Yumi Umiumare
EnTrance
Carriageworks, Sydney
April
EnTrance is a challenging yet powerful solo work created and performed by Yumi Umiumare, a Japanese-born artist whose knowledge and experience of butoh is central to her work. Spiritual in concept, it explores the crack between opposite worlds of life and death and the human experience of transitioning from one to the other. Powerful memories, grief and the overwhelming noise and alienation of city life are shown throughout as doorways into this crack and form a continuous thread from beginning to end. While this all sounds quite bleak, the mood was leavened with moments of humour and tranquil serenity as the performance took its course.
As a diverse mix of dance with spoken monologues, song and elements of performance and installation art, EnTrance is difficult to label stylistically and in this way the work itself mirrors butoh’s development as a hybrid art form in post war Japan. Although created and performed by Umiumare the various contributions of her collaborators give the work some unique visual and aural effects. Lighting (Kerry Ireland), costume (David Anderson) and media (Bambang Nurcahyadi) come together in a scene where Yumi dances in a jacket flickering with tiny lights while holding up a digital screen with a two dimensional picture of her face that comically appeared to replace the real one. The set, by visual installation artist Naomi Ota, was incredibly versatile and Ian Kitney’s sound design quite literally conveyed the discomfort of a noisy cityscape.
At one-and-a-half hours duration this was a significant test of stamina and focus for a solo performer and her audience but Yumi Umiamare passed with flying colours. A consummate performer, she displayed conviction and integrity of purpose throughout, drawing the audience into her performance rather than pushing out to them. EnTrance has an unusually clear structure for a post-modern work, with six defined sections that allow the viewer to consciously note the performance’s progression. The most potentially irritating or provocative elements are the sometimes uncomfortably loud volume of its soundscape and the partial nudity in the final scene-- it was good to be advised of these elements by way of a written sign on entry to the theatre.
As an aside, the Carriageworks venue was an excellent space to view such an idiosyncratic non-mainstream work. There have been some renovations and improvements made to the building since the official opening in 2007 that have made it much easier for visitors to navigate the cavernous space. This is still very much a heritage building that conveys the roughly hewn quality of its original function as a railway workshop but it now has a welcoming atmosphere more suited to the artistic hub it is becoming.
- GERALDINE HIGGINSON