da:ns Festival - Tobari

Against a galaxy of stars, eight butoh dancers, including artistic director Amagatsu who performs a solo, meander across time and space in a journey through the cosmos of life, from birth to rebirth. The Japanese art of butoh, sometimes called the dance of darkness, was born after the second World War. Today, it is regarded as one of Japan’s most original contributions to the world of contemporary dance.

Tobari – As if in an inexhaustible flux is a poetic masterpiece by Sankai Juku’s celebrated founder, artistic director and choreographer Ushio Amagatsu, a recipient of the Laurence Olivier Award and Asahi Performing Arts Awards Grand Prix.

Amagatsu creates a world filled with dense darkness and flickering light, inhabited by souls engaged in a “cosmic dance” (Le Monde), where the boundaries between joy and sorrow, light and darkness, life and death blend softly, like the dividing line between the fading daylight in an evening sky.

Set against the light of 6,600 stars, the dancers embark on this lyrical meditation on the luminescence of life and human existence.

This stunning work had its world premiere at Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, in May 2008 to a sold-out run. Since its inception in 1975, Sankai Juku has now come to be one of the world’s most renowned butoh dance companies. Having performed in over 700 cities, Sankai Juku marks its highly-anticipated return to Singapore after 22 years.