Sankai Juku Makes Joyce Theater Debut 10/5-17

Japan's foremost Butoh dance company, Sankai Juku, will make its Joyce Theater debut, during a two-week engagement from October 5 - 17, with the North American Premiere of Tobari - As if in an Inexhaustible Flux, an evening-length work by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu. Tickets for The Joyce Theater debut engagement of Sankai Juku start at $10 and can be purchased through JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.

During this Joyce Theater presentation of Tobari - As if in an Inexhaustible Flux, the first new work by Sankai Juku in nearly three years, audiences will have the rare opportunity to see the revered company, accustomed to performing in large opera houses, in an intimate space. Created by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu, Tobari is an evening length piece based in traditional Butoh performed by Amagatsu and his company of six dancers, who blend visuals, sound and movement to create a truly hypnotic experience. The work explores the journey of life, death and rebirth through images that evoke the passage of time and the shifting of the seasons. Set in a dream landscape with dancers wearing simple whirling costumes and full white body makeup, Tobari uses unique production elements to create an unknown world of darkness enhanced by flickering and reflecting light. However, one production element seen in past Sankai Juku works remains: the stage floor is covered in beautiful, soft, white sand, found locally in each city where the company performs. A total of twenty 50 lb bags of sand are used. (In Japanese, a tobari is a veil of fabric hung in a space as a partition. Since ancient times, tobari has been used poetically to express the passage from day to night in expressions like "wrapped in the veil of night".)

ABOUT SANKAI JUKU AND BUTOH DANCE
Sankai Juku, founded in 1975 by Ushio Amagatsu, performed abroad for the first time at the Nancy InterNational Theatre Festival in 1980. Since then, Sankai Juku has performed in 43 countries and visited more than 700 cities. Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu trained in classical and modern dance before mastering Butoh on his own. For Amagatsu, Butoh expresses the language of the body. In the 1970s, he drew mostly on his own experience for inspiration. During the 1980s, however, he spent much time working in Europe, and the inspiration for his work became more universal in concept.
Since 1982, Sankai Juku has premiered new dance works (approximately once every two years) at Theatre de la Ville, Paris, which has commissioned 10 productions since that time: Jomon Sho (1982), Netsu No Katachi (1984), Unetsu (1986), Shijima (1988), Omote (1991), Yuragi (1993), Hiyomeki (1995), Hibiki (1998), Kagemi (2000) and Utsuri (2003). For the next four years, the company remained in Europe and performed in various international festivals, including Edinburgh International Festival, Spain Madrid International Festival, and the International Cervantino Festival. In 1984, Sankai Juku was invited to North America where the company made its North American debut at the Toronto International Festival and the L.A. Olympic Arts Festival. Since 1990, Sankai Juku has also performed in such Asian counties as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Indonesia. They also toured successfully in Russia and East European. In February 2002, "Resonance from far away - Hibiki" received the Laurence Olivier Awards for "Best New Dance Production."

Butoh, the explosive, convention-shattering performance art that has redefined the limits of dance and theater, is the original Japanese contribution to modern dance. The form was created in the late 1950s by a handful of avant-garde postwar Japanese artists who drew upon their native agrarian myths, the iconoclastic theater of Antonin Artaud and the influences of Western modern dance. Today, Butoh enjoys an extraordinarily high level of popularity worldwide, currently being preserved and evolved by dance groups like Sankai Juku and soloists alike. Bu means "to dance" and toh means "to stamp the ground." In the traditional sense, Butoh is a ritual dance performed by farmers to celebrate the harvest.

ABOUT The Joyce Theater
The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences since 1982. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to establish the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant New York home for more than 300 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce's Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through pre-engagement Dance Talks and post-performance "Dance Chat" discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000. Additionally, for the last six years The Joyce has co-produced Evening Stars as part of the River To River Festival in Lower Manhattan.
The Joyce Theater debut of Sankai Juku featuring the North American Premiere of Tobari - As if in an Inexhaustible Flux, an evening-length work by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu, will play the following schedule for two-weeks from October 5 - 17: Tuesday-Wednesday at 7:30pm; Thursday-Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2pm & 8pm; Sunday at 2pm. Tickets start at $10 (for the front row) and range up to $59 (top price for Joyce Members is $44). Please note: Ticket prices are subject to change. Tickets and subscriptions can be purchased by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.joyce.org.

Join Bonnie Sue Stein as she hosts a special Dance Talks at Joyce SoHo (155 Mercer Street, between Houston and Prince Streets) on Monday, September 27 from 6pm-8pm. This presentation will include a screening of Michael Blackwood's film Butoh: Body On The Edge of Crisis, followed by a video-illustrated introduction to Sankai Juku's Tobari.

The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.

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