OZ ARTS NASHVILLE PRESENTS US PREMIERE BY TOKYO-BASED CHOREOGRAPHER AND VIDEO INSTALLATION ARTIST HIROAKI UMEDA
The acclaimed multimedia performances Split Flow and Holistic Strata will stun Nashville audiences with dance, technology and multi-media artistry, Sept. 19-21
“Choreography on the edge between dance, science and audio-visual installation…. Hiroaki Umeda resonates with the agitation of the world, in a form of physico-chemical trance.”
– Paris Art
“Like a tin man with oil flowing freely through his veins…potent and engaging”
—The New York Times
NASHVILLE, TENN. – August 2019 — OZ Arts Nashville opens its ambitious international performance season with an ingenious mix of visual technology and live dance September 19-21, when internationally acclaimed Tokyo choreographer and performer Hiroaki Umeda uses technical wizardry to turn OZ Arts’ massive creative warehouse into an intensive video and light laboratory to perform a virtuosic, two-part program. The evening of multimedia and movement mastery features the U.S. premiere of Umeda’s jaw-dropping visual performanceSplit Flow, and his internationally acclaimed video and dance masterpiece Holistic Strata (called “a perfect storm of light, video and sound” by The Guardian of London). There are only three Nashville performances: Thursday through Saturday, September 19 to 21, 2019, at 8pm. Tickets start at only $25 ($20 for subscribers to the “Dance” or “Visiting Artist” seasons).
This is the first official presentation in the dynamic seventh season of “Brave New Art” at the pioneering nonprofit contemporary arts center, and it promises to be an incredible blend of movement, sound, and technology in an unforgettable, unique arts experience for audiences of all ages.
Using multiple video projections and laser light technology in inventive new ways, choreographer and performer Hiroaki Umeda is acclaimed for his “virtuoso melding of technology and movement… tinglingly wonderful” (Scotland Herald). Umeda is a truly interdisciplinary artist: choreographer, dancer, sound, image and lighting designer. His ingenious, high-velocity multimedia works are startling events to be experienced as both immersive installations and thrilling live performances.
This is Umeda’s Nashville debut. The team at OZ Arts Nashville works to bring cutting-edge contemporary arts experiences and artists to Nashville that historically have not had a venue in Music City for showcasing this type of important work from around the world, highlighting artists that often uses new and inventive technology and stagecraft in imaginative ways. Presenting Tokyo artist Umeda’s Split Flow and Holistic Strata is an example of this effort coming to fruition.
The 2019-2020 season, the first under OZ Arts Nashville’s new Artistic Director Mark Murphy’s direction, features a unique blend of influential contemporary artists and ensembles from around the world, as well as groundbreaking Nashville-based artists, with a special emphasis on multidisciplinary performances, and work that highlights unique new uses of visual and audio technology.
“I am especially pleased that we’re launching our seventh season with Hiroaki Umeda,” said Murphy. “This incredibly talented artist from Tokyo defies genre, blurring the line between art and science in ways that have startled and delighted audiences all over the world. Throughout the season, we highlight diversity, technology and artistry, so Umeda’s inventive yet playful performances make the perfect introduction.”
The presentation of Hiroaki Umeda is also the opening of OZ Arts’ Contemporary Dance Series, which also features the Nashville debut of Brazil’s high energy ensemble Companhia Urbana de Dança, praised world-wide for their thrilling mix of Hip hop and Brazilian dance forms (November 14-17); a special co-presentation with TPAC of a new work featuring the “greatest American contemporary Ballerina” Wendy Whelan, in a collaboration with cellist and composer Maya Beiser, famed choreographer Lucinda Childs, and composer David Lang (January 18, 2020); Renowned African-American choreographer Ronald K. Brown and his company, EVIDENCE; and new projects featuring Nashville artists and ensembles New Dialect, Jana Harper, Shackled Feet Dance, and others.
More about Hiroaki Umeda:
Hiroaki Umeda is a choreographer and multidisciplinary artist recognized as one of the leading figures of the Japanese avant-garde art scene. Since the launch of his company S20, his restrained but powerful dance pieces have toured worldwide to audience and critical acclaim. Umeda’s work is acknowledged for his strong digital background and holistic artistic methodology that combines physical, optical, sensorial and, above all, spatiotemporal components as part of the dance choreography. His interest in choreographing time and space, has led to work not only as a choreographer and dancer, but also as a composer, lighting designer, scenographer and visual artist.
Umeda’s solo works such as Adapting for Distortion (2008), Haptic (2008), Holistic Strata (2011) and Split Flow (2013) draw on his signature style of combining digital imagery, minimal soundscape and potent corporeality, and have transfixed audiences at major festivals and theaters worldwide.
In 2009, Umeda commenced a ten-year choreographic project ‘Superkinesis’. Working with dancers of distinct physical backgrounds, he explores kinetic languages by tuning into the subtle voices of the surrounding environment.
His choreographic piece, Interfacial Scale (2013) was commissioned by GötenborgsOperans Danskompani, Sweden. Peripheral Stream (2014), which premiered at Théâtre Châtelet in Paris, was commissioned by the L.A. Dance Project led by Benjamin Millepied.
Since 2010, Umeda has worked on a series of installations that focus on optical illusion and physical immersion and provide an unknown sensorial experience to the audience. A series of works combining visual and physical sensation earned him the Prix Ars Electronica, Honorary Mention, in 2010. In 2014, Umeda started the ‘Somatic Field Project’ aimed at nurturing young dancers and developing his own movement method ‘Kinetic Force Method’.
More about OZ Arts’ 2019-2020 Season:
Murphy describes the new season as “a celebration of ingenuity and artistic vitality, highlighting artistic voices from around the world – and right here in Nashville – who are blazing the trail for contemporary culture. I am particularly excited that we are expanding OZ Arts’ international offerings, while also deepening the commitment to a wide range of diverse local artists in a variety of disciplines and forms – including some progressive and edgy collaborations that will ‘shake things up’ and engage a young and diverse audience.”
Murphy stressed that the number of performances at OZ Arts is increased by more than double in the new season, while the average ticket price is considerably lower in order to make the work more accessible to a wide range of Nashville audiences. “It has been great fun to develop assertive new strategies to increase the impact of OZ Arts Nashville in the community – and to collaborate with Daniel Jones (Artistic Associate) and Rosie Forrest (Director of Community Engagement), to ensure the success of the wide-ranging new season.”
The lower ticket pricing strategy also includes a variety of multi-event ticketing packages, to encourage curious audiences to attend multiple events. The revised pricing strategies are made possible in part by enhanced donor participation, including the vital support of members of the newly formed Cano Ozgener Society, a donor initiative honoring the passionate OZ Arts founder, who passed away in June, 2018.
The season is made possible with generous support from season sponsor Advance Financial.
Tim Ozgener, President and CEO of OZ Arts, said “I am thrilled that Mark and our team are taking a creative, thoughtful, and entrepreneurial approach to making OZ Arts an even more significant and crucial part of the artistic ecology of Nashville, and of the country. On behalf of my family, I can say with certainty that my late father would be very happy to see the way his dream – to change lives through contemporary culture – is exemplified and brought to light by this diverse season of global and local art that matters.”
Tickets for most events — and discounted ticket packages – are on sale now at www.ozartsnashville.org
Remaining 2019-2020 Programming Includes:
- Split Flow and Holistic Strata by Hiroaki Umeda / S20 – Japan (Sept. 19 – 21, 2019)
- The Moth – Nashville GrandSLAM (Oct. 10, 2019)
- Frankenstein by Manual Cinema (Oct. 24-26, 2019)
- Festival of Ghouls by Fable Cry (Nov. 2, 2019)
- Na Pista and a US Premiere by Companhia Urbana de Dança – Brazil (Nov. 14 – 17, 2019)
- Mellotron Variations featuring Medeski/Sansone/Kirkscey/Grant (Dec. 7, 2019)
- The Longest Night by Portara Ensemble, Jeff Coffin, and Ciona Rouse (Dec. 20-21, 2019)
- The Day featuring Wendy Whelan and Maya Beiser (Jan. 18, 2020)
- Notes of a Native Song by Stew & Heidi with The Negro Problem (Jan. 31 – Feb. 1, 2020)
- The Triangle by New Dialect (Feb. 20-22, 2020)
- Plata Quemada (Burnt Money) by TeatroCinema – Chile (March 5-7, 2020)
- Steal Away by Dave Ragland with Inversion Vocal Ensemble (April 17-18, 2020)
- Grace and Mercy by Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE (May 8-10, 2020)
- This Holding by Jana Harper (May 29-30, 2020)
- Grand Magnolia by Jessika Malone and Collaborators (June 10-21, 2020)
About OZ Arts Nashville
Since opening in 2014, OZ Arts Nashville, a 501(c)(3) contemporary arts center, has changed the cultural landscape of the city. Housed in the former C.A.O. cigar warehouse owned by Nashville’s Ozgener family, OZ Arts, under the artistic leadership of Mark Murphy, brings world-class performances and art installations to the city, and gives ambitious local artists opportunities to work on a grand scale. The flexible 10,000 square-foot, column-free venue, nestled amidst five acres of artfully landscaped grounds, is continually reconfigured to serve artists’ imaginations, and to challenge and inspire a diverse range of curious audiences.
OZ Arts regularly engages the community for participation with visiting artists and artworks – either directly, through school visits, workshops, master classes, school performances and/or curated programs led by local teaching artists. In addition, OZ Arts founded a program called OZ School Days, a daylong, multi-arts program presented in partnership with Centennial Performing Arts Studios that aims to engage students aged 5 – 15 years old on days when Metro Nashville Public Schools are out of session (ex: Columbus Day, Presidents Day).
For more information, please visit http://www.ozartsnashville.org/.
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Media Contact
Amy A. Atkinson
Amy Atkinson Communications on behalf of OZ Arts Nashville
Cell – (615) 305-8118
Email: amy@amyacommunications.com
Photos and interviews available upon request
Thank You to Our Season Sponsors
