New York Butoh Institute
presents
A Free Virtual Butoh Festival Series
Photo by pietrojorge
October 7 to October 14, 2021:
Yumiko Yoshioka and Minako Seki
Zero
Available at www.vimeo.com/vangeline
FREE
Produced by Commedia Futura
COMMEDIA FUTURA had the first idea for this new project with Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka directed by Wolfgang A. Piontek, a year before the coronavirus crisis. So it was not this virus that formed the main plot of this work, but the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, the two dancers are Japanese. The atomic bombs have literally burned out the Japanese collective soul and shaped their childhood, as the shadows of World War II hovered over the childhood of those born in Germany in the 1950s.
But that is only one pole of this work. ZERO in the sense of Japanese Ku stands for the idea of nothing, of emptiness, as possibility and potency. Our piece oscillates between these poles and develops in a circle, like the dance of the life cycle. With ZERO, COMMEDIA FUTURA is continuing its artistic collaboration with the dancers and choreographers Minako Seki and Yumiko Yoshioka, which began in 2017 with the successful production TWO, which caused sold-out performances in the EISFABRIK Hannover, Dock 11 in Berlin and among others, at the TANZtheater INTERNATIONAL festival in Hannover and Tanztausch Cologne
Yumiko Yoshioka is a Japanese Butoh dancer and choreographer originally from Tokyo. Since 1988 she has been based in Berlin. Yumiko was a former member of Ariadone in 1974, the first female Butoh company, founded by Carlotta Ikeda and Ko Murobushi. In 1978, she performed with Carlotta and Ko in Paris ” Le Dernier Eden- Porte de L’Au-Dela,“ the very first Butoh performance to be presented in a public theatre outside Japan.
In 1988 she became a co-founder of tatoeba THÉÂTRE DANCE GROTESQUE with Minako Seki and delta RA’i in Berlin (1988 - 1996). Between 1995 – 2015 she was a core member of TEN PEN CHii art labor, an interdisciplinary and experimental art formation as a dancer and a choreographer along with Joachim Manger (visual artist) and Zam Johnson (composer and musician) .
Since 1995 she has also set up various collaborative projects across Europe such as “eX…it!, Dance eXchange Festival” at Schloss Bröllin in Germany, dance projects with Gest-Azione, with Annalisa Maggiani from Italy; and dance creations with Rena Konstantaki from Greece. Many other collaboration with international artists and dancers encouraged Yumiko to unfold her own personal style of dancing and choreography. www.yumiko-yoshioka.com
Minako Seki was born in Nagasaki, in Japan. She started her dance career in Tokyo with the Company Dance Love Machine, under the artistic direction of Tetsuro Tamura and Anzu Furukawa. At that moment, Tamura was recognized as one of the most innovative choreographers in Japan. His artistic research refused the conventional Butoh forms, willing to go beyond human physical life, to explore deep emotional levels and embrace all aspects of humanity in choreographed movements.
Furukawa considered that dance ultimately only exists in the experience of the present moment. Tamura and Furukawa approaches deeply influenced Minako’s artistic view of dance and understanding of the body. The intensity of a dance movement can be compared with the throwing of a stone. Once the movement has been initiated, its reverberations cannot be stopped. Seki learned to be intensely involved in each movement with full presence, in the here and now. www.minakoseki.com
CREDITS
Performed in June 2021 in Hannover, Germany
Choreography / Dance: Minako Seki, Yumiko Yoshioka
Music: Mo Heidrich
Direction / Staging: Wolfgang A. Piontek
Assistant Director: Sina Thomas, Tabea Below, Pia Johanna Leipold
Dramaturgy: Peter Piontek
Filmed by Stabil&Grazil
Videos: Volker Schreiner
Lighting design: Jörg Finger
Technical manager: Wolfgang Denker
Costume: Mido Kawamura
Administration: Judith Elbeshausen, Deniz Maschmann
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.