Young Japanese choreographer and artist Hiroaki Umeda will present two of his works, recognised for their integration of the latest technology and his street-dance influenced movement style.
In Haptic, a dense electronic music score and a stage flooded with changing colours and strips of light provide the environment for his darting and gliding movements to unfold.
Adapting for Distortion creates an almost disturbing, otherworldly atmosphere in which the boundaries of Umeda’s body and the audience’s sense of time become blurred by a digitally created light grid projected onto the stage. As he undulates, pops and locks, his body seems to slowly fade away and go out of focus in those luminous spirals of light until it becomes just a vibration, a quiver of the flesh, a shadow.
Born in Japan in 1977, Hiroaki Umeda first studied photography. Based in France, he founded his company S20 in 2000 and has toured widely in Europe, Asia and North America.
"Like a tin man with oil flowing freely through his veins, Mr. Umeda mirrored the pulsating score with an accumulation of motion” (Gia Kourlas, The New York Times)
Strobe lighting is used during this performance.
