ButohOUT! 2019 - Forbidden Laughter
Forbidden Laughter celebrates the powerful performance medium of Butoh, inviting audiences to experience surreal narratives within a bizarre and mysterious installation at the rustic Industrial School, Abbotsford Convent.
Conceived by leading Butoh artist Yumi Umiumare in collaboration with Takashi Takiguchi, Forbidden laughter is freshly unearthed! Award-winning performer, Maude Davey, the unstoppable force of Weave Movement Theatre, devious duo Willow J Conway & Zya Kane and the ButohOUT! Ensemble create strange and absurd stories woven between worlds that are mythically sacred and divinely carnal. The sensibilities of East and West collide in a contemporary setting designed by the internationally acclaimed Thai sculptor, Pimpisa Tinpalit.
From the program note
Seven years ago, Maude Davey and I have experimented with a piece called ‘Dante Butoh’ lightly exploring the elements of Divine Comedy, inspired to transform the journey from hell, to purgatory to heaven into our contemporary setting. That work has stayed in my subconscious with its surreal weirdness and dark humor, even though we had only one informal showing that time.
Forbidden laughter is another journey, extending those Gullible Curiosities (as Hijikata said), through comedy and laughter, in order to smash off our functionally rationalised mind, piled up expectations, and ordered body behaviours, both literal and nonliteral ways. It was said that the word for laughter in Japanese, warau 笑う comes from the verb wareru 割れる- to break, crack or split. In order to break off the stiff mask of ego, we do need to laugh our heads off, but at the same time how many of us do actually laugh fully and long enough to break our facade and ego?
The work itself is like a ritual to open a portal to access our ‘inner-creature’ which breathes, morphs and transmutes into unexpected shapes and textures from moment to moment. It has fed through an explorative collaboration between established artists, emerging artists and non-artists, embracing a Butoh tradition of working with all types of bodies whatever their conditions are.
Artistic Direction/Choreography
Yumi Umiumare
Dramaturg
Maude Davey
Visual Installation
Pimpisa Tinpalit
Sound Design
Dan West
Lighting design
Bronwyn Pringle
Producer
Takashi Takiguchi
Performers
WEAVE MOVEMENT THEATRE
WILLOW J CONWAY
ZYA KANE
YUMI UMIUMARE
MAUDE DAVEY
&
BUTOHOUT Ensemble
Andrea Reichert, Alex Rouse, David Blom, James Curtin, Justas Pipinis, Kiki Ando, Lukas Penney, Monika Benova, Mireille Stahle, Pauline Sherlock, Tomoko Yamasaki, Takashi Takiguchi and Zi Largiader
Supports