotsford Convent.
Tea Break
TEA BREAK is a new full-length solo work in development, combining dance, spoken words and multimedia. Blending Butoh, Tea and visual theatre, Yumi explores the space between rituals and daily routines of drinking tea.
TEA BREAK is going to be a Yumi's new full-length work, combining dance, spoken words and multimedia. Blending Butoh, Tea and visual theatre, Yumi explores the space between rituals and daily routines of drinking tea. She shifts into the abstract and experiments with the forms and structures of tea ceremony, moving from the sedate to the dramatic, real to surreal, and playful to macabre, a journey into life and death, evoking the spirit of Butoh.
TeaBreak, 30 min solo dance version, was shown in March 2017, as a part of Evocation of Butoh in Asia TOPA, and creative next development for visual elements will be in 2018.
To find out more about showing this work, get in touch with yumi.
Feedback quotes from
the creative development
“Grounded and surreal, totally unpredictable, with some extraordinary physicality in the movements. I loved the humour and the tension and the danger and the energy and how the piece was so utterly unpredictable. A real pleasure and inspiration”
“Cup cracks, composure crumbles in a brush stroke of sickly green”
“Witnessing Yumi's ongoing tea ceremony developments was wonderful, challenging, dangerous and exciting. …Enjoyed the subversion of the formal ceremony and the domestic connotations; and how the transformations reconnected to the elemental, natural, spiritual and physical.“
ポップアップお茶室シリーズ
ポッ プ・アップお茶室シリーズはアーティストや様々な分野の人たちの出会いの場で、「茶事」を通してお互いのアイディアを交換できるクリエイティブな場です。 その空間は、実際のお茶室であったり、仮想のものであったり、また、シュールな映像であったりします。お茶を通してRITUAL(儀式)やパーフォーマンスの可 能性を探り、また「未知の」ことを受け入れて遊びます
“What’s the…?” Pieces for small spaces at Lucy Guerin Inc.
Yumi was one of the 5 choreographers of the 5 days performance season of PIECES FOR SMALL SPACES at Lucy Guerin Inc, 13-17 Dec 2017.
PIECES FOR SMALL SPACES 2017, 13-17Dec 2017
5 CHOREOGRAPHERS, 5 NEW SHORT DANCE WORKS, 5 DAYS OF PERFORMANCES.
AMRITA HEPI | MARIAA RANDALL | NANA BILUS ABAFFY | RHEANNAN PORT | YUMI UMIUMARE
Pieces for Small Spaces is Lucy Guerin Inc’s annual in-house presenting season, offering a unique opportunity for five choreographers to challenge their practice, take risks and present a new short dance work as part of a professional performance season. This years program has been co-curated by Artistic Director Lucy Guerin, Resident Director Prue Lang and artist Mariaa Randall.
Choreographed by Yumi Umiumare
In collaboration with the performers: Gregory Lorenzutti, Lilian Steiner, Leisa Prowd
Music by Dan West and Murcof
Photograph by Bryony Jackson
Evocation of Butoh
Evocation of Butoh is a mini festival with the aim of activating artistic and cultural exchange between international artists and local arts communities in Melbourne through the performance art of Butoh.
EVOCATION OF BUTOH
PERFORMANCE,FORUM and WORKSHOP
9-20 MARCH 2017
Evocation of Butoh is a mini festival with the aim of activating artistic and cultural exchange between international artists and local arts communities in Melbourne through the performance art of Butoh. This genre of dance/theatre was started in the late 50’s in Japan in the aftermath of WWII. Butoh, originally called the ‘Dance of Darkness’, finds expression through dance and movement for the visible and invisible states of living. This is a unique opportunity for audiences in Melbourne to experience sublime works by local and international practitioners: a diaspora of artists who left their countries of origin to extend their practice in contemporary society.Intensive workshops, a public forum and an artists’ talk will also be presented to stimulate discourse around what Butoh is now in Australia.
