Komuna Warszawa, 2019
Sada Yakko (1871-1946) – geisha and dancer. She introduced Japanese theatre to the West and was the first professional actress of modern Japan. In Polish culture, she is known primarily through the writings of Jan August Kisielewski. For artists active in the Polish modernist movement, known as Young Poland, she became an inspiration – “a sensation of an exotic nature”. When in March 1902 Polish viewers could admire her in Krakow, Warsaw and Lviv, she already had a six months tourneé around the United States behind her. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 she achieved a great success. At that time she was hailed as the Japanese Sarah Bernhardt.
Yakko gave up some theatrical signs present in the traditional Japanese dance and instead enriched her performances with expression and drama. A real Japanese artist is not focused on expressing herself or telling deep truths to the world. In order to establish a relationship with her recipient, she strives to bring pleasure through emotion, laughter or pathos to the audiences. Sada Yakko did not shy away from the common exotic image of the Land of the Rising Sun.
Searching for her hundred years older colleague Hana Umeda tries to summon the remains of Sada Yakko’s stage body.
Concept & choreography: Hana Umeda
Performance: Hana Umeda, Natalia Jarzębska, Wojciech Grudziński
Dramaturgy: Joanna Ostrowska, Paweł Soszyński
Music: Shinsuke Sugitani
Light design: Aleksandr Prowaliński
Costume: Mikaela Sandell, Sebastian Szarata
Photo: Karolina Gorzelańczyk
The performance was produced thanks to the Młoda Polska Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
Co-organiser: Komuna Warszawa
Heartfelt thanks to the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle