Experimental Series #3 at SOL GALLERY
Photo by Brett Walker
Experimentation Series #3
舞踏の森33・Forest of Butoh 33
VIDEO・DANCE ・CONVERSATION・DRINKS
A living archive of 33 years of Butoh, Transformation, Migration and Artistic mischief.
1-12 July 2026
＠SOL Gallery, Fitzroy
Butoh Performance by Yumi Umiumare
2 (Thur) July @7pm
9 (Thur) July @7pm
What us Butoh? Artist Talk and mini lecture
by a special international guest artist/scholar
7(Tue) July 7pm
Forest of Butoh 33 is an immersive installation of archival video works, costumes and new durational performances drawn from Yumi Umiumare’s extensive practice since migrating from Japan to Australia in 1993.
Accompanied by artist talks, live events and guest lectures on Butoh, the exhibition offers a rare insight into over three decades of artistic experimentation, transformation and cultural exchange.
Over the past 33 years, Yumi has explored the Japanese avant-garde art form Butoh, originally known as Ankoku Butoh, or the Dance of Darkness. After training in classical ballet, she encountered Butoh in the 1970s and was drawn to its radical possibilities during the mid-1980s. Arriving in Australia in 1993, and describing herself as a "mental refugee" from Japan, Yumi embarked on a lifelong journey of artistic experimentation, creating an extraordinary body of performance works and collaborations with artists, communities and non-artists alike.
Today, Yumi continues to spread the "Butoh bug" across Australia and internationally, fostering connections within a vibrant global Butoh community. One of Australia's leading Butoh practitioners, she is renowned for a distinctive ‘punk’ performance language that fuses Butoh, cabaret, ritual and Japanese tea ceremony traditions with raw physicality and irreverent humour.
Yumi will be experimenting her durational performances at the space and dates and time
FREE EVENT
3(Fri)July between 1-5pm
4(Sat)July between 1-5pm
5(Sun)July between 1-5pm
10(Fri)July between 1-5pm
11(Sat)July between 1-5pm
12(Sun) July between 1-5pm