PERFORMANCE& FORUM @ Lamama Courthouse, as a part of Asia TOPA
Program1
9(Thur) and 10(Fri) 7:30pm March 2017
Tony Yap (Malaysia/Australia)
Yumi Umiumare (Japan/ Australia)
Helen Smith (England/ Australia)
Program2
11(Sat) 7:30pm, 12(Sun) 5pm, March 2017
Yumiko Yoshioka (Japan/Germany)
and pre-show performance by Alana Hoggart, Miguel Camarero
PUBLIC FORUM
What is Butoh now in Australia?
12(Sun) 12-3pm March 2017
Free Admission
WORKSHOP
WORKSHOP1
Butoh 3 nights Intensive workshop
by Yumiko Yoshioka
14(Tue), 15(Wed) ,16(Thur) March
6:00pm – 9:00pm@Abbotsford Convent
$250 (Full) & $230 (Concession)
WORKSHOP 2
Residential workshop in Stuart Mill
by Yumiko Yoshioka
facilitated by Yumi Umiumare
17th (Fri) March to 20th (Mon) March
@ Camp Seed
$450 (Full) & $420 (Concession)
Workshop inquiry : info@takashitakiguchi.com
Sunrise at Midnight
"Sunrise at Midnight" (2002) is both a documentary portrait of Yumi Umiumare, a contemporary Japanese / Australian Butoh dancer, and a Japanese Ghost story set in the Australian Desert. Filmmaker Sean O'Brien and Butoh Dancer Yumi Umiumare make an expedition into the desert to experience and exorcise Noriko's lost soul.
“Sunrise at Midnight” (2002) is both a documentary portrait of Yumi Umiumare, a contemporary Japanese / Australian Butoh dancer, and a Japanese Ghost story set in the Australian Desert. Filmmaker Sean O’Brien and Butoh Dancer Yumi Umiumare make an expedition into the desert to experience and exorcise Noriko’s lost soul.
“The film is inspired by an historic photograph of a troupe of Japanese female performers who toured outback towns at the turn of the 20th century, and the tale of one of those performers, Noriko, who wandered into the desert and never came back. The photograph captures an unusual moment in Australian history when Japanese culture unexpectedly touched it. The photo is a formal portrait of four Japanese women who toured outback towns in the early 1900s. The women are known as karayuki-san, “women who work in a foreign land”, imported to entertain locals and itinerant Asian workers. Fascinated by this weird blend of Japanese exotica and Australiana, Yumi and I used this photo as a creative key, integral to the establishment of the character, the choreography, and the imagined story which takes place beyond the edge of the tableau. Influences include Japanese ghost stories, and Australian tales of naive innocents lost in the bush.
Both Yumi and I are drawn to the Australian landscape, Yumi as a performer and myself as a photographer, and the film’s narrative gave us the chance to journey inland. The landscape is used as a vast theatre for the performance, with Yumi carefully blocked within the “natural ikebana” – strange and abstract arrangements of wood, earth, stone, and sand.
While Yumi’s background is in Butoh, the performance also refers to the restrained minimalism of Noh theatre, and traditional Japanese folk dance.
The stylized nature of the drama and the stark quality of the locations leant itself to black and white. A primary influence was the work of Eikoh Hosoe, one of the first photographers to collaborate with Butoh performers in the field. Reflecting the cross cultural nature of the project, the filmic style pays reference to both Japanese cinema, specifically the films of Mizoguchi, and local cinema of the 1940s & 50s, (“Back of Beyond”, “Jedda” etc), particularly in its tonal depiction of the distinctive Australian light in the landscape.”
