La Mama presents
An Asia TOPA performance
Evocation of Butoh
Artistic Director – Yumi Umiumare
Lighting Design - Bronwyn Pringle
Program 2
Yumiko Yoshioka – Before the Dawn
Until Sunday March 12 2017
This is the most marvelous opportunity to
be entranced by world-renowned Butoh practitioner Yumiko Yoshioka who brings
her own unique form of Butoh. Butoh was first created in 1959 in Japan and has
been a unique form of physical expression that is grounded in the grotesque and
does not err from the abject and dark and taboo subjects.
Yumiko Yoshioka, who is from Tokyo but has
lived in Germany since 1988, is the most extraordinary performer. She is an exceedingly beautiful woman who has
been practicing this grotesque dance/physical performance for approximately
three decades. Every muscle sinew and
fiber of her body is given over to her method.
Such a strong toned body is mesmerizing to watch in action.
The work Before the Dawn is described in the program as ‘a dance of
metamorphosis, where darkness melts into brightness.’ This is such an apt description of
Yoshioka’s performance – a fluid piece in which transformations that are often
sudden and remarkably crisp. Semblances
range from horror, distortion and disfigurement to achingly beautiful states of
simplicity and acute human beauty.
Throughout the audience is transfixed.
The lighting (Bronwyn Pringle) is wonderful
and assists in highlighting subtle changes in Ms Yoshioka’s physical and
spatial placement. Light is used to
marvelous effect in changing colour and creating shafts of illumination for Ms
Yoshioka to move and evoke in.
Sound is electronic and often sharp in
nature. It seems often to be the aberrant
distortions of natural sounds that assists in creating an unnatural atmosphere that,
in turn, accentuates the profoundly natural human form.
Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)
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