Sunday 30 April 2017 | 20:00
Check: Facebook event
Sexual obsession as a path to spiritual liberation.
In a society where many cultures strive to coexist, yet dominated by a few, many different sexualities are socially constrained. Where is the place for the two male dancers from different cultural backgrounds in this European context when it comes to spaces in between desire, obsession, sexuality and spirituality? Coloured with sounds controlling and directing this space, a metamorphosis which is ultimately about existentiality suggesting a certain kind of spiritual purification and blurring the tension between life and death as conceived in many recent Western ideologies.
A controversial vulgar sex and death scandal in Japan forms the inspiration for this performance. The story follows an erotic relationship of Sada Abe who eventually cuts off the penis and testicles of her lover Kichizo Ishida on May 18, 1936. Since then it has been interpreted by artists of different kinds.
This work has been developed independently in CLOUD/Danslab (The Hague) and OT301 (Amsterdam).
You are invited to the performance of this work-in-progress followed by a talk with the artists.
Doors open: 20.00
Start: 20:30
Entrance: Donation
There will be a bar hosted by CLOUD
About the artists
Tashi Iwaoka
Tashi Iwaoka is a performance artist/mover. After his first Butoh experiences in 1997 with Kazuo Ohno and Kim Itoh in Japan, Iwaoka practiced Butoh based bodywork for over 10 years. Currently he is practicing Budo, Japanese martial arts, and working on finding the nucleus of human expression and connection, in relation to the movement skills he has learned. One of the central driving forces for this is the attempt to fuse his oriental roots and Western perspectives to form a more proper view on ‘being a human’ in this world. He wishes to disinter the universality in Eastern wisdom in order to help us understand what it is to be a human.
Fazle Shairmahomed
Fazle Shairmahomed is a dancer, performer, improviser, performance maker, graduated in anthropology. His work evolves in challenging understandings of inter-sensoriality, the relation between environment, performance, spectatorship, and society, and the ability to learn and train particularly in dance. His work is in general concerned with his political body in processes of de-colonization closely related to his background as a Surinamese-Hindustani born in the Netherlands. During his studies he started with Modern dance, which brought him to Butoh, Body Weather, contemporary whirling, and other dance practices.
Stefano Sgarbi
A composer, performer and sound therapist based in the Netherlands. His interests, starting from a general attraction to art and particularly music, are now more specifically towards electronic music, algorithmic composition, improvisation and sound therapy. He studied at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague where he has found himself in a rather prolific and inspiring artistic environment. Many of his works are performed in his local scene and some have being selected and played in festivals around the world.