Director: Sean O’Brien
Choreographer: Yumi Umiumare
Performers: Yumi Umiumare & Tony Yap
Music: Satsuki Odamura, Anne Norman, Kazumichi Grime
Photography Sean O’Brien & Simon Von Wolkenstein
Editing: Nick Meyers
Production: Sean O’Brien
Film Awards:
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2002
Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival 2002
白い昼の夢〜White Day Dream
この作品はうみうまれの「White Day Dream 」シリーズ の一環で、過去２年メルボルン、マレーシアで創作され、今回はその日本版。10年前、脳出血で倒れたうみうまれの兄の姿からインスピレーションを得て創り始めた作品群で、2016年10月にはメルボルンでハンディキャップを追う人たちの演劇カンパニーと共に作品が発表された。
踊りにくぜ！！II #7
2月4日［土］ 18:00（開場は開演の30分前）
イムズホール（イムズ9Ｆ）
〒810-0001 福岡市中央区天神1-7-11 イムズ9F
Tel: 092-733-2001
詳細
白い昼の夢〜White Day Dream
この作品はうみうまれの「White Day Dream 」シリーズ の一環で、過去２年メルボルン、マレーシアで創作され、今回はその日本版。10年前、脳出血で倒れたうみうまれの兄の姿からインスピレーションを得て創り始めた作品群で、2016年10月にはメルボルンでハンディキャップを追う人たちの演劇カンパニーと共に作品が発表された。高次脳機能障害者である兄の記憶は、日々構築されては消されてゆき、夢うつつのようでも、ある瞬間シャープによみがえったりもする。私たちの現実も、時におぼろげで変わりやすく、妄想や夢想にすりかえられたりもする。たくさんの情報が洪水をおこしてゆく昨今、いま私たちの目の前で起きていることは本当に起きている現実なのか、それとも夢うつつの白昼夢をみているだけなのだろうか。夢とは？記憶とは？
日常生活に見え隠れする風景を採集し、「REAL現実」と「SUREAL超現実」を行き来する。
不思議をおどり、おどられ、おどろかれ。
構成・振付： ゆみうみうまれ
舞台美術： 武内貴子
オブジェ：渡邊瑠璃
音楽：Dan West
表紙写真(ゆみ）：Gregory Lorenzutti
出演：安藤美由紀／小山田紘子／柴原あゆみ／高橋 創／武石夢香／中山将宙／福島由美
リージョナルダンス
札幌・仙台・福岡の各主催者が希望する振付家・演出家に依頼し、地元で募った出演者と新作を制作、当地で上演します。
写真：藤本彦
白い昼の夢〜White Day Dream
White Day Dream series explores the space between dream and reality. Like a dream itself, the work recalls subconscious emotions, where things are at once unexpectedly linked and disconnected.This is a newly created 30min physical theatre work working with local Japanese visual artists and performers.
Shiroi Hiruno Yume~White Day Dream
as a part of Odori ni Ikuze!(We’re gonna go dancing) Festival
4th(Sat) Feb 2017
18:00 (open 17:30)
ISM Hall
1-7-11-11 ((F) Tenjin Chuo-ku, Fukuoka City, Fukuoka, Japan
Direction and Choreography : Yumi Umiumare
Stage Design : Takako Takeuchi
Stage Art Object : Ruri Watanabe
Sound : Dan West
Photography (Yumi’s portrait )：Gregory Lorenzutti
Performer: Miyuki Ando, Hiroko Oyamada, Ayumi Shibahara,Sou Takahashi, Yumeka Takeishi, Masahiro Nakayama
Shiroi Hiruno Yume~White Day Dream is a part of Yumi Umiumare’s White Day Dream series, which has been shown in Malaysia(2015) and most recently through the collaboration with Weave Movement theatre(performers with and without disability).White Day Dream series explores the space between dream and reality. Like a dream itself, the work recalls subconscious emotions, where things are at once unexpectedly linked and disconnected.
This is a newly created 30min physical theatre work working with local Japanese visual artists and performers.
Odorini Okuze II !! We’re gonna go dancing II！！is a national dance festival in Japan, run by JCDN (Japan Contemporary Dance Network).Yumi was appointed to be working as a choreographer in the regional dance program in Hakata, Fukuoka, Japan, creating a new working with local artists who were chosen by the public audition.
Photo by Gen Fujimoto
Butoh OUT 2018
ButohOUT! is a newly initiated festival activating local communities in Victoria by fostering artistic and cultural exchanges through the powerful performing arts medium Butoh. Butoh is widely known as a Japanese theatre and dance art form but in this festival, artists will integrate it in the context of uniquely Australian culture, history and landscapes.
Luminous Luna
Exploring femininity in both personal and cultural cliché ways, Luminous Lunas celebrates the beauty of feminine strength- from the softer essence of beauty, crazy pop icons, surreal and mystical characters to the mundane everyday housewives.
