Cyberpunker dancing on sharp vibes: Mr. Hiroaki Umeda
Hiroaki Umeda is a multitasking artist… he enjoys dancing, choreographing, making videos, messin’ up with light & stage design, mixin’ soundz, writing a blog, working on site specific projectz, enjoying the nature… and he is definitely not a ghost in the shell but a real man!
Photo: Shin Yamaga (c)
Hiroaki Umeda was a photography student at the Nihon University in Tokyo, then suddenly at the age of 20 he realized that he’s more into moveable thingz… he took ballet and hip hop classes… and begun to work on his own solo pieces… in year 2000 he founded a company entitled S20 with whom he has produced till now 5 dance pieces: Ni (2001), while going to a condition (2002), Looming (2003) and Finore (2003), Accumulated Layout (2007), Duo – new version (2008).
Photo: Julieta Cervante (c)
He’s been known as a performer using heavily technology in his artworkz, therefore Hiroaki Umeda was a guest at many cutting-edge festivals related either with dance or contemporary art such as: Japan Dance Festival (Korea), KunstenFESTIVALdesArts (Belgium), Yokohama Dance Collection (Japan), Uovo e Contemporanea (Italy), FIND Festival (Canada) etc.
Last year he was an artist-in-residence at the Chaufferie which is Philippe Decouflé‘s rehearsal space, and the result was his newest performance ‘Accumulated Layout’.
Photo: Dominique Laulanne (c)
Hiroaki Umeda attacks all your physical and mental senses with light and soundz. He uses subtle electronica and ambient sound (some soundz are even at the edges of music concrete) simply to pull you into his world… but he never let you go…
The stage design is totally zen: pure minimalism… with dancer in the middle, but it’s not set up as a ‘saint’ persona in the middle of a stage altar… he is your guide… but not a dictator…
Photo: Dominique Laulanne (c)
Having such a clear vision of space means that he has to be completely self-confident in order to maintain body&mind related focus…
His movements and choreography are based on strong, fast, energetic, snatched movements which you can label as ‘hiroaki umeda language’, influenced by street art performative forms and highly tensive stillness he borrowed from butoh and ballet… and he is sooo good in it… a perfect mix… he is like a DJ asking himself ‘where is the pain?’, the answer is: everywhere!… but Umeda finds his way to challenge it…
It’s interesting how he is managing and combining those different forms of expressiveness…
Photo: Dominique Laulanne (c)
Hiroaki Umeda uses video projections or digitally programmed and manipulated lines of lights at the back of the stage in order to show us how the projection of our urban ‘skyscraper landscapes’ oriented society is implying at our senses, perception and inner landscapes…
He represents urban and cyberpunk oriented generation trying to find a new way of surveillance in digital age… he is fast… he reacts, but he could also get tired of this rhythm… but at the other hand Umeda knows very well that he belongs to those generations which takes its power from all sources: urban street art, ‘code is my poetry’ generation, visually oriented culture full of light billboards like in some scene of Blade Runner, manga, anime, beatz that pumping your blood and veins, ‘my-head-will-explode-but-that’s-life’ syndrome yearning for more humanity…
Photo: Shin Yamaga (c)
A-ha! No doubts, accumulated layouts have many shapes and dimensions… luv it… /*.*\
p.s. Mr. Hiroaki Umeda kindly gave me an interview on Thursday…. So, please gimme some time, ok?! I have to take it off from mini-disk, you know and I will publish it then, probably next week…
