SANKAI JUKU
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sankai juku
MAKES JOYCE THEATER DEBUT WITH
TOBARI – AS IF IN AN
EXHAUSTIBLE FLUX
CREATED BY ARTISTIC DIRECTOR USHIO AMAGATSU
TWO-WEEK
ENGAGEMENT
OCTOBER 5 – 17
Japan’s foremost Butoh dance company, Sankai Juku, will make its Joyce Theater debut, during a two-week
engagement from October 5 – 17,
with the North American Premiere of Tobari – As if in an Inexhaustible
Flux, an evening-length work by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu. Tickets
for the Joyce Theater debut engagement of Sankai Juku start at $10 and can be
purchased through JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175
Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.
During this Joyce Theater presentation of Tobari
– As if in an Inexhaustible Flux, the first new work by Sankai Juku in nearly three years, audiences
will have the rare opportunity to see the revered company, accustomed to
performing in large opera houses, in an intimate space. Created by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu, Tobari is an evening length piece based in traditional Butoh performed
by Amagatsu and his company of six dancers, who blend visuals, sound and
movement to create a truly hypnotic experience. The work explores the journey of life, death and rebirth
through images that evoke the passage of time and the shifting of the
seasons. Set in a dream landscape
with dancers wearing simple whirling costumes and full white body makeup, Tobari uses unique production elements to
create an unknown world of darkness enhanced by flickering and reflecting light. However, one production element seen in
past Sankai Juku works remains: the stage floor is covered in beautiful, soft,
white sand, found locally in each city where the company performs. A total of twenty 50 lb bags of sand are
used. (In Japanese, a tobari is a veil of fabric hung in a space as a
partition. Since ancient times,
tobari has been used poetically to express the passage from day to night in expressions
like “wrapped in the veil of night”.)
ABOUT SANKAI JUKU AND BUTOH DANCE
Sankai Juku, founded in 1975 by Ushio Amagatsu, performed abroad for the first time at the Nancy
International Theatre Festival in 1980. Since then, Sankai Juku has performed in 43 countries and
visited more than 700 cities. Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu trained in classical and modern dance
before mastering Butoh on his own. For Amagatsu, Butoh expresses the language of the body. In the 1970s, he drew mostly on his own
experience for inspiration. During
the 1980s, however, he spent much time working in Europe, and the inspiration for
his work became more universal in concept.
Since 1982, Sankai Juku has premiered new dance works
(approximately once every two years) at Theatre de la Ville, Paris, which has commissioned 10 productions since
that time: Jomon Sho (1982), Netsu No Katachi (1984), Unetsu (1986), Shijima
(1988), Omote (1991), Yuragi (1993), Hiyomeki (1995), Hibiki (1998), Kagemi
(2000) and Utsuri (2003). For the
next four years, the company remained in Europe and performed in various
international festivals, including Edinburgh International Festival, Spain
Madrid International Festival, and the International Cervantino Festival. In 1984, Sankai Juku was invited to
North America where the company made its North American debut at the Toronto
International Festival and the L.A. Olympic Arts Festival. Since 1990, Sankai Juku has also
performed in such Asian counties as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and
Indonesia. They also toured
successfully in Russia and East European. In February 2002, “Resonance from far away - Hibiki” received the
Laurence Olivier Awards for “Best New Dance Production.”
Butoh, the explosive, convention-shattering performance art
that has redefined the limits of dance and theater, is the original Japanese
contribution to modern dance. The
form was created in the late 1950s by a handful of avant-garde postwar Japanese
artists who drew upon their native agrarian myths, the iconoclastic theater of
Antonin Artaud and the influences of Western modern dance. Today, Butoh enjoys an extraordinarily
high level of popularity worldwide, currently being preserved and evolved by
dance groups like Sankai Juku and soloists alike. Bu means “to
dance” and toh means “to stamp the
ground.” In the traditional sense,
Butoh is a ritual dance performed by farmers to celebrate the harvest.
ABOUT THE JOYCE THEATER
The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc., a non-profit
organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences since
1982. The founders, Cora Cahan and
Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened
as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce is named in honor of Joyce Mertz,
beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that
made it imaginable and ultimately possible to establish the theater. One of the only theaters built by
dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant New
York home for more than 300 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more
than 130 new dances since 1992. In
1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized
rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists. New York City public school students
and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce’s Dance Education Program, and
adult audiences get closer to dance through pre-engagement Dance Talks and
post-performance “Dance Chat” discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of
approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of
135,000. Additionally, for the
last six years The Joyce has co-produced Evening Stars as part of the River To
River Festival in Lower Manhattan.
The Joyce Theater debut of Sankai Juku featuring the North American Premiere of Tobari – As if in an Inexhaustible Flux, an evening-length work by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu, will play the following schedule for two-weeks from October 5 – 17: Tuesday-Wednesday at 7:30pm;
Thursday-Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2pm & 8pm; Sunday at 2pm. Tickets start at $10 (for the front row) and range up to $59 (top price
for Joyce Members is $44). Please
note: Ticket prices are subject to change. Tickets and subscriptions can be purchased by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.joyce.org.
Join Bonnie Sue Stein as she
hosts a special Dance Talks at Joyce SoHo (155 Mercer Street, between
Houston and Prince Streets) on Monday,
September 27 from 6pm-8pm. This presentation will include a
screening of Michael Blackwood’s film Butoh: Body On the Edge of Crisis,
followed by a video-illustrated introduction to Sankai Juku’s Tobari.
The Joyce Theater is
located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.
# # # #
Leadership support for The
Joyce Theater’s 2010–2011 season has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.
Lead support to celebrate Cultural Heritage through
dance provided by American Express.
Lead support
for accessible and inclusive programming provided by MetLife Foundation.
This presentation is
supported by The R. Britton Fisher and Family Gift for International Dance, and
funded in part by the National Dance
Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Community Connections Fund of
the MetLife Foundation.
Additional support for this
engagement was provided with public funds from the National Endowment for the
Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building
strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties; and the New York
City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and
with private funds from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund to
encourage the performances of out-of-town companies at The Joyce Theater. Major support for The Joyce has been
provided by The Boeing Company, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First
Republic Bank, Fund for the City of New York, The Hearst Foundations, The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and
The Shubert Foundation.