Light in Winter Festival at Fed Square, Melbourne (June, 2015)
Director/Choreographer: Yumi Umiumare
Set and costume Designer: Jennifer Tran
Performer: Sophia Constantine, Suhasini Seelin, Felix Ching Ching Ho
Composer: Dan West
Production Manager : Jerilee Cardoz
Exploring femininity in both personal and cultural cliché ways, Luminous Lunas celebrates the beauty of feminine strength- from the softer essence of beauty, crazy pop icons, surreal and mystical characters to the mundane everyday housewives. Through roving, statute-like stillness and performance installations in public spaces, three performers create strong visual impacts, surreal atmosphere, wearing luminous costumes with transformable props in the federation square in Melbourne.
Photo by Wilari Tedjosiswoyo and Yumi Umiumare
peek-A-Butoh, Melbourne Fringe 2017
Step inside the playful and imaginative world of Japanese Butoh. With a smiling shaman as your guide, you’ll jump headfirst into a world of transformation and shape-shifting, unleashing your inner animal, object, kook and spook.
Presented by: Melbourne Fringe and ArtPlay
Created by: Yumi Umiumare
Synopsis
Step inside the playful and imaginative world of Japanese Butoh. With a smiling shaman as your guide, you’ll jump headfirst into a world of transformation and shape-shifting, unleashing your inner animal, object, kook and spook. Everyday games like peekaboo and hide and seek are given new life and new meaning under the watchful eye and guiding hand of acclaimed Butoh master Yumi Umiumare, who has been creating her distinctive style of work for over 25 years. It’s a mini afternoon of kooky dance, discovery and play as only Fringe can be.
All children must be accompanied by an adult
September 2017
EnTrance
EnTrance is a critically acclaimed full-length solo work with multimedia and installations within the metaphor of ‘the near shore’ of life and ‘the far shore’ of death. Award-winning dancer Yumi Umiumare performs the mystical conundrum of ‘the space between’ amid the hubbub of our city-life. ‘EnTrance opens heart, body and soul to the transformations that direct the human spirit.’ Canberra Times 2011
EnTrance is a critically acclaimed full-length solo work with multimedia and installations within the metaphor of ‘the near shore’ of life and ‘the far shore’ of death. Using electronic costumes – practical television mask, fairy light fabric – karaoke and the decay to nothingness of the flour-encrusted butoh body, award-winning dancer Yumi Umiumare performs the mystical conundrum of ‘the space between’ amid the hubbub of our city-life.
White, vaulting installation, splits the space into the real and imagined, where Umiumare can play with the audience in fun Karaoke near-space or recede through the porous curtain to the far, into the psychological claustrophobia of mirrored city-scapes where full-wall media projections crowd.
Umiumare performs six seamless scenes exploring the personal and universal; like cultural distinctions of crying, depersonalisation in the metropolis, public/personal identity and transcending through death. The soundscape of the city isolates the living, accompanies the dead. Entrance assembles award-winning collaborators, Moira Finucane, Bambang Nurcahyadi, Naomi Ota and Ian Kitney and was itself nominated for a Green Room Award. EnTrance is the culmination of Umiumare’s collaborations, a diva focusing her powers for audiences to share in transcendence.
Credits
Created and performed by Yumi Umiumare
Dramaturge Moira Finuicane
Media Artist Bambang Nurcahyadi Karim
Installation Artist Naomi Ota
Sound Designer Ian Kitney
Costume Designer David Anderson
Lighting Designer Kerry Ireland
Performance History
April 2012 Performance Space season in Sydney
June /July 2011 The Street Theatre, Canberra
October 2010 NORPA (Lismore) & Brisbane
supported by Kultour’s 2010 Strategc initiatives
October 2009 OzAsia Festival
Aug – Sep 2009 Premiere in Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne
TECHNICAL SPECS
Please click here for technical specification and download the document
Please click here for En Trance Plan Set
Photo by Jeff Busby and Heidrun Lohr
Reviews
“..a mystical collision of butoh and theatre.”
“EnTrance is a wonderfully expressive union of music and text, image and movement, bound together by irresistible logic of dreams.”
The Age
“All the world’s experiences, on a stage”
“she carries her audience on a journey through life, life after death, mental despair, physical delight, meditative sequences, cabaret breakouts, sweet sadness and ghoulish madness”
Jill Sykes (Review Link)
“..an Impassioned and beautiful piece, constantly rich and surprising in its emotional range, and finally very moving.”
