Experimentation series #1 "What is the Ultimate?” 究極とは？
Experimentation series #1
Video•Dance•conversation• Drinks
BUTOH and BEYOND
"What is the Ultimate?” 究極とは？
It was fun and stimulated night where we just gathered, experimented and shared!
Experimentation series #1
Video•Dance•conversation• Drinks
BUTOH and BEYOND
"What is the Ultimate?” 究極とは？
It was fun and stimulated night where we just gathered, experimented and shared!
Performers
Hinata Kawamura
Leyla Boz
Tylah Syme
Yumi Umiumare
Music
@tweakandtwang @audibleartefacts
@tenridance @solgalleryspace
天理大創作ダンス部との作品も
お見せしました！大盛況でした
SOL GALLERY 420 Brunswick St, Vic, Fitzroy 17 June 2025
Annual Performance Season with Tenri University Dance Club, Dec 2024
I am still in awe, to think about this performance, I've done in Japan, as a part of annual performance season with Tenri University Dance club, at the Nara Centennial Hall, December 2024 .
The title: 'あめつちの聲〜 in the middle of the awe'
あめつち（AME TSUCHI): Heaven and Earth
聲(KOE) : Voice
Photo: by Takahiro Kitagawa
Great soundscape by Dan West and Ai Yamamoto
This trip was supposed by Creative Australia, international engagement program.
Special Thanks to Prof. Junko Tsukamoto and Gagaku Master Koji Sato as well as many supporters!
Photo by Takahiro Kitagawa
写真：北川大志氏
I am still in awe, to think about this performance, I've done in Japan, as a part of annual performance season with Tenri University Dance club, at the Nara Centennial Hall, December 2024.
The title: 'あめつちの聲〜 in the middle of the awe'
あめつち（AME TSUCHI): Heaven and Earth
聲(KOE) : Voice
It was a grand stage featuring a total of 22 dancers and 15 musicians from Tenri University's Dance Club and Gagaku Club, both of which are among the top-level university groups in Japan. Adding to this luxurious setup, my brother, who is a successful pro Sumie artist, was in charge of the projection visuals.
Gagaku, which is recognised by UNESCO as the world’s oldest continuously performed orchestral music, historically used as imperial court music, has a history spanning over a thousand years!
It was epic and so powerful to tap into my DNA and heritage of my spiritual ancestry (and beyond)..and I am still beyond the words..it will come and take a place sometime.
Photo: by Takahiro Kitagawa
Great soundscape by Dan West and Ai Yamamoto
This trip was supposed by Creative Australia, international engagement program.
Special Thanks to Prof. Junko Tsukamoto and Gagaku Master Koji Sato as well as many supporters!
去年、年末に天理大学単独公演に参加し、
あめつちの聲〜 in the middle of the awe'
という作品を発表させていただきました。
この舞台を思い出すと、今でもドキドキ、そしてAwe (畏敬の念）の気持ちにかられます。
天理大のダンス部と雅楽部という、双方とも日本でも屈指のレベルに入る大学生の方達の、総勢・踊り手２２人、奏者１５人という、大きな舞台に、私の弟でプロで成功している土屋秋恆がプロジェクターでの画像を手がけるという贅沢な設定でした。
雅楽は１０００年以上もの歴史を誇り、ユネスコでも世界で一番古いオーケストラと位置付けられているそうです。
私の中のDNAや血がさわぎ、古代に身を馳せていったような、なんとも言えない深い感動を味あわせていただきました。まだ言葉にすることができませんが、そのうちに、どこからか、ジワジワと、言葉や踊りが滲み出てくるように感じております。
この舞台作りに関わっていただいた天理大の教授塚本順子先生、雅楽部の最高顧問佐藤浩司先生をはじめとする、たくさんの方々に心から感謝します！
ありがとうございました
写真：北川大志氏
@_ta_ka_ta_
音楽 ダン・ウェスト、山本アイ
今回のプロジェクトの一部は、クリエイティブ-オーストラリアの助成によって可能となりました。
@gagakubu
@creativeaustralia
Beyond – Racing Through This Moment
22 (Sun) Dec 2024
At Nara Centennial Hall 18:00 start (17:00 door opens)
Yumi has great opportunity of choreographing and performing at the annual event of the Tenri University Dance Club, Nara Japan, renowned for winning numerous awards due to the high quality and creativity of their dance.Yumi has been staying in Nara for 2 weeks in December, to create and perform a piece, collaborating with 22 dancers and 18 Gagaku musicians to present it on the grand stage of Centennial Hall in front of an audience of 1,500!!
20th Annual performance by Tenri University Creative Dance Club
Beyond—Racing Through This Moment
22(Sun) Dec 2024, Nara Centennial Hall 18:00 start (17:00 door opens)
Yumi has great opportunity of choreographing and performing at the annual event of the Tenri University Dance Club, Nara Japan, renowned for winning numerous awards due to the high quality and creativity of their dance.Yumi has been staying in Nara for 2 weeks in December, to create and perform a piece, collaborating with 22 dancers and 18 Gagaku musicians to present it on the grand stage of Centennial Hall in front of an audience of 1,500!!
