New Ab/Normal - Forum #1
ButohOUT!2021
New Ab/Normal
新しい異常
Forum #1
ButohOUT! 2021 presents two forums in April and May. The first forum is on 23 April, inviting International renowned Butoh artists, Yumiko Yoshioka and Dai Matsuoka, hosted by local Butoh practitioners Yumi Umiumare and Helen Smith.
Yumi Umiumare is one of Japanese/Austrailan's most renowned creative pioneers in the artform of Butoh. Together with Helen Smith, who completed a Research Masters investigating the Transformative Power of Butoh at Monash University, the Forum #1 will invite international Butoh masters from two different countries to discuss how Butoh continues to evolve in a post-pandemic era.
ButohOUT! 2021 will take place from Feb to May 2021 at Abbotsford Convent and Dancehouse in Melbourne. This year’s theme is New Ab/Normal exploring the notion of ‘what is normal?’ through the anarchic form of Butoh. Originally called Dance of Darkness, Butoh has always been associated with the marginalised, embracing the abnormal, odd, quirky and the deviant. One of the first Butoh performances so shocked its Japanese audiences that it was forced to go underground, yet now Butoh is accepted as an innovative and transformative art form. Conversely, what we used to think as ‘normal’ is no longer so. Instead, the term, 'new normal' exists, which contains the paradoxical nuance that an abnormality can become ‘normal’. We hang onto a semblance of normalcy like a security blanket - but why?
From left: Dai Matsuoka (photo: Maiko Miyagawa), Yumiko Yoshioka (photo: Alessandro Bo) & Yumi Umiumare (photo: Gregory Lorenzutti)
Profiles
YUMIKO YOSHIOKA
From 1974 to 1981, Yumiko was a member of the first Japanese women's Butoh dance company, ARIADONE. In 1978, she performed with Ko Murobushi and Carlotta Ikeda " Le Dernier Eden " in Paris, heralded as the first official Butoh performance at a theater outside of Japan. From 1988 to 1996, she was a member of German - Japanese dance theater company "tatoeba - THEATRE DANSE GROTESQUE" with Minako Seki and delta RA'i. In 1995, Yumiko founded the art-formation group " TEN PEN CHii art labor" with visual artist Joachim Manger (Germany) and music composer, Zam Johnson (USA).
Besides international tours throughout Asia, Europe, Oceania and North, South America, she is an art director of "eX...it ! Dance and Butoh Exchange Festival” since 1995 – presented, along with delta RA’i, in which more than 100 artists and dance students from all over the world joined. Yumiko also collaborates in international projects in Europe, Asia and South America as a choreographer/dancer. http://www.yumiko-yoshioka.com/
DAI MATSUOKA
DAI MATSUOKA is a Butoh dancer & LAND FES Director. He graduated from Sophia University, the Faculty of Comparative Culture and then from Kuwasawa Design School. Matsuoka has been a dancer for SANKAIJUKU since 2005. He has appeared in 9 pieces of Sankaijuku including “Kinkan Shonen”, “Kagemi”, “Tobari”, “Unetsu” and “ARC”. He has also been directing the performance event “LAND FES” in Tokyo since 2011, in which the audience is navigated to encounter live sessions by musicians and dancers taking place at different places in the town. http://daimatsuoka.com/
YUMI UMIUMARE
Yumi is an established Japanese Australian performance artist, Butoh dancer, choreographer, creating her distinctive style of works for 30 years. Her works are renowned for provoking visceral emotions and cultural identities. Her works are seen in numerous festivals throughout Australia, Japan, Europe, New Zealand, South East Asia and South America. Yumi has worked with many socially engaged theatre projects, with aboriginal and refugee communities, culturally diverse groups and inclusive dance and theatre companies. Yumi is a recipient of a fellowship from Australia Council (2015-16) and the winner of the Green Room Geoffrey Milne Memorial Award in 2017 in recognition of her contribution to Contemporary and Experimental Performance. Yumi is an artistic director of ButohOUT! Festival, activating local and international Butoh communities in Melbourne and teaches nationally and internationally. www.yumi.com.au
HELEN SMITH
HELEN SMITH is a physical theatre performer, teacher and director whose main influences have been Japanese-influenced artforms, including Butoh and Suzuki actor training.
As a member of Brisbane-based Physical Theatre company, Zen Zen Zo, she trained, performed nationally and internationally from 1993 to 2010. Helen’s first encounter with Butoh was in Kyoto in the 90s through Zen Zen Zo’s founder member, Lynne Bradley. Helen pursued her passion for Butoh for eight years, studying under several Tokyo-based, masters from the lineage of both Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the two recognised creators of Butoh. Helen relocated from Brisbane to Melbourne in 2010 to pursue a Masters in Theatre Research at Monash University in which her thesis focused on the transformative power of Butoh.
WHEN
Friday 23 April 2021
5pm: Malaysia
6pm: Japan
7pm: Melbourne
11am: Berlin
DURATION
90 mins (60 mins plus
30 mins Q&A)
WHERE
Zoom
COST
Free but Booking is essential