The Australian
” Yumi Umiumare is a living treasure””Her solo show EnTrance delights and disturbs with its compelling blend of movement, dialogue and music. Movements of joy and comedy are counterpoint for the grotesque tradition of butoh.
Herald Sun
“..a mystical collision of butoh and theatre.”
“EnTrance is a wonderfully expressive union of music and text, image and movement, bound together by irresistible logic of dreams.”
The Age
“.. challenging, moving, and the kind of theatre experience you rave to your friends about. Australia is fortunate to have such a talent as hers enriching our dance culture.”
Arts Hub
“…gut-felt provocation of passion and emotion.”
Aussie theatre
“This is one of the standouts of OzAsia (festival)”
Independent Weekly Adelaide
” a fascinating production that will move you emotionally and engage you intellectually”
GLAM ADELAIDE
“EnTrance opens heart, body and soul to the transformations that direct the human spirit.”
“Confronting, evocative and artistically innovative”
Canberra Times
See more Dance Work
INORI-in-visible
A solo dance work influenced from the personal experience from Hanshin Earthquake in 1996.The work was devised as prayer for the event. Directed and Performed by Yumi Umiumare. Stage & Set design Anthony Pelchen.
A solo dance work influenced from the personal experience from Hanshin Earthquake in 1996.The work was devised as prayer for the event.
Directed and Performed by Yumi Umiumare
Stage & Set design Anthony Pelchen
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
2003 February Traces Post Butoh Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
2000 August Dancehouse, Melbourne, Australia
2000 5th year memorial of Hanshin Earthquake, Town Hall, Vega Hall, and Women’s Centre in Takarazuka City
Reviews
“Yumi Umiumare was not animal on the stage, on the contrary, she seemed like a deformed human being. As with Kitt Johnson, they both posses the ability to make their extreme bodies disappear and transform into Butoh power. Or to make the earth disappear. ..”
Anne Middlelboe Christensen – Information, Copenhagen
REALTIMES Review
Photo by Brad Hick
Sakasama
Sakasama: the reverse world. The two worlds of Life and Death are described as two shores; one is ‘the near shore’ (the world of the living), and the other is ‘the far shore’ (the world of after-death). A river flows between them. ‘The far shore’ is a reversed world: it is the reverse of the world of the living and everything is upside down.
Artist Statement
The original inspiration of this work came from the ancient Japanese belief in Sakasama: the reverse world. The two worlds of Life and Death are described as two shores; one is ‘the near shore’ (the world of the living), and the other is ‘the far shore’ (the world of after-death). A river flows between them.
‘The far shore’ is a reversed world: it is the reverse of the world of the living and everything is upside down. I explore the juxtaposition of my presence in Australia, experimenting with the neutrality of emotion and colour, and to manipulate rhythms.
I am in the maze.
I am wandering around the space between,
crossing the shores between here and there.
The world here looks normal and the world here looks abnormal.
The world there looks abnormal and the world there looks normal.
I am surrounded by these unknown voids.
The void creates some fluid and transparent shapes.
I dive into them and they disappear.
Dual, triple, multiple existences of my body floats here and there.
I keep wandering this unknown space between.
Credits
Media Art by Bambang Nurcahyadi
Original Video and Sound edited by Bambang Nurcahyadi and Ian Corcoran
Original Videography by Richard Back, Anthony Pelchen and Yumi Umiumare
Reviews
(The work is） bringing out a strong and weirdly accessible work, in which caricature is often an entrance door for a psychic depth of despair, loneliness, social world and nocturne world -constantly reminding us that obscurity pervades the trivial beauty of daily life-.
Idanca.net online review, by Sheila Ribeiro 2010
PERFORMance history
2009Sakasama(multimedia performance) in Pulse, @ Rooftop in Melbourne
2009Sakasama-reversed world(solo dance short work), I-DANCE Festival Hong Ko
2007Sakasama(collaboration with Bambang Nurcahyadi) Exhibited in OzAsia Festival at Arts Space in Adelaide Festival Centre
Digital image by Bambang N Karim
