100 Light Years of Solitude

1–2 minutes

To read

Wednesday, April 25 *One Night Only

Following Yumiko Yoshioka’s acclaimed solo “Before the Dawn”, this is the second part of her trilogy “From 1 to 100”. 100 Light Years of Solitude is inspired by Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” to explore a state of solitude Yumiko dances the life of a unique creature, born on a planet 100 light years away from ours. Imagining that this creature is the only one of its species on that planet, it enjoys unfolding its life until it realizes its destiny… to exist in solitude. Yumiko says, “In my childhood, I was always fascinated by the imaginary creatures and monsters of fairy tales. Butoh, a dance of metamorphosis, helps me to explore this imaginary world, and make something invisible visible.”

Direction/Choreography /Dance – Yumiko Yoshioka
Co-direction – Miguel Camarero
Costume – Pablo Alarcon
Light design/ technical direction – Spiros Paterakis
Music composition – Tomas Tello/ Zam Johnson

7:00pm @Links Hall, 3111 N. Western Ave.
Get tickets early!

mai bashi final

Part of Bridge Dance Festival

Interested in learning more about Butoh?

Check out Yumiko’s workshops at the Japanese Culture Center April 19-22

Hiroko Tamano

This 1 minute excerpt gives a taste of Butoh legend Hiroko Tamano’s teaching, philosophies, and movement. In the “Dance of Life: a Prayer in 4 Directions”, Hiroko has built upon this Indigenous practice learned from Txi Wizz (Canadian Buffoon) over 40 years ago.

She has imbued it with her own movements and philosophy as a gift of healing and empowerment to an anxious world. In her words, “this dance form gives ‘presentness’,” and awareness of the directions “gives ‘no confusion’ to the prayer.”