Blog

Meet the 2016-2017 Core Ensemble and Audition Announcement

8/31/2016

We are thrilled to announce The Ume Group's Core Ensemble for the 2016-2017 season. This year's company includes a mix of Ume-veterans and previous performance apprentices, with backgrounds ranging from martial arts to puppetry, clown to Irish dance, butoh to Lecoq and lots in between. We can't wait to see what we'll create together.

From top left: Miles Butler, Karina Sindicich, Clara Kundin, Fabio Motta, Laura Aristovulos, Yokko, Brantley Ivey, Jennifer Marinelli, Jorge Luna, Annie McCoy, Keelie Sheridan.

The Core Ensemble will be the driving force behind our performance and educational initiatives this season, but we are currently on the lookout for more rockstars to join our ranks. We'll be holding auditions for Guest Artists for the upcoming season on September 27th. We're looking for physical performers with a willingness to share their skills, learn new techniques and create big, bold new works.

Email: keelie@theumegroup.org with a headshot and resume to request an audition appointment, no later than September 21st.

UNFIX NYC - A New Festival of Performance & Ecology (April 29 - May 1, 2016)

3/24/2016

UNFIX NYC - A New Festival of Performance & Ecology

UNFIX NYC is a new festival of Performance and Ecology taking place at Grace & St. Paul Church on April 29-May 1 2016, presented by Ren Gyo Soh. UNFIX Festival started in Glasgow (Scotland) in 2015, created by performance artist and Butoh dancer Paul Michael Henry (www.unfixfestival.com), and Ren Gyo Soh is excited to bring it to New York as their 2nd anniversary celebration and fundraising event.

UNFIX is a multi-art form event fusing live performance, dance, installation, workshops and debate in a bid to unravel the knots in how we're living. Ecological crisis and renewal addressed through our bodies and physical sense of being alive.

This New York City version is the first collaboration between UNFIX and Ren Gyo Soh, which the two groups hope to make an annual event. We want to simultaneously celebrate and question our relationship to each other, to the planet on which we live, to our own imaginations and the structures that mould us in this time of ecological crisis.

This year Ren Gyo Soh, a Butoh-based theatre company in NYC celebrates its 2nd anniversary, and is using the opportunity to present UNFIX as a bridge between performance and ecology (or artists and the Earth on which they work). Our program will include live performances, installations, workshops, and yoga with live music.

*UNFIX NYC is presented by Ren Gyo Soh, sponsored by The Ume Group and Grace & St. Paul Church.

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Buy a 3-Day All-Festival Pass!

Festival Schedule

Click the links to register, OR buy multi-day festival passes here.

Day 1 - Friday, April 29th 6-9pm: Ren Gyo Soh Spring Workshop (Register here.)
Day 2 - Saturday, April 30th 7-10pm: Performance / Installation / Discussion (Buy tickets here.)
Day 3 - Sunday, May 1st, 2pm - 3:30pm: Yoga with Live music, meditation - sending a prayer to the planet (Register here.)

Detailed Festival Schedule

Day 1 PROGRAMME: Friday, April 29th 6-9pm: Ren Gyo Soh Spring Workshop
A butoh-based ritual movement workshop for all ages & abilities.

DAY 2 PROGRAMME: April 30, 7pm-10pm PERFORMANCE / INSTALLATION / DISCUSSION
Featuring...

Performances by:
- The Ume Group (Physical Theatre Company)
- Kevin Augustin (puppet)
- Leah Marie Beltran (Butoh/Contemporary Dance)
- Bob Lyness (Butoh)
- Jonathan Kopp (Butoh)
- Ren Gyo Soh (Butoh based performing arts company)

Jordan Rosin, Jorge Luna, Laura Aristovulos, Tatiana Galliher Jackson, Yokko

Installation work:
- Collaboration between Ren Gyo Soh & Vanessa Teran
- Art work by Vanessa Teran
Discussion on Butoh and Ecology

Guest Speakers: George Tsouris, Jordan Rosin, Paul Michael Henry

Day 3 PROGRAMME: Sunday, May 1st, 2pm - 3:30pm: Yoga with Live music & meditation - sending a prayer to the planet

Guest Musician: Timothy Rusterholz (cellist)

Buy a 2-Day Festival Pass!

