Buried Tea Bowl – OKUNI
埋もれた茶碗
Yumi Umiumare
INSTALLATION,
PERFORMANCE & TEA
Buried TeaBowl -OKUNI is an intimate and epic solo performance installation bringing together dance, text, song and tea ceremony with stunning film captured in 2021 during the lockdown. The work is inspired by the Japanese historical female dancer and shaman Okuni, who initiated Kabuki theatre in the early 1600s, which women were banned from performing after these times.
At the height of her powers, Yumi Umiumare, Melbourne performance legend and Australia’s leading Butoh artist, unearths precious sacred female power which has been buried throughout history. Yumi channels the multifaceted character of Okuni who was so powerful, yet fragile and complex, to reawaken her spirit through excavating these buried stories and myths.
Combining Yumi’s practice of Japanese tea ceremony, which flourished at the same period as Okuni was alive, she is choosing the ‘tea bowl’ as a creative metaphor of precious sacred female power which was buried under history.
Creative Team
Creator/Performer Yumi Umiumare
Cinematographer/ Editor Takeshi Kondo
Composer/ Sound Designer Dan West
Lighting designer Emma Lockhart-Wilson
Dramaturg Maude Davey
Provocateur Moira Finucane
Producer Kath Papas Productions
Photographer Vikk Shayen
Graphic design Mariko Naito
Calligraphy Hisako Tsuchiya
Publicity Diana Wolfe
Photo Credit
Vikk Shayen
Upcoming seasons
28 -29 October 2023
OzAsia Festival 2023
Adelaide, SA
Book Tickets
Reviews
“Incorporating dance, spoken word, song and a tea ceremony, this performance installation is an intimate and stirring passage through time, ritual, the past and the present. … Composer and sound designer Dan West presents an original and sublime score that is just as compelling as the visual elements of this performance. … Umiumare’s homage to Okuni, the power of ritual and female strength is a captivating work. It is fitting that this performance takes place in a gallery as what we witness often feel like art coming to life. She may be attempting to awaken the spirit of Okuni in Buried TeaBowl – Okuni, but through her generous guidance, Umiumare helps free the spirit inside all of us and provide us with a profoundly moving awakening.” – My Melbourne Arts – read full review
‘A stand-out film supplements Umiumare’s contemporary reworking of Okuni, played out in these two modalities, street girl and sexy diva. It cites Nina Paley’s fabulous GIFs (blog.ninapaley.com) of Venus figurines. Full-
breasted prehistoric stone figures rhythmically bop to Dan West’s hip-hop. Add a multicultural mix of Hindu and Christian goddess images and this irreverent feminist project takes shape. Who was Okuni? Why don’t we know more about her? What would she be like today? Why is kabuki still all male? … A Proustian, unruly one-woman show, a work of pleasure and bite.’ – The Saturday Paper – read full review
Production History
BLACKCAT Gallery, Fitzroy (Premiere season)
May 2022
Support & Acknowledgement
This season was supported by the Besen Family Foundation and BLACKCAT Gallery. The creative development of the work (2021) was supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, City of Darebin, and Abbotsford Convent Foundation
Please contact us for the link and password to view our full length video of this work
