holistic strata

source: redcatorg

Tokyo-based choreographer and video artist Hiroaki Umeda creates mesmerizing visual environments for his visceral solo works, appearing as a fine-spun swirl of movement in a digital storm of light and sound—an elusive figure, by turns frantic and still, awash in pulsating electronic waves. In a program of acclaimed companion pieces, Haptic and Holistic Strata, Umeda’s distinctive dance vocabulary draws on a range of butoh, ballet and hip-hop. He conceives his interdisciplinary events as a sensorial whole, creating the beats and sonic textures as well as the entrancing video and lighting effects. Designed to elicit primal emotion, Umeda’s work is minimalist and radical, subtle and violent, abstract yet precise, and thrillingly physical.
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source: theguardian

Hiroaki Umeda studied photography in his native Japan before switching to dance training because “photography is so expensive, and dance is so cheap”. In 2000, aged 23, he formed a company named S20 to perform his choreography. For reasons of economy, S20 had only one dancer – Umeda himself. The company’s breakthrough work was the entrancingly named While Going to a Condition (2003), whose calculatedly disorientating light and sound effects made Umeda a name to reckon with on the international dance festival circuit.

“What I want is to transmit sensations, rather than messages, to the audience,” he says of his 2008 work Haptic. In the first half of this piece Umeda stands on stage, framed by a rectangle of fuzzy blue lighting, executing small, high-tensile leg movements whose fluidity and speed, seen against the light, induce a mildly altered visual state. As he dances, an electronic score moves up and down the volume scale from whisper to pounding migraine pulse. Umeda’s intention is to provoke an affective reaction through the use of stimuli, to focus, as he says, “on the physical aspect of the perception of colour”. To this end, he overlays the fluorescent blue with green, washes the stage with acidic lime, dims it to a bruised purple, drenches himself in poppy red. The result is engaging and attractive, but in the end inconsequential.

With Holistic Strata (2011), Umeda raises his game. He wanders on stage, there’s a crashing sound and suddenly he’s in darkness, his body studded with tiny pinpoints of light. Another crash and the pinpoints are everywhere; he’s lost in an infinite particle field. The particles start to move, the backdrop becomes a torrent of falling stars and the floor a racing sea of them. Their junction becomes a galactic waterfall’s edge which Umeda, swaying against the flow, appears to be surfing.

It’s a very beautiful illusion, and in a question-and-answer session following the performance, Umeda tells us that, for him, it’s also a highly disorientating one. The racing light particles, which are controlled by a sensor on his body, very quickly scramble his visual-interpretive faculties and, by extension, his balance. What looks like an elegant, low-slung prowl is actually just Umeda trying to remain on his feet.

The first rule of special effects is Leave Them Wanting More, and, fatally, Umeda misjudges this. Ratcheting up the particle storm a notch or two, he essays a little popping and locking in the foreground. He’s only a moderate performer in this idiom (he tried going to a hip-hop class but found it “too hip-hop” and so settled for an instructional DVD, of which he mastered only Lesson One), and we are brought back to earth from our cosmic vantage point with a bit of a bump.

Ultimately, Umeda’s work is more playful than profound, and there’s a geeky edge to the enterprise that suggests the comic and computer game worlds. Not for him the high seriousness of, say, Tatsuo Miyajima, whose architectonic light installations accompanied Wayne McGregor’s choreography for Limen (2009), commissioned by the Royal Ballet. But if Umeda’s work is calculatedly devoid of message, it does give some idea of the universe of possibility a skilled programmer can bring to the dance stage. Snow wheels and confetti drops, I suspect, are no longer going to be enough.
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source: newyorkliveartsorg

“Like a tin man with oil flowing freely through his veins, Mr. Umeda mirrored the pulsating score with an accumulation of motion.” – The New York Times

Hiroaki Umeda was born in 1977 and currently lives and works in Tokyo. During his studies of photography at Nihon University (Japan), he is deeply interested to dance (classical and hip-hop) before creating his own style, influenced by high-tech and visual art.