Buy a 3-Day All-Festival Pass!

More About UNFIX

-from Unfix Festival, Glasgow Scotland by Paul Michael Henry-

Why have a festival of Performance and Ecology?
The festival theme aims to identify an untapped resource for artists: Ecology is perhaps the grand theme of our times, uniting issues of climate change, sustainability, political independence / interdependence, and the various flows of ageing and death, economics, culture and emotion.

Rather than restricting ourselves to ‘environmental art’, UNFIX takes a broad definition of the term and includes ecologies of Imagination (the connections between the ideas, myths, dreams and archetypes we live by), Politics, Environment, Soul and Mental Health (the ecology of the individual psyche and questions of balance and happiness; ecologies of emotion and the forces of love, conflict, anger, shame).

This wide net is intended as an offer to artists to find methods of rethinking human inter-relationships and environmental approaches through our bodies and physical sense of living, both in daily life and the concentrated forums of performance and culture.

UNFIX is conceived as an act of love, a bear hug to the world, a prayer of sorts. As humans we don’t have to ‘work hard’ and ‘earn a living’; we already have one by virtue of being alive. The question is how to engage with it. How we can love each other more, and stop killing the planet?
We can no longer pretend to be separate from one another.

- From Ren Gyo Soh by Yokko, The Artistic Director -

I share deeply the point of view Unfix Festival is pushing. I believe we can do something about the direction our species is traveling in through arts. The world we see is a reflection of our mind.

"A long time ago, Nature and Human beings coexisted. We lived together on this planet, the earth. However, looking around, and back over recent history, its clear we have forgotten something. If we can start taking care of Nature, Mother nature will start taking care of itself. I believe we can stoke an awareness in ourselves as individuals and small communities, through our bodies and psyches. It might be a small step, but it can also become a ripple, and then a big wave. It is time for each one of us to think, feel and transform from our insides out, in resonance with the world. Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
- Mahatma Gandhi

For me, Butoh & ecology is quite natural connection. Here are two of my favorite quotes from founders...

"Butoh is a dance of life"
- Kazuo Ono

"My dance is expansion of human concept- letting a human body metamorphosis into anything including an animal, a plant, even an object which does not have a life, and the fundamental ideology of my butoh is finding the possibility."
-Tatsumi Hijikata

Upcoming Performance: "EDGED" The Ume Group's Social Action Project in Collaboration with Vanessa Teran

11/16/2015

We're very excited to announce the first of our ensemble's Social Action Projects this year: "EDGED" a collaboration between Yokko & Vanessa Teran

Date:	Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Time:	8pm - 9pm
Event:	"Edged" An Ume Group Social Action Project in collaboration with Vanessa Teran
Venue:	Grace & St. Paul's Church, NYC
Tickets:	FREE, but reservations required. Click here for info.
More Info:	The Ume Group's Social Action Project vol.1 EDGED (collaboration between Vanessa Teran & Yokko) Arbitrary lines divide lands. Imaginary lines divide people. Based on those lines we create territories and dwell in them. They demarcate which place to call home, which place to inhabit and also, where you are not welcome. Some can move freely, others discreetly and others are welcome to stay where they belong and not move. Is a territory a safe space or a restraining one? Can it be both? Are these lines "The edges" that constrain us? EDGED is an invitation to question political and mental territories. Created by Vanessa Teran & Yokko Choreographed by Yokko Performed by Jordan Rosin, Karina Sindicich, Ariel Lauryn, Jorge Luna, Jennifer Marinelli, Sarah McAfee, Yokko Click here for more information.

Instructor Spotlight: Jordan & Yokko

7/28/2015

Jordan Rosin and Yokko have been performing & teaching together since 2012. Their diverse backgrounds and overlapping passion for both butoh and physical theatre make their classes a rich experience for all who attend. This season, you can catch them teaching...

12-Week Physical Theatre Course, Sept. 15 - Dec. 8
12-Week Physical Theatre Course, Jan. 26 - April 19
Butoh Intensive with Yokko, Feb. 20 - March 12
select Open Training sessions TBD

Read on to learn more about these two incredible teachers!

Yokko

Yokko is an actress, movement artist, and Butoh performer from Nagoya, Japan. She has acted in, devised and choreographed a variety of local and international shows, having won several awards, including “Best One-Woman Show” for her Butoh Medea (United Solo 2014 at Theatre Row). Other theatre credits include BALDY (Center of Remembering & Sharing; United Solo 2013; Hollywood Fringe 2013; FringeNYC 2012; Dorothy Strelsin Theatre), Butoh Electra (Irondale Center; FringeNYC 2011), The Woolgatherer (ASDS Repertory Season), Odyssey (The Wings Theatre) and many others. Dance credits include Isis Variations (Fringe NYC 2014); Facet (Hollywood Fringe 2013; Wave Rising Series); Autumn Leaves (Kraine Theatre) and Kizuna: Connection (NICODA). Yokko also acted in several of local and international films, one of which was the first runner up in the 2014 72-hour Shootout at the Asian American Film Lab (Himitus). She is a proud member of The Ume Group and Void Theatre Company as well as the founder and artistic director of Ren Gyo Soh in NYC.

Awards: Winner of Best One-Woman Show (Butoh Medea, United Solo 2014); Winner of Best Choreography (Butoh Medea, United Solo 2014); Nominee for Best International Performance (BALDY, Hollywood Fringe 2013). Education: Attended University of Oregon (Theatre Arts), University at Albany (BA in Theatre); Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University (MFA in Acting).

"Butoh awakens my soul; Butoh guides me
to what I am."
- Yokko

This season, Yokko is also teaching...

Jordan Rosin

Jordan Rosin is physical theatre artist, teacher, and movement coach. Based primarily in butoh, he also draws on yoga, clowning, gymnastics, and martial arts to create choreography and movement with profound and universal resonance. He received his BFA in Drama from Syracuse University and has trained with numerous independent teachers of butoh, including Ko Murobushi, Tetsuro Fukahara, Katsura Kan, Diego Pinon, Vangeline, and more.

In 2011, after moving to New York City, he and friends from college founded The Ume Group as a vehicle to produce their flagship martial arts / butoh dance epic Butoh Electra.

For The Ume Group, credits include writer/producer of Butoh Electra (The Irondale Center, FringeNYC, Syracuse University), performer/co-creator of Facet (Hollywood Fringe Festival, Wave Rising Series), performer/co-creator of Isis Variations (FringeNYC, CoolNY Dance Festival) and director/choreographer of Dream Dances. He is also winner of the award for Best Choreography for Butoh Medea at the 2014 United Solo Festival and recipient of a Josephine Abady Award for Excellence in Directing.

He was born (and began his butoh studies) in rainy Seattle, WA and now lives with his wife in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY.

“I move as much as I can (even in perfect stillness) because for a decade growing up I think I forgot how to move entirely. I perform and choreograph mysterious, but deeply heartfelt rituals of the body.

With the help of an ensemble, a little postmodern acrobatics and the “dance-of-utter-darkness” I also unapologetically enfranchise even the most neglected lumps of flesh (toes in particular) to demand a place in the conversations of our age.”
- Jordan Rosin

Photos from "Isis Variations" at FringeNYC 2014

9/1/2014

Yokko, Dave Herigstad, Jordan Rosin, and Marie Putko in The Ume Group's Isis Variations at FringeNYC 2014; lighting by Derek Van Heel; costumes by Ariel Pellman; photos by Allison Stock.

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Isis Variations - FringeNYC 2014 Trailer

8/16/2014

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Tickets are now on sale for The Ume Group's "Isis Variations" at FringeNYC - the New York International Fringe Festival, August 13 - 22. Click here to learn more.

Isis Variations: Rehearsals... pray we don't hurt ourselves

7/31/2014

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Tickets are now on sale for The Ume Group's "Isis Variations" at FringeNYC - the New York International Fringe Festival, August 13 - 22. Click here to learn more.

The Ume Group presents "Family" (a short film)

7/9/2014

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--- We have 5 days left to raise $760! ---
Click here to learn more about how you can support The Ume Group's "Isis Variations" at FringeNYC - the New York International Fringe Festival!

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ISIS VARIATIONS: Meet the Choreographer - Yokko

6/20/2014

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Field Trip! Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

6/1/2014

On Monday, May 26, The Ume Group took a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to do some research in the Egyptian wing for their upcoming production of Isis Variations at FringeNYC. These are some photos of their exploits.

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