Japanese Video/Dance Swirls into REDCAT

In its important tradition of bringing contemporary cutting edge foreign performing art to the local scene, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater) welcomes Japanese choreographer/video artist Hiroaki Umeda to its downtown stage this weekend for only three performances. As part of the Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series, the Tokyo-based creator/performer will present two highly acclaimed companion pieces, “Haptic” and “Holistic Strata” during his all-too-short residency in Los Angeles.

Drawing from butoh, ballet and hip-hop dance vocabularies, promotional materials state that the artist makes work that is visually mesmerizing, visceral and a “fine-spun swirl of movement in a digital storm of light and sound.” Whoa! This Week in New York called him a “three dimensional force emanating from the screen, part Matrix, part Tron.” And further claims assert that Umeda’s sensorial environments are designed to elicit primal emotion while being “minimalist and radical, subtle and violent, abstract yet precise and thrillingly physical.”

Judging from the still photos above and video clips, this is an event not to be missed! Buy tickets here.