Gagaku, historically used as imperial court music, has been established for over ten centuries. It served as ceremonial music for the imperial court, major Buddhist temples, and Shinto shrines in Japan. Recognised by UNESCO, it is considered the oldest continuously performed orchestral music in the world.
55th year anniversary of the establishment
20th Annual performance by Tenri University Creative Dance Club
Beyond – Racing Through This Moment
Come and Join us!
EVENT DETAILS:
22(Sun) Dec 2024
At Nara Centennial Hall 18:00 start (17:00 door opens)
Link (in Japanese ):
FIND OUT MORE HERE
Enquiry (in English):
CONTACT YUMI
____________________________
ゆみうみうまれは、日本・奈良の天理大学創作ダンス部の創立５５周年、２０回目の記念イベントにおいて、振付とパフォーマンスを行う素晴らしい機会を得ました。同部は、そのダンスの高いクオリティと創造性によって数々の賞を受賞していることで知られています。うみうまれはiは12月に2週間奈良に滞在し、22人のダンサーと18人の雅楽演奏者と共に作品を創り上げ、1500人の観客を迎える奈良100年会館の大舞台で披露します！
雅楽は、歴史的に皇室の宮廷音楽として使用され、千年以上の歴史を持っています。
皇室の儀式や、日本の主要な仏教寺院や神社で演奏される音楽として発展しました。ユネスコによって世界最古の継続して演奏されているオーケストラ音楽と認められています。
乞うご期待！
創部５５周年
第２０回創作ダンス部単独公演、
Beyond この瞬間を駆けぬける
１２月２２日（日）開演１８：００ （１７：００開場）
（於）奈良１００年会館大ホール
Puffy ‘Mother Earth’
I've become puffy 'mother earth', surreally dancing (digitally) in this project in Adelaide. Fill The Earth 11 - 14 JUL 2024. Go and check it, if you are near by!
Costume: by Haruko Ogiso
I've become puffy 'mother earth', surreally dancing (digitally) in this project in Adelaide.
Fill The Earth
11 - 14 JUL 2024
@nexusarts
Go and check it, if you are near by!
Created by Juha Vanhakartano, in collaboration with 7 artists, including myself!
(My costume was made by fabulous Haruko Ogiso!!)
アデレードのプロジェクト「Fill The Earth」に映像として参加しています。2年前に創った作品でまだ未公開。7人のアーティストのそれぞれの作品の中で、膨れ上がった「母なる地球」となってシュールに踊っております。
お近くの方は是非どうぞ。
(ハルちゃん、コスチュームありがとうございました！！）
Detail:
A special choreography for the Tenri University Creative Dance's annual performance
Yumi was invited to choreograph for the 19th Annual performance event by Tenri University, Nara, Japan @ Nara Century Hall, 17 Dec 2023
19th Annual performance by Tenri University, Nara, Japan @ Nara Century Hall, 17 Dec 2023
Yumi is invited as a guest choreographer to create a short work for the Creative Dance Club in Tenri University, Nara, Japan. The title: ”結” Connecting our Feeling ”
This is their 19th annual event for the Creative Dance Club in the Tenri university, who has been winning several dance awards in the Japanese university competitions.
17(Sun) Dec 2023
Venue：Nara Century Hall (Main Hall) なら１００年会館 大ホール
Open ：17 :30
Start: 18: 00
“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
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
ZeroZero
ZeroZero was the second in a triptych and has premiered in Melbourne, in Feb 2013. Collaborated between Tony Yap, Yumi Umiumare and Matthew Gingold, ZeroZero explores the spaces between fullness and emptiness, visibility and invisibility. It was presented in Bogota, Columbia (2014) and Melbourne International festival (2014).
ZeroZero was the second in a triptych and has premiered in Melbourne, in Feb 2013. Collaborated between Tony Yap, Yumi Umiumare and Matthew Gingold, ZeroZero explores the spaces between fullness and emptiness, visibility and invisibility. It was presented in Bogota, Columbia (2014) and Melbourne International festival (2014).
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
2014 Melbourne International Festival as a part of Dance Territories
2013 EATRO MAYOR, Bogata, Columbia
2013 Melbourne Season at fortyfivedownstairs
2011 Sydney Season as a part of Return to Sender at PerformanceSpace
2010 Tour to Arts Island Festival (Indonesia)and Melaka Festival(Malaysia)
2010 Initial creative development in Japan(Koyasan, Osore zan) and Malaysia(Melaka)
Reviews
‘..remarkable interplay of difference and harmony, touching, as their titles suggest, upon the sacred, the profane, rituals and the notion of ‘now.’ Realtime 2014
‘…strong, powerful and incredibly moving’
Arts Hub on ZeroZero at ‘Return to Sender’, Performance Space, November 2011
Photos by Heidrun Lohr
PERFORMERS
Creators/dance performers: Tony Yap, Yumi Umiumarec
Creator/media, sound, light performer: Matthew Gingold
Additional design and production realisation: Paula van Beek
Producer: Kath Papas Productions
See more Dance Work
WHITE DAY DREAM 白昼夢 SERIES
A series of experimentations of visual poetries, film work and physical theatre, inspired by Yumi’s own experience of her brother who had a cerebral hemorrhage. Is it really happening right in front of us or are we daydreaming? What if our piled up memories were suddenly erased? Our memories are like a heritage but our brain could hemorrhage.
White Day Dream（白昼夢） series
Our memories are like a heritage but our brain could hemorrhage.
White Day Dream（白昼夢）is a series of experimentations of visual poetries, film work and physical theatre, inspired by Yumi’s own experience of her brother who had a cerebral hemorrhage. Like a dream itself, the work try to recalling viewer’s emotion and subconscious, and portrays physical and psycho-emotional realms where things are at once unexpectedly linked and disconnected. Our idea of ‘reality’ blurs fluctuates and we try to substitute it with our own visionary fantasy and imagination.
Is it really happening right in front of us or are we daydreaming?
What if our piled up memories were suddenly erased?
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
Experiment #4
白い昼の夢（Japanese Title)White DayDream
Created and performed by local performers
at Odorini Ikuze Feitival (we are gonna dance festival) in Hakata, Japan,Feb 2017
Experiment#3
Collaboration with Weave Theatre (Oct-Dec 2015)The showing 16 December 2015
Experiment#2
FOLA Performance @Arts House As a part of Festival of Live Art
Experiment#1
Feb 2014 White Day Dream Video works
Credits for the photography
Photo by Will Taylor and NObu from IETM, 2014, Artshouse.
Performance by Gregory Lorenzutti, Tim Crafti, Satori Fukuzimi and Yumi Umiumare
E-motion in motion
In collaboration with Indonesian Australian media artist Bambang Nurcahyadi to experiment and create visual poetries- rich tapestry and narratives through ‘e-motion tracking’ process, dividing into different chapters. The audience/viewer’s interactions will be also tested in the process to add another layer that provokes the their expressions and emotion.
This is a project in development, collaborated with media artist Bambang N Karim, to experiment and create visual poetries- rich tapestry and narratives through ‘e-motion tracking’ process, dividing into different chapters. The audience/viewer’s interactions will be also tested in the process to add another layer that provokes the their expressions and emotion.
The juxtapositions of body and landscape are portrayed through digital moving images .It was originally coming from a Japanese ancient belief of Life and Death. In the world of ‘after-death’, the whole world exists in reverse from the world of the living. It was also to use the metaphor of my daily experiences of living in Australia as the ‘reverse-world’ from Japan, searching own cultural identities. A body interacts with a digital image of body/multiple bodies-digital images appear to enter and exit from the real-time body. The effect creates an eerie world as if spirits are jumping in and out of real-time performing body. Digital images of multiple faces also explored and it provokes my question about our identities-who are we? Where are we coming from?
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
2012 Melbourne University Student workshop
George Patton Gallery for a showing
2009 A studio Residency, Metro ScreenSydney
Dis-oriental
Using everyday objects as metaphors of ‘loss’, while also collecting residential memories defined by a psycho-emotional space, Yumi takes on the notion of ‘oriental’ in the context of moving and living in “foreign” spaces. The work explores the cracks and spaces between disorientation / destruction & attraction / familiarities.
Winner of ReelDance International Dance On Screen Festival (2008)
Using everyday objects as metaphors of ‘loss’, while also collecting residential memories defined by a psycho-emotional space, Yumi takes on the notion of ‘oriental’ in the context of moving and living in “foreign” spaces. The work explores the cracks and spaces between disorientation / destruction & attraction / familiarities.
Inspired by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban’s emergency cardboard tubing house, Yumi explores the notion that a house, usually an object of permanence, could be specifically designed to provide momentary comfort.
Choreographed and Performed by Yumi Umiumare
Sound Design: Cat Hope
Lighting Design: Richard Vabre
Produced by Hirano Production
This work premiered at Performance Space as a part of Rakini Devi’s project, Women in Transit in 2004.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
2007 SeptemberTheatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, OzAsia Festival
2006 OctoberSpring Dance program at Dancehouse
2004 July as a premier season of Woman in Transit
Film Project
Choreographed and Performed by Yumi Umiumare
Director Sean O'Brien
Writers Sean O'Brien Yumi Umiumare
Sound designer Darrin Verhagen
Producer Beth Frey
Production Company
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Arts Council of England Australia Council for the Arts Channel Four International Circe Films Pty Ltd
REVIEWS
“….Yumi Umiumare does incredibly intense solo in which her Japanese heritage and butoh dance background provide an irresistible focus for small actions on personal or domestic themes that hint at larger concerns……The transformations is riveting, powered by the knowledge that visual is built on layers of psychological and emotional considerations.”
Sydney Morning Herald 2004
Photo by Heidrun Lohr
