POLLEN REVOLUTION | AKIRA KASAI
ASIA TOPA
20 February 2020 - 22 February 2020
WAITING LIST
Heralded as the "Nijinsky of butoh", Japan's legendary Akira Kasai brings to Melbourne his tour-de-force work Pollen Revolution.
Akira Kasai's own son performs this riveting solo, a surreal and startling journey through time, cultures, and states of being. Kasai's striking onstage personae morph from kabuki performer to street dancer to solitary actor while his movement shifts between classical Japanese, hip-hop and the soulful otherworlds of butoh.
Beginning with what may seem like traditional Japanese dance, this daring solo performance sees costumes fly away, madness unleashed and representations of gender probed. Pollen Revolution is a masterly work from a choreographer who is still reshaping and reinventing butoh itself.
WHERE: Dancehouse, Sylvia Staehli Theatre
DATE: FEBRUARY 20 & 22
TIME: 8:00 PM
DURATION: 55 mins
PRICE: $30 F | $25 C | $18 DH Member
WAITING LIST
Due to popular demand, we have extended the season for this previously sold out show to include Thursday, February 20th.
Akira Kasai (1943) is a Japanese butoh dancer and choreographer who, despite being significantly younger than his mentors Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, is considered to be one of the pioneers of the artform along with them. Kasai trained in other forms of dance but turned to Butoh in the 1960s when he met and began to work with both Ohno and Hijikata. He started his own studio in 1971 but closed it in 1979 to move and study Eurythmy in Germany. He did not dance professionally at the time and for years after his return to Japan in 1986 he stayed off the stage stating that he felt too disconnected from Japanese society to perform. He returned to professional dance in 1994, with the work 'Saraphita' and revived his studio Tenshikan, now influenced by Eurythmy and other dance principles. He has since performed, choreographed and taught in Asia, North America and Europe, and his choreography is famed for its authenticity, its radicalness, its playful mix of genres and its extreme precision.
Dancehouse's Japan Focus has been supported by Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne.
Dancehouse would like to warmly thank THE SAISON FOUNDATION JAPAN and in particular Atsuko Hisano and Taro Inamura, for the most generous support during Angela Conquet's fellowship in Japan in 2019 which inspired this ASIATOPA program. Most warm thanks are also extended to our Japanese colleagues Mr. Shinji Ono and Mrs Ritsuko Mizuno for their insightful curatorial advice and to Yumi Umiumare for her committed assistance with production and logistics.
Image: Daido Hiroyasu