In 2000 Hiroaki Umeda founded his own company S20 and has made the following pieces since : Ni (2001), while going to a condition (2002), Looming (2003) and Finore (2003), which have all been presented at cutting-edge international dance festivals : Japan Dance festival (Korea), Yokohama Dance Collection (Japan), Uovo e Contemporanea (Italy), FIND Festival (Canada)…

While going to a condition was presented at the Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales (France) and was hailed as “a visual and sensorial experience… The discovery of a young artist, both original and promising.” After a residency at the Chaufferie (Philippe Decouflé’s rehearsal space), Hiroaki Umeda performed the new work Accumulated Layout in 2007 at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris.

Hiroaki Umeda also presented in 2007 a new version of Duo at the International Festival Via in Maubeuge, a solo performance where dancer confronts his own image. Used to international events, he performed in TorinoDanza, Culturgeist à Lisbonne, Kunsten, la Biennale de danse de Lyon RomaEuropa and Festival d’Automne à Paris in 2008. Invited in an artist residency by the Théâtre de Nîmes and the Scene nationale de Maubeuge, he created two new performances Haptic et Adapting for Distortion, where he continues his exploration of visual perceptions.

Since his first group piece project with Finnish dancers in 2008, he has started choreographing to other dancers. Also he has started working on video piece, sound piece and installations as an extension of his solo project.

Hiroaki Umeda is a pluridisciplinary artist : choreographer, dancer, sound, image and lighting designer. His work is both minimal and radical, subtle and violent, and very much in touch with his contemporary Japanese roots.
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source: lemanege

A la fois chorégraphe et interprète, compositeur et vidéaste, Hiroaki Umeda développe, à travers ses travaux, un univers visuel et sonore à l’esthétique minimaliste et radicale. Une alternance de violence et de douceur, marquée par un graphisme visuel épuré. Artiste visuel plus que chorégraphe, performer plus que danseur, Hiroaki Umeda développe une approche artistique qui relève autant des arts visuels que des arts de la scène. Ses pièces chorégraphiques, principalement des solos, peuvent être perçues comme de véritables installations, à la fois visuelles et sonores, dans lesquelles l’artiste déploie une gestuelle très personnelle. Holistic Strata est sa toute nouvelle création.
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source: platformaprojectru

HOLISTIC STRATA
Hiroaki Umeda (Япония)
Продолжительность: 25 мин
2007, хореографический медиа перформанс

Произведение HOLISTIC STRATA скорее нужно назвать кинетической инсталляцией с танцем, нежели хореографическим перформансом.

В работе исследуется граница между танцем и видео изображением. Визуальная концепция использует не графические 3D эффекты, а само видео как освещение вместе с обычными видеопроекциями, тем самым создавая стереоскопический эффект восприятия у зрителей.

HOLISTIC STRATA был создан в Центре искусств и медиа Ямагучи (YCAM) в Японии, одном из самых важных центров медиа искусства в мире.

Choreography, dance: Hiroaki Umeda
Commissioned by : YCAM (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media)
Co-developped with : YCAM InterLab
Sund : YCAM, S20
Visual programming : YCAM, S20
Production: YCAM, S20
Tour Management : Aïcha Boutella

Хироаки Умеда родился в 1977 году и в настоящее время живет и работает в Токио. Во время обучения фотографии в Университете Нихон (Япония) он заинтересовался классическим и хип-хоп танцем. А затем создавал свой собственный стиль, на который повлияли hi-tech и визуальное искусство.

В 2000 году Хироаки основал свою собственную компанию S20 и создал на данный момент 7 сольных перформансов, которые показывает на самых передовых площадках по всему миру: Japan Dance festival (Korea), Yokohama Dance Collection (Japan), Uovo e Contemporanea (Italy), FIND Festival (Canada), “Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales (France), Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris, International Festival Via in Maubeuge, TorinoDanza, Culturgeist à Lisbonne, Kunsten, la Biennale de danse de Lyon, RomaEuropa and Festival d’Automne à Paris in 2008.

После того, как в 2008 году был реализован его первый групповой проект с финскими танцорами, Хироаки начал работать над хореографией для других исполнителей. Также он расширил свой сольный проект видео и аудио произведениями и инсталляциями. Хироаки Умеда является мультидисциплинарным артистом: он хореограф, танцор, музыкант, художник по свету и видео. Его произведения одновременно минималистичные и радикальные, тонкие и агрессивные, и в них четко прослеживается связь с японскими традициями.