Split Flow and Holistic Strata are two performances by Japanese choreographer and multidisciplinary artist Hiroaki Umeda. The composing, lighting, choreography and performance are all created by Umeda. Over the last ten years he has toured the world with his subtle yet violent dance pieces.
The first piece, Split Flow, is an experiment in expressing velocity with light. The stage opens to the sounds of the tropics, a bright square of light on a stark black background. Umeda enters the light and as the music glitches and lurches, so does his body. The lighting makes you feel that you are watching the performance through 3D glasses. Suddenly the stage goes dark and flashes of light illuminate the body, which deconstructs the body into lines, particles and abstract shapes. The performance is an essay on the juxtaposition of blurred and sharp, darkness and light.
The second performance, Holistic Strata, is in a similar theme but with a different interpretation. The stage this time is flooded with an infinite starscape. At times the body is invisible against the backdrop of lights, then suddenly it is revealed in sharp relief.
The soundscape is equally discordant, one moment it as if we are floating in the vast emptiness of space, then suddenly we are tumbling in a cacophony of sound and light. Is the lightscape controlling his body or his body directing the field of light?
One moment it is like watching the snow on a dead television channel, the next it’s like watching a video in fast forward then suddenly it’s a whirlpool of sound and light.
The two pieces are mesmerising and riveting, so different to anything I’ve seen before. These pieces leave our senses deconstructed and our feelings laid bare.
———-
