“Like a tin man with oil flowing freely through his veins, Umeda mirrored the pulsating score with an accumulation of motion.” New York Times
“Hiroaki Umeda moved as if electric currents were rippling through his seemingly boneless limbs. Speed, precision, minute inflections of rhythm and angle in a thrilling mix of styles that ranged from hip-hop to the equally impressive slow-motion and total stillness of Butoh.” The Herald (UK)
Digital sounds, neon-coloured lighting and minimalist movement combine to create a technologicallychargedworld controlled by Japanese performer Hiroaki Umeda.
Tokyo-based Umeda brings to Melbourne Festival two of his recent installations for body, sound and light, "Adapting for Distortion and Haptic"
Umeda is a choreographer, dancer, sound artist and lighting designer whose work is minimal and radical,subtle and violent, and very much in touch with his contemporary Japanese roots. His movement style draws upon an eclectic training in ballet, hip-hop and butoh. A self-described pluridisciplinary artist, Umeda creates his work entirely from scratch; the lighting, music and video all devised on his laptop computer.
Adapting for Distortion and Haptic are not simply multimedia movement works to be watched, but rather are immersive works that need to be felt and experienced. Showcasing the body as machinery, these strongly anti-narrative pieces continue Umeda’s exploration of visual perception and his preoccupation with the notion of mankind fading away with the advent of technological supremacy.
Distortion of time, change of movement and immobility are at the heart of Adapting for Distortion. Engulfed in computer generated sounds and optical effects, Umeda’s body seems to slowly fade away and go out of focus within the luminous lines and spirals, until it is a mere vibration, a shadow of its real self.
In Haptic, Umeda leaves behind computing and video projection to concentrate on the effects of light and colour. Beautiful bright colours shift and morph in relation to his fluid movements creating an exquisite visual and sonic experience. Umeda uses this performance to focus on the physical aspect of the perception of colour, not simply to show it, but to give substance to the relationship it has with dance.
Born in 1977, Hiroaki Umeda honed his unique aesthetic while studying photography at Nihon University in Japan. He began dancing at the age of 20, delving into his own extraordinary original movement and refining a powerful sensuality in his work. Umeda founded his company S20 in 2000 and has since created numerous works that have been presented at festivals and theatres throughout the world.
Hiroaki Umeda is also the Choreographic Consultant for Hotel Pro Forma’s Festival presentation, the opera Tomorrow, in a Year.
