How long does it take to unfreeze a raped body? How can the practice of classical Japanese jiutamai dance be helpful in this regard? Is it a liberation or an oppression? Or perhaps both?


In “Close”, Hana Umeda and Sada Hanasaki, who represent two dance experiences in one body, two stories arranged in an intimate confession, await you. Their voices can also be interwoven with silence that allows to contemplate the movement itself.

Becoming a public “confession of loss of faith,” it raises questions about the possibility of freeing oneself from the religiosity formed by the community and the effectiveness of the act of apostasy.

The enclosed space offers a refuge from reality. It is a place of escape into claustrophilic pleasure free from the horrors of the surrounding world. It is a space of complete freedom that tightly fills the imposed restrictions.

Searching for her hundred years older colleague Hana Umeda tries to summon the remains of Sada Yakko’s stage body.

A variety of smaller performative forms, mostly connected to larger research.

JIUTAMAI is a form of classical Japanese dance traditionally practiced and performed only by women. It is an embodied way of preserving stories, experiences and coping strategies